Pudsey Pacers

You might have noticed a Strava widget appear on the home page recently and wondered what is it?

Strava is a bit like runkeeper, garmin connect, map my run etc in that it is a place to store your runs and look at various bits of data for your runs. You can upload to it from a device or record direct from an App on a smartphone.

The Widget on the front page gives a summary of the cumulative weekly runs done by all people who are part of the Pudsey Pacers group on Strava. If you click on 'Pudsey Pacers' in the widget you can see some further breakdown.

I've found the social networking side of Strava a little more compelling than some of the other apps, following other folk and commenting on runs etc. The other differentiator with Strava (although some competing applications have now started their own version of this) are segments. A segment is a set section of road track or whatever which, when you run through it, will be automatically timed and each segment has a leader-board so you can see where you rank amongst all people who have ran it and have a crack at moving up the table. Anyone can create segments so if there's a section of a run you use to put an effort in it is a great way to record all your efforts easily.

It's a free application, born out of the cycling community but equally good for running.

Great stuff.

It does make profiles more exposed to the public though, folk might want to set up a privacy zone.

Good point Luke,

Privacy Zones will hide sections of any runs within a given perimeter of a postcode (to hide your home address for example). There is also enhanced privacy mode which will only allow people to view your runs if they are following you (and you can approve following requests), a member of the same club. Also runs will be visible via the leader board to people who have done the same segment.

Failing all that you can keep your runs private and no one but you can see them.

Worth checking though, we give away a lot of personal info without realising it with the technology available these days.

Strava: a Czech and Slovak word meaning food, meals, etc.

Just thought I'd throw that in for your digest.

Just signed up to it and finding it very addictive and crucially very helpful!

Is Strava premium worth the brass?

Dave Hobbins wrote:
I think that premium isn't worth it unless you are a cyclist. There's lots of addition features for cyclists with power meters but nothing worth paying for for runners TBH.