A while ago I read someone's blog stating that Strava app has made each exercise a race and he hates it. Too bad that I could find the link anymore. However when I googled "why i dont like strava" I found hits that I am summarizing below
My reaction seeing strava for the first time was that Strava is essentially Facebook for runners. Strava allow user to post their work out (not only running, but walking does not count in the monthly report). People could be member of clubs and join challenges. Like Facebook we could follow and be followed by others. We would see how far some one runs, how fast, how high he/she climbs, etc. Strava would also record the path taken during the exercise. Of course users are able to post photos.
Obviously we could (and would) compare our performance to others. How far have we run? How fast? At what heart rate? I am not sure of many elite athletes would post their exercise there, but of course their performance would be google-able and hence one could see where he/she is relative to the pros.
One long example is the story told on ref.1 about some guy who faked his cycling time to nab a "King of the Mountain" badge on Strava. The article mentioned about the types of doping in this digital age: motor-doping, digital-doping, or just plain old ‘doping’
Point is there is limit to human capability. True that records are broken here and there, but the current men's world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Jamaica's Usain Bolt back in 2009. Hence some dude who ran faster than Bolt would likely be doing one (or more) doping type mentioned above.
I remember last year my office had a virtual running events which used Strava to record each participant's performances. On guy was spotted to run faster than the world marathon record. It helped that the committee decided that his time was not counted. Looks like he rode a bike and recorded it as running - which is easily be done in Strava.
Like any other social medias in this digital era, Strava could be abused. Of course to some purists fake exercise records are obnoxious. So much that many would claim the hatred for Strava. See one example on the ref 2.
Recently I stopped using Strava to compete to one another. I admit that I did that in the past. Now I am using to record my exercises. It does not matter if I ran slower or faster. I am no pro and hence I do not have to be perfect at all. If anything I am just trying to maintain my walking and running streak. I assumed that to maintain streak I need to run minimum 2K and walk 1K. I just made it up myself. Recently I injured my left knee and during the recovery I just ran the minimum at slower speed.
No worries, I am just a regular Strava user.
https://cyclingtips.com/2022/04/exposed-by-a-strava-kom-the-many-lives-of-a-fake-pro-cyclist/#seventeen
I only use Strava to record my tours, whether by bike or on foot. I like the function that I can add photos. I like to take photos in nature and so I always have a memory of my tours. Similar to a photo album. I like that about Strava.
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