Strava Bringing Back the Love

If you are not on Strava.com yet, giddy up! As the post title eludes, this little gem of a site makes running (and cycling) very very fun. I only recently started using Strava when they launched their run site, but I will definitely be using it for cycling when I start back up again. After a run, I download the data from my watch onto the site and voila, I get some awesome analysis including mile splits, zone levels, elevation, heart rate (if I wore a heart rate monitor), and PR's for different segments (400, half mile, mile, 5K, 10K, etc...). But the reason why I keep coming back to Strava is the KOM or King of the Mountain feature. Strava tracks times from different users who run the same routes and ranks the runners. The runner with the fastest time for a section, say a particular hill climb, is declared the KOM of that section. My OCD/type A self hearts the KOM challenges.

On Monday, I knew I had a good run in me because I was feeling tapered from my rest post 50-miler. I was a man on a mission, I wanted to win the title of KOM for the Strawberry Canyon Connector, a title that has eluded me in the last five or so attempts. I definitely was feeling good, and if you look at my data, you'll see that I hit PR's for every segment of the run except one. The instant I walked through the door, as with every run since joining Strava, I downloaded the data from my watch onto Strava. I was in shock when I saw that I had failed to take the KOM title, finishing second. What!?!?!?!? I felt awesome and killed myself to get up this 200m or so 15% grade section. I was devastated but upon further investigation of the section, I realized the KOM was for running DOWN this section, not up. WTF? How can you have a KOM for running down a hill? Thus, on every run, I had been killing myself running up this thing when I should have been killing myself running down it. Looks like I'm going to have to create a segment for a KOM running up the connector. Bring the love back to your running and riding, and get yo butt on Strava. If you do, hit me up so I can follow you.