{"id":1935,"date":"2018-08-29T08:03:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T08:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1935"},"modified":"2018-08-29T08:03:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T08:03:15","slug":"recording-personal-bests-with-strava","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/29\/recording-personal-bests-with-strava\/","title":{"rendered":"Recording Personal Bests With Strava"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strava<\/a> is the go to place for most people when it comes to tracking the runs of yourself and following your friends and generally helping to see how you\u2019re progressing (I love a Strava segment!).<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s supposed to do most things for your automatically one thing I often see confusing other runners is personal bests (PBs!)<\/p>\n

Strava will calculate what is called a \u201cbest effort\u201d for key distances (10k, half marathon, marathon). Unfortunately, this isn\u2019t quite the same as personal best or personal record as Stava calls them, and it often records things incorrectly or the numbers don\u2019t match up with the race times.<\/p>\n

There are lots of reasons this can happen. Sometimes there are simple explanations<\/p>\n

For example,<\/p>\n

My best marathon result currently stands at 3:45:53 at the Edinburgh marathon earlier in the year. .<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the official time I was given from the event. <\/p>\n

\"EdinResult2018\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, Strava currently has my marathon best as 3:44:30<\/p>\n

\"StravaPB\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In this case the reason is because I\u2019d covered the 26.2 miles before<\/strong> I passed the finish line.<\/p>\n

How does that work?!<\/p>\n

There is an optimally measured route when running a road race. When you\u2019re going around bends unless you take the inside of that bend you\u2019ll run slightly further. Also on busy straights if you are weaving around slower runners this adds to the distance too. On short races this isn\u2019t massively important but over the course of a marathon it all adds up. For my Edinburgh marathon my GPS recorded me as running 26.36 miles. That\u2019s 257 metres extra!<\/p>\n

\"edindis2018\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

In terms of race results they don\u2019t care about how far I ran. They measure the course as 26.2 miles and it\u2019s up to me to cover those miles as efficiently as possible and they give me a time at the end.<\/p>\n

So if I\u2019m using the official race result as my personal best then it won\u2019t match up with the time Strava recorded when I went past the 26.2 mile mark.<\/p>\n

The reverse can also be true. If Strava records you as running an event slightly short (as Strava sometimes does that when it \u201ctidies\u201d your GPS file) Then it won\u2019t recognise that you\u2019ve run the complete distance so won\u2019t record it as a best effort.<\/p>\n

Strava recognises this on their support page for Best Efforts<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt’s also possible you came up just short of the Best Effort distance. Estimate Best Efforts can be finicky – especially when they barely cover the milestone distance. We suggest running through the milestone you are hoping to achieve.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Strava doesn\u2019t let you alter your best efforts. It\u2019s all based on the raw data you upload.<\/p>\n

So how <\/strong>do you keep track of personal bests?<\/p>\n

Well, Strava has it\u2019s own section for this, called personal records<\/p>\n

Here are mine at the moment.<\/p>\n

\"StravaPR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a totally manual affair. If you want to track them you have to update them yourself.<\/p>\n

To do that.<\/p>\n

On your PC or laptop go to Strava.com and sign in  <\/p>\n

NOTE – this only works on the full version of the site so won\u2019t work in the app on your phone or tablet. It might work in the browser but you\u2019ll need to force the non-mobile page to be display<\/p>\n

Click on your profile picture in the top left hand corner<\/p>\n

\"StravaPic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Scroll down the page and look on the right hand side<\/p>\n

Here you\u2019ll see the estimated best efforts and \u201cAll-Time PRs\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PRs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hopefully you\u2019ve spotted the \u201cAdd PR\u201d button<\/p>\n

\"PRButton\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you click that it\u2019ll list all the available distances you can record a PR for. <\/p>\n

When you hover over an entry it\u2019ll allow you to add one or edit\/remove an existing one<\/p>\n

\"AddPR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you do that you\u2019ll be prompted to enter your time as well as provide links to your \u201cproof\u201d of the time by way of the activity on Strava and any online results that may be available.<\/p>\n

\"PRentry\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s it! <\/p>\n

If someone then visits your profile and clicks the time they\u2019ll be able to follow the links you\u2019ve entered.<\/p>\n

You also have the option of editing the time directly from here too.  <\/p>\n

\"ViewPR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What you record is entirely up to you. I only track PBs from races, anything I do in training doesn\u2019t count. My only exception to that rule is 1 mile. I like to track that as a vanity thing! <\/p>\n

That\u2019s just my preference though. <\/p>\n

Obviously you don\u2019t have to do any of this. Some people like to write their PBs in a notebook, on a chalkboard next to their medals or just have them memorised but it\u2019s a feature I find useful.<\/p>\n

Hope this helps someone else! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strava is the go to place for most people when it comes to tracking the runs of yourself and following your friends and generally helping to see how you\u2019re progressing (I love a Strava segment!). Since it\u2019s supposed to do most things for your automatically one thing I often see confusing other runners is personal<\/p>\n

<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[137,143,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running","category-strava","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRecording Personal Bests With Strava - Andy's Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/08\/29\/recording-personal-bests-with-strava\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Recording Personal Bests With Strava - Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Strava is the go to place for most people when it comes to tracking the runs of yourself and following your friends and generally helping to see how you\u2019re progressing (I love a Strava segment!). 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