The Anti-Strava

I had an experience today, which can only be described as 'feeling shit first thing in a morning right before a big ride'. My head just wasn't into the ride, which is a first for me, and I had a slight nervousness when I thought about the hills I was going to encounter on my ride. Again, not like me. I may not be the fastest up hills, but I get up 'em as best I can and I ride for the challenges they give me.  

After I had texted the bike geek to inform him of my slackness, I went back to bed (and proceeded to wake up at 10am, lazy arse!!!). Not only was the lie in something I'm not accustomed to, being an early riser regardless of whether I'm riding or not, but it gave me chance to think, while I was laying in bed coming round from my slumber!

The conclusion I came to was twofold. Firstly I have a virus, still, and it's pissing me off because it saps my energy, fills me full of flem and mucous and clogs my lungs up. This is no good when trying to get up otley west chevin, unless I want to do it in a time only slightly faster than my 94 year old grandma could do! The second conclusion I came to was that part of my reticence to ride was strava related. I use the app whenever I ride to find out how I am doing with my segments, to prove to myself I'm getting faster, riding further, and to keep tabs on how much riding I am doing over a given period and compare that to previous time periods. I bombed on last weeks ride because of the virus and my times were shit, I didn't want to repeat that today, hence the reluctance to ride and endure shit strava segments 2 weeks running.

The trigger which made me realise the stupidity in the second conclusion above, was an article about just this topic in this months cyclist magazine. It made me smile at how idiotic I had been to become so dependent on strava, at the expense of a ride. So, no more strava for me. I may keep tabs on my distances in the app by manually adding distances in, but purely so I don't forget when I last trained, but I am not using the gps function, I won't be recording my segments real time, and I don't give a shit if I get up otley west chevin a minute slower than I did last week. If I ride it, it's fun and I do it the best way I can, full gas at the time, whatever that means, that's my main goal from now on.

So, call me the anti-strava if you like, I couldn't give a shit. I'm a road cyclist, for fun, for fitness, for social, but that is all. Segments? Keep 'em!!!