The crown is mine

Two days ago I got a notification from Strava that someone has beaten my time (by about a minute) for a segment on Strava and that they now had the course record. What? I didn't even know that I had a course record on anything.

I logged in.

Strava segments are "portions of road or trail created by members where athletes can compare times".

The segment in question is a section that I haven't done for a while. I've done parts of it - linking to other trails - but not the full loop that makes up the segment. The trails on the segment are some of my favourites for the very steep ascent, runnability, great scenery, fynbos and good views of mountains and George.

I started to use Strava regularly from about 6 months ago to log the George Trail Running (GTR) challenges. I log the Monday social runs and time trials too so that I can compare my improvements. I don't log my casual outings with dogs. I have a lot to learn about the functionality of this platform.

What I have learned is that it flicked a competitive switch and I needed to get my course record that-I-didnt-know-I-had back. 

I took Rosy out with me this afternoon. We had a nice warm up with a warm-up ascent to the start of the segment. I was feeling good for the climb, which I hike hard, not run.

I started the section at about 16h03, eating up the climb (I took three protea photos because they were just so beautiful) and really focusing on the descent. 

I got on to flatter trails at 16h29. This meant hard running for the next 3.5km. A couple of tree falls lost me a bit of time but fortunately there were no serious blocks.

As it turns out, my previous time was 50:08. I must have been messing around photographing fungi, fynbos and insects. 

I had it stuck in my mind that the time I had to beat was 43 minutes. I knew the overall leading time was 33-odd minutes

I ran 36:20. Strava declared that the crown is mine (in the women's ranking). Hip hip hooray

Even more satisfying is that I am in 2nd place overall. Now I'm looking at how to pull out 3 minutes...

These segments are superbly motivating. They entice you to go out to beat the person that beat you or to improve your ranking for your gender or overall.

Now to see what other segments I'm on and good at...