After nearly 2.5 years of happy marriage, I am breaking up with my training log at Runner’s World. You can attribute the split to the famous George Costanza bit, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Two events have brought about divorce.
- Garmin Connect. One of the benefits of a GPS device is the ability to wirelessly sync workouts to the Interwebs. Heretofore, I had to manually enter each and every workout on RW. I didn’t mind at all. In reality, I didn’t know any other way. Hey, some folks happily log miles in notebooks. Whatever works! Nonetheless, since there is no affiliation between RW and Garmin that I am aware of, I don’t see the need to maintain both. You will note that on the lower right column of this blog “Check My Progress” no longer routes you to my RW training log, takes you somewhere else in the ether. What gives? Read on …
- Strands. Prior to my joining Central Park Track Club, I had no idea Strands existed. Strands.com is a social network and training log for athletes (largely of the endurance variety). I was invited to join the network by the team and it operates as a means for us to communicate and stay in touch. Since Strands integrates with Garmin, it was a pretty simple decision to make the switch to Strands as my primary training log. Rather than attempt to recreate 2.5 years of history, I uploaded (manually, again) workouts from January 1, 2010 thru last week. I still have yet to develop a fully formed opinion, but preliminarily, I think the functionality is great. I have not fully updated my profile yet, but making progress slowly but surely. From what I understand Strands sponsors a team of post-college athletes from around the US who are training for the Olympics (Team Strands).
Well, there you have it. RW has been good to me, but it’s time to move forward.
Lastly, despite some heinous weather (wet snow and wind) today, I fully intend to hit the streets tonight for a run.