I mentioned Strava in a recent blog of mine and it is a particularly useful app that you can use to measure any sort of workout.  It does come at a yearly subscription fee and it made world headlines recently when it came out that American military personnel, walking around secret bases, were essentially publishing their routes through the app that they run and walk, which could be useful to enemy combatants through their use of the app.  I think Strava had to make some changes so that it no longer publishes that information in security sensitive areas, just showing you how ingenuous the spies are when it comes to trying to gather information as to where buildings, etc are! 

Strava can be used to plot any workout, but it is most useful for outdoor walks, hikes, running or riding a bicycle.  The data becomes particularly useful if you use it in an area, as I do, where a lot of people ride bicycles.  You can, for example, compare what your time was over a stretch of the road to all of your times that you have ever ridden over that stretch of road, to other people of a similar age category, similar sex and similar weight category!  I don’t seem to make the top 10 on any of those lists, but I think that is because I am not riding a proper racing bicycle and while I am spinning my wheels at the same speed as guys who are going past me, I need to upgrade to a serious racing machine!  Obviously, the app is doing all this work.  I start it at a beginning of a ride and I end it at the end of the ride.  I am not timing the different segments, but those segments have been broken down by different people to give certain hills and certain names and when you get to that point, and it is obviously tracking you by use of GPS, it will start timing how long you take to get to the top of the hill and then tell you how your hill climb that day compares to your best times on that hill climb. 

For example, it tells you at the end of your ride that the one stretch of your ride was the fastest time you have ever done and another stretch of your ride was the third fastest time you have ever done.   I guess the statistics and comparing you to a lot of strangers, and sometimes people that you know is also meant to help motivate you to keep exercising.  I certainly find it useful and with the latest version of the Apple Watch, which has GPS and a cellular signal, it allows me to do all of that from my watch, as opposed to having to lug my phone with me, so it is extremely convenient.  It is very useful when you are on a run to be getting told what your pace per kilometre or per mile is for the whole race so far so you can tell whether you are going slower than usual, if for example you normally run at 7:30 mins a mile and now you are running at 9 mins a mile.