About Meggie
Meggie (Strands User: mdials) is a runner and blogger from Indianapolis. She works in digital marketing, is married (to a runner), and has two dogs. She started running 5 years ago, and has has run four marathons–finishing her fourth in a near personal best 4:41 earlier this month at the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. Meggie runs to “feel empowered, alleviate stress, and eat dessert”. You can follow Meggie on her Strands profile as she prepares to run the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon this month in a goal time of 4 hours, 31 minutes.
I’m not sure what’s growing at a faster pace: social media or the amount of distance runners in the United States. We all know that Twitter and Facebook are nearing world domination, but given the fact that the Boston Marathon sold out in 8 hours and 3 minutes (compared to 2 months in 2009 and 6 months in 2008), I’d say it’s a close race.
Both running and social media are interests of mine. I’m not an expert in either, but I love to practice both. Therefore, it seems fitting that I stumbled upon Strands. This site serves as a user community for the active person. Runners. Hikers. Walkers. Bikers. Swimmers. Strands is perfect for people who enjoy tracking training programs, monitoring upcoming races, setting goals and talking about running with other people who are equally passionate about the sport.
So, without further ado … a review.
When you log in to Strands, you see a horizontal tab bar [share bar] that lists the site’s different features.
Home: It’s easy to compare this tab to a Twitter stream. Essentially, it pulls up the people that you follow and their latest activity (whether that’s entering a new event, a route, a comment, etc.). Home provides  a quick dashboard to check up on your network. There is also a page for questions that allows the user community to interact on hot topics, provide feedback and provide tips.
Profile: When you first click on Profile, you pull up a stream of your latest activity. Again, similar to Twitter, but you also can access other areas including Info, Calendar and Stats. Like other social tools, Strands forces you to build out your bio, which you can view and edit under Info. You include a picture, bio information, some comments about who you are and why you run. You can also share goals, images, and videos for others to peruse. When you enter a workout – including details such as mileage and pace – you can earn trophies for things like stamina and endurance. (There is also an option to link your GPS device to automatically download your workouts directly into Strands. I have yet to try it out, but sounds like a cool integration.)
The gear section under Profile is awesome. After adding personal gear to your bio, you can select it when entering your workouts (for example, the pair of shoes you wore). Experts advise you to purchase new running shoes every 500 miles, and Strands gives an easy way to track the age and wear on your shoes! Plus, as you start to link up with others on the site, you can check out what gear they prefer and get some personal recommendations for your next purchase.
When you move over to the calendar, you see a simple view of your upcoming events as well as all your training activities. Before Strands, I went old school by writing my mileage on my desk calendar at work and crossing off the runs on my marathon training Excel spreadsheet. Now, I can keep track of everything online and access it anywhere!
The stats page breaks down the activity information you have provided into a bar graph to show things like average distance and pace. You enter the details and it does the rest of the work for you.
People: Not surprisingly, this is the area where you can search for people to follow and bring into your network. Currently, the page sorts people based on those that have the most followers, new users or name. I can see how elite athletes may find it valuable to build a network of people nationally who have similar goals and race times. I also like that I can find runners who are geographically close to me. In addition, People has a cool “stats†section that rates people who have logged the most miles. One guy [Nick Arciniaga] has 4,136 miles entered. Impressive!
Groups: Here you can create groups or join them based on interest, geography, activity or event.
Events: Events shows just that – events that you can search for, create, register for, comment on, “like†or “dislike.†I made sure to RSVP for the races I am signed up for as well as create some that weren’t already in the application. I love this idea. Imagine getting geared up for a big race and being able to log in, see who else is running, look at  their goals and read their feedback about the race. Maybe you could even find some people who will hold your pace, allowing you to meet new running partners.
Unfortunately, it seems that most of the people around these parts have yet to discover Strands. I had to create most of the Midwest races I participate in, and as a result they have a following of one (me). I look forward to this application expanding as the organization grows.
Routes: In Routes, users can upload various routes that are stored and available for others to try out. For those who don’t have a GPS watch, or for those who are sick of running the same tired paths, you can spice things up by trying out a new route!
Here’s the thing: This site rocks. It combines the best of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MapMyRun and then flavors it for athletes. My favorite aspect is the tracking area for workouts, gear and events. I am disappointed that there aren’t more people from the Midwest who are signed up with Strands; I’d love to see hundreds of people signed up for the same races so we can start building relationships based on our love for running and social media. Hopefully, as the exposure for Strands grows in the Midwest, so will its membership. Until then, I’ll happily continue to use it to store my workouts and goals.
Thanks Meggie!
Strands Team
