Dear Strava,

It's not you, it's me.

Dear Strava,

I’m breaking up with you.

Simply stated, I don’t like who I am when I am with you. Running doesn’t bring me the joy it used to before I used you to analyze my mileage and pace.

If that wasn’t enough, you started to pit me against other runners. I already have a hard time with comparing myself to others. It’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life and I will most likely struggle with it to some extent for the rest of my life. But, you didn’t help. In fact, you made it infinitely harder. Why did I need a notification if someone ran a certain stretch of road or trail faster than I did? Why were you only happy for me if I ran it the most times or the fastest? It made me feel like I could only celebrate if I was getting faster or at least faster than others. I felt pressured to perform every single run, even the easy ones, because you were always watching. You crushed me physically and mentally. I ran too hard and burned my body out. I got injured and was exhausted. I ran too hard and left joy in the dust. I was anxious and sad.

I’m not who I was a year ago. I can’t keep pace or mileage like I used to. I know that and I’m ready to make peace with it. My body has changed and my priorities and goals have morphed, too. I’m proud of who I’ve become, but you aren’t. The toll I must pay to earn value in your eyes is too high. It’s not a healthy place for me to be in anymore.

There is so much you refuse to see. So much you can’t or won’t measure. Did you know I saw 1000 butterflies on yesterday’s run? How many more kudos would you have given me if you knew I got up and put a sports bra on even though I wasn’t sure I was even able to get myself out of bed that week? If you knew I took a different route that led me to weeping because the view at the turn around was so beautiful? If you knew that I felt so, so terrible the whole time, but I never quit? There is so much more to me than you are willing to celebrate.

That’s the thing. What now matters to me, what is so precious and beautiful and spiritual about running is not what matters to you. I won’t let you take that from me. So, we have to be done.

Don’t worry, there isn’t any one else. Garmin Connect made a pass, but in the end, y’all are all the same. If I have to hear that I’m Overreaching or Detraining one more time, I don’t know that I could handle it.

I wish you well and I know you’ll find a nice runner out there who is perfect for you. Plenty of folks want to know their VO2 max, their grade adjusted pace, or where they fall on the list of fastest known times for a segment.

It will take some time for me to pick up the pieces of myself that I’ve lost along the way. I’m frustated I allowed this to go on for so long, but I’m trying to be gentle with myself. I’m also looking forward to scooping up joys I’ve so desperately missed: the smell of evergreen trees, the sound of the wind, the pride of simply taking that first step, the satisfaction of running hard (even if you wouldn’t consider it “fast”).

I’m keeping my phone and my watch. I think it’s only fair. I’ll use my phone to take pictures and my watch because I like knowing what time it is and it looks cool. You can have everything else; my stats, my created segments and my followers.

Peace out, Strava. Thanks for everything you helped me learn. I’m off to find my next adventure.

This is me running a 50 mile race without you. How fast, you ask? NO CLUE. But I had an amazing time.