Bad Challenge Data/Results

[znovitske]

Last month I took part in the Virtual New Balance 5th Avenue Mile. Seemed simple. Run a mile [fast] and Strava would count that in the results. As I always do, I ran several time during the challenge window. I made sure to run one mile super fast. Unfortunately, Strava took a seemingly random mile from that period and uploaded that instead.

I'm just trying to figure out if this was a bug or if I did something wrong.

[znovitske]

Yes, I see what you mean. It took the average from my short run that day. Too bad. a 6:06 mile is a lot better than the averaged mile time of 6:56 for the whole run. Oh well. Now I know. Thanks!

[anchskier · Accepted solution]

@znovitske - I don't have the details of that specific challenge, but just curious about what time is showed for you.  In many of the challenges, it won't pick a single mile/5k/whatever out of a longer workout, but rather just shows the average pace for the entire workout as your result.  For example, I could run a 5:30 mile, but if I included my warm up and cool down in the same file that was uploaded, my average pace may be closer to 8:00/mile and that is what would show in the leaderboard for the "challenge".  Could that be what was happening with yours?  What I have found is that if I want a fast split to show up in the leaderboard, I need to record a separate activity that is limited to just the portion that qualifies for the challenge, so it isn't picking up any of the warm up or cool down portions.

[Silentvoyager]

I think taking the average pace is counterintuitive and contradicts Strava's own way of calculating best efforts. 

[znovitske]

Agreed. I thought it would take my best contiguous mile within my run. Strava should fix this as it really does not follow logic.