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Just when I think that the social media around running can’t get any better: Hello, Strava, Bibrave, Garmin…it does! The latest and greatest in running social media is the relatively new (to me) website called Athlinks!
So, what is Athlinks? It is an online platform that let’s you claim your race results, compare yourself to others, and add yourself to the start list of most races. All you need to sign up is a Facebook account or you can use your e-mail address. Once you sign up you do have to use your name, location, and birthday, though.
The reason for needing all this information is simple: it will be easy to determine if it is you or not when claiming your race results. Plus, if the results you claim are determined to be yours, then they will be added to your profile! Your profile will show your personal records, stats, location, and rank. For this reason, you can use Athlinks to scope out your competition and follow them similar to Twitter. If you love data like me you will find it all very interesting! 😉
The only thing I do not like about my profile is that my 5k PR is wrong. A lot of my college race times are not on Athlinks, but generally Athlinks will have most, if not all of your race times, so I am probably in the minority with this issue. That 5k time is from a Turkey Trot I did during during Thanksgiving break my freshmen year of college. It is a decent time, but my actual PR is faster! I have not done many road races, post college, due to years of injury, so I guess that means I need to run (and PR) another road 5k to replace that time 😉 I’m not competitive or anything…😂
(I only have 15 races on my profile and only 3 in the last year- but if I can manage to stay healthy for a reasonable stretch of time I plan to add many, many more! I love competing!)
How to claim: When I got married last year I went from having an uncommon name to a very common one. Thankfully, Athlinks lets you claim race results under more than one name, which I was grateful for because a majority of my race results were under my maiden name! It was a little tricky to find race results under my married name initially, but if you use the advanced search mode (pictured below) it is pretty easy! Once you search your name, you can apply additional filters by birth date and location.
(None of those results above are mine, but I find it fascinating that my name has so many unclaimed results. I’m waiting for the day I run the same race as someone else who has my name. I’m sure it will happen soon :P)
Rivals: Once you start following other people, you will notice that if you have at least one race in common with them they will be added to your “rival” list. My current rival list is small and I’m looking for more, so please add me if you have run any of the same races that I have!
(Of course my husband is kicking my 🍑! Fun fact: his one loss is a Turkey Trot in 2012 that we ran together with some family and friends where we all crossed the finish line at the same time. I guess they opted to give me the place ahead of him just to be nice in the official results. 😛 )
Adding yourself to the start list: Another fun feature (and way to scope out the competition) is to add yourself to the start list of upcoming races. You can also indicate a goal time and change your goal time at any time. As a competitive person, I naturally like this feature 😉 The races you add to your start list will also be added to your profile.
(My next three races with goal times subject to change. I have a faster, scarier time in mind for my first marathon, but I’m not sure I will update that anytime soon. 🙈 We will see what happens as I start training!)
Do you have an Athlinks account? If so, please request me or comment below with the link to your Athlinks profile. I’ll follow you back and if we have any races in common we can be rivals 😉 If you do not have an account, what are you waiting for?! Make one! 😛