I used to record my runs.
Date, miles, time, a brief summary of the run.
Strava does that for me.
Richard Taylor
"William Tell could take an apple off your head. Taylor could take out a processed pea."
Sid Waddell
I was without strava for a couple of months recently and I started to question my own existence!
Isn't it just Facebook for runners?
Cold turkey is going well. I've even started to get into the Garmin stats which have been overlooked in the past. Lots more detail. I'm personally much happier without it. I agree it probably does motivate some people but if you're training for specific races then that should be motivation enough.
For proper training purposes, the Garmin/Sunnto data is better, no doubt. Strava's definitely more of a social thing for me than a training tool, though the 'matched runs' feature is useful (I'm not sure where to find that in Movescount, if it even exists).
I've been working down Cambridge way for quite a bit of late, and Strava segments (and to a lesser extent their heat maps) - alongside perusing openstreetmap/OS maps on bing - have helped me scout out better places to run, 'hills' to rep, loops to do a session on etc.
Nic Barber. Downhill Dandy
Hey ba-ba, when I had to work down in Cambridge "ermmm..." years ago, Cambridge and Coleridge harriers were very friendly and welcoming to run with. Their Thursday night group knew some sneaky routes over fields etc I would never have found by myself (of course that was before Strava!). Ah I recall doing efforts on the bridge over the motorway because it was an incline!
Another fun thing is to run from Cambridge to Ely along the Cam all the way then get the train back (you could probably run back!).