Running Social

I've been using Nike+ to track my distance and pace for a while.  One of the things that has made my slow return to form bearable is that I've also been having fun with Instagram and my I-Phone, taking pictures of cool stuff I see on my runs.  A few weeks ago, I stumbled on the fact that Nike+ has a utility for stitching the photos from your run onto one frame.  I've mentioned this before.  Anyway, it's pretty cool, and a way of letting the gang know that I logged a run, even though I haven't been to the regular meetup in weeks.  I also mentioned that Nike+ automatically places the #nikeplus hashtag on the comment line when you post it.  Sometimes I remove it, but sometimes I don't.  No particular pattern.  Most of the time, the folks who see it are the running gang -- the intended audience.  The part that I find interesting, sort of, is the bunch of "likes" you get from a random assortment of folks who apparently spend their time looking at where other folks run.  I don't particularly mind.  I'm just curious about who these people are (if they are real people), and what the deal is . . .  There seems to be a game/competition operating here, and I don't understand the rules.  Oh, here's today's run.