How was your running?
Personally, I did not have a great year of running. I’ve been injured for the entire second half of the year. It’s a troublesome Achilles tendon, and I don’t like it one bit, but I’ll be back soon, hopefully.
Because of that injury, I haven’t bothered looking at my Strava end-of-year recap too deeply because I didn’t reach my goal of running 1000 miles. However, I have seen plenty of discourse online, naturally.
I keep seeing a number of complaints about how people use Strava, why Strava charges a subscription, and a couple of other things about returning to analogue. Key to solving this, in my experience. Is thinking about how you are using Strava, because Strava is just a tool and it’s only as effective as the skills of the person using it (you).
Things I do to help me enjoy using Strava better:
The default setting on my activities is private.
For me, Strava is just a place to collect all of my activities in one place. I could just use the native watch app, but I switched from Garmin to Coros last year, so Strava is a useful independent platform that holds activities from both.
The map setting is also private.
I change that manually if it’s a group run and I’m setting the activity to public. It means I don’t get as many completely meaningless Local Legend badges, but they’re… completely meaningless, so who cares?
I keep my private data private.
When I do make an activity public, I do not publish the personal bio data like pace and heart rate. Sure, someone can sit down with the elapsed time and distance and work out my pace if they really want to, but I can’t make other people less weird. I personally will never ask to compare heart rates with you. See? Sounds weird, doesn’t it.
I write a little note after each activity.
It’s visible only to me. Did you know you can do that? Yes, I take a little time and think a little bit about my run and use Strava as my running journal.
I compare myself to myself.
As a runner, the only possible comparison is to yourself. I run with people 20 years younger and 20 years older than me, so there are no data points that can help. However, I also run the same 4.6-mile route around my neighborhood, so it’s fun (and possible) to try and spin a narrative about why I ran at a different pace today.
Remembering that I’m only posting on Strava because I got out there and did something
I think that’s a really valuable thing to keep in mind. A little bit of gratitude for one’s own effort goes a long way to keeping a positive mindset.
Canaries down the digital coalmine
A lot of this thought process does depend on a reasonable level of knowledge of how we run but also how we interact with our digital devices. We’re in the first 20 years of having this mass of data available to us at our fingertips, after all. I think we’re all forgiven for making a few errors but thinking a bit more deeply about our relationship with technology is important.
Ideally, our digital consumption will be a part of a balanced multimedia diet including newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, but we know that our phones have become the primary sources of information.
Restrict that screen time naturally by adding in those other things and you’ll likely have a healthier relationship with your phone, with Strava, with all of it. Maybe some of the frustrations with Strava are simply indicative of our wider relationships with tech right now. I believe that with a little thought, you might not have to go for the digital version of a gastric band, and quit entirely. You might even be happier.
Everything can be an exercise in mindfulness if you just slow down a little bit.
Strava’s Year in Sport
I think there are some cool insights to be had from Strava’s annual drilling down of their big data. I want to figure out why Gen Z is apparently all guns blazing with races in this report versus pandemic-era reports where they were running primarily for their mental health, but otherwise it’s all pretty normal.
If you’re interested in a little run down of Strava’s year in sport rundown, here’s a cool one by Kyle Frost.
But it’s been a great year for my writing!
Maybe there’s a sad correlation with my running here, but I wrote a book. That is ultimately what I’m going to remember 2025 for, and that’s pretty cool. I’m looking forward to sharing more about This is Running with you in 2026.
I’ve also got a dozen unwritten interviews in the bank, and I love them all, so I might publish a last profile for the year on Thursday, but it’s also the last week of school before the winter break so the kids aren’t in school for even one full day this week, so I might also just not have the time.
That’s one of the things that stops me writing (and running) full-time, you see. Do you want to hear from me from that perspective? Maybe. I never wanted to be a Daddy Blogger, but have plenty to share on the matter if you’re interested. I’ve been one for almost nine years now, but being a parent has never defined me. It doesn’t feel like a special thing, even if being a dad is easily the thing that has had the biggest effect on my time.
Last Saturday morning, my eldest played a concert with his afterschool buddies. They played three songs: BYOB by System of a Down (drums), Sk8r Boi by Avril Lavigne (guitar) and a Chappell Roan song where he played keys. A good use of a couple of hours that my friends spent running. It’s how it is!
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I think re GenZ swing to competition is it’s a natural journey - you start running for mental health and then you get curious what might happen if you try. Plus, races perform better on social? And/or come with a sense of accomplishment that’s missing elsewhere in their life?
Some noteworthy aspects about Strava to seriously consider, thanks for this. Oh and I’m also in the inflamed tendon not (properly) running for half a year team. Patella is geh new achilles. Get well soon!