I joined Strava to take my training to the next level, but it’s worked a bit too well.
Whether it’s a lunchtime 5K or a half-marathon event, I’ve always considered running a pleasure. For me, running is not an intense burst of competition: I run while listening to podcasts or audiobooks rather than music, and I frequently stop and stretch halfway through a training run if I can find a nice spot. Don’t get me wrong: I love lifting heavy, but an hour’s run has a different kind of therapeutic effect than a session at my local basement gym, especially when the sun’s out. Running is a source of stress relief, an escape from the notifications and blue light sources that are constantly encroaching on my life. Give me a pair of the best running shoes and running headphones I can find, and a straight road, preferably by a river, and I’m usually at my happiest. But as TechRadar’s new fitness and wellbeing editor I’ve been changing up my workouts to be less holistic and more analytical, or data-driven, and one of the easiest ways to share all this data is via Strava, the social network for athletes. As well as enabling you to log and share your runs, rides, swims and other workouts, Strava functions such as Group Challenges can be extremely beneficial when it comes to encouraging people to work out. Researchers from Flinders University in Australia, who examined almost 1,500 active adults, found that receiving in-app encouragement from, and offering it to, close friends was linked to increased participation in exercise.
