1 Million Weekly Activities and Counting

Strava athletes are riding stronger, running faster and gaining momentum around the world. They are setting new goals, kicking up the kilometers and collecting kudos faster than ever before.

Just this week the Strava community achieved something remarkable – 1.2 million activities uploaded in a single week. We find this worthy cause to celebrate and give kudos to all of you.

It’s the motivation, the endurance and the love to suffer that sets Strava apart. Here are some of the awesome things we’ve seen so far in 2013 that deserve a spotlight:

• Up for the Challenge: Cyclists and runners kicked off the New Year with some serious sweat. Over 55,000 athletes accepted the Base Mile Blast Challenge to ride and run as many miles as they could during the month of January. You’re building a foundation for a record-breaking 2013.

• Global Playing Field:  Across the world athletes are pushing the limits and clocking in times just like the pros. A collective 246,864 hours were ridden during Giro’s Train like Taylor Challenge and the leaderboard was stacked with riders from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, the United States and more.

• Running Strong: In just 3 months runners built up to 26.2 mile strength through the marathon training series. It doesn’t matter to us whether it’s for a sanctioned race or out of the driveway, these runners showed what they are made of. Over 170,000 miles were run during the half marathon, twenty mile long run and marathon challenge.

• Riding for Good:  Australian cyclist Reid Anderton went above and beyond to show us the good in the cycling community. He quadrupled the kilometers for the Spring Classics Challenge from Specialized, riding 5,273.3 Kilometers (399% of the goal) all to raise funds and awareness for kids living in poverty.

• Showing Sportsmanship: The community has shown us it’s not just about the time, distance and hard work, but indeed good sportsmanship rises above. Kudos are how the Strava community shows camaraderie and they are doing so with upwards of 76,000 a day.

No matter what country you’re in, what season it is, whether you run on trails or pavement, ride a single speed or have gears, we want to thank you for sharing your adventures with us. It’s not just the kilometers you accumulate or the elevation you gain but the stories you tell and the community you’ve helped us build. Keep up the pace.

Introducing the Monthly Training Series

Starting this May, we’ll be offering a series of month-long Challenges that present both runners and cyclists with a consistent goal: logging as many kilometers as you can during each calendar month. We’re calling it the Monthly Training Series, and with milestone badges and leaderboards, you’ll have motivation and a chance to compare your efforts against yourself, your friends and even the pros.

It Starts with The May Massive
We’re kicking it off Wednesday with our inaugural Challenge in the series, The May Massive. Click on one of the Challenge badges below to join. The number of kilometers you log is all up to you.

      

We’ll host similar Challenges in June, July, August, etc. Watch for each new Challenge to go live a week before the month begins.

These Are Supplemental
The Challenges run as part of the Monthly Training Series are a predictable and consistent addition to our existing run and cycling Challenges. We will continue to bring you other Challenges like the April Marathon or the Spring Classics Challenge from Specialized, and you can expect them to remain as challenging as ever!

Don’t Overdo It
Listen to your body and rest when you need it. Think of these monthly Challenges as a helpful training tool you can count on to provide the motivation and friendly competition needed when it comes time to raise your fitness to a new level.

- Andrew

Run For Boston

The roads we travel, the people we meet, and the challenges we endure connect us. After spending almost two weeks running, riding and socializing with Boston athletes, we feel deeply connected to the community and this week’s events. Like many of you, we can’t stop thinking about April 15 – the highs and lows of that day, how to react and what to do next.

In a short twelve days, our team of four made Boston our home. Between our November Project workouts, joining the Davis Square Evening Runners, running with the historic Somerville Road Runners, and meeting our incredible local ambassadors, we felt like we were part of the community, almost instantly. The amazing people we met and the stories we heard fueled us as we gained momentum towards marathon day.

Marathon Monday is always a whirlwind of emotions for the athletes and spectators alike. We woke before sunrise to make our way to Athletes’ Village, which was swarming with people trying to calm their nerves, stay warm and occupy themselves while awaiting their start time. Handing out gloves to hundreds of runners, chatting with them and wishing them luck before the race will stand in our minds as one of the most inspiring and connecting experiences of the week.

We hustled from Hopkinton back to Brookline to secure our place at mile 23 along the course. The crowd and energy built throughout the day, and as impressive as it was to watch the leaders of the pack, we were just as inspired by the runners who were running their first, twentieth and 59th marathon. The sheer number of runners seemed to multiply as time passed. You could see a shared glimmer in their eyes as they all – tired and salty – headed down Beacon Street toward the finish. We whistled, clapped, and cheered till our voices went hoarse.

As for the rest of the day? It’s all a blur. Our minds raced as we recounted the runners we’d seen, trying to figure out if they were safe. We reached out to the people we had met in the previous weeks to check in on them and felt helpless to do anything more. And our hearts broke when we saw the coverage of what happened at the finish line. We were angry and sad all at once.

Since our team arrived back in San Francisco, we’ve been replaying the memories of our encounters with all of you. Just the day before the race we had met up with runners at that same finish line to exchange marathon stories and wish them well. It’s impossible to understand why this happened, but it is clear that the running community has become even stronger and continues to rally around one another in the wake of the aftermath.

The outpouring of support in the community has been profound – from the runners who ran directly from the finish line to hospitals to donate blood, to the people who offered places to stay and food to eat, and to those who removed their finisher medals from around their necks and gave them to runners who were stopped short of crossing the finish line.

We want to make sure that you, our fellow marathon runners and friends in Boston, know that we can’t stop thinking of you. As a small first step toward what we can do next, this run is a salute to you – and a call to #runforboston.

Now Available: New Run Activity Page + Pace Analysis for Premium Members

Great news, runners: your new run activity page on Strava.com is now live. We spoke to tons of you about what’s important when viewing your activities and those of others, and have incorporated your needs and experiences as runners into this new page.  Get more background around our redesigned run activity pages here.

See Your Race Results Like Never Before
Layered on top of the new run activity page is Strava’s Premium Pace Analysis, available now to Premium members for just $6 per month or $59 per year. In addition to Pace Distribution and Heart Rate Analysis, runners can now tag their run as a “Race,” giving runners interactive and granular pace data at every point during the race.

With Race Analysis, Premium members can now enjoy:

• A pace bar graph showing your pace fluctuation, as well as your mile/km trends

• Visualization of your meaningful race splits, such as 5K splits for a marathon

• Pace scrubbing data to analyze every critical point during the race

• Projected finish time data based on your performance throughout the race

• Finish flag with the finishing time, signifying the race achievement
  

 Upgrade to Premium and see your race performance in all its glory.  As always, we welcome your comments and feedback.

Enjoy!

-Caitlin

Coming Soon: Your New Run Activity Page + Premium Pace Analysis

In just a couple of days, you will notice some big changes to the way your run activities appear on Strava.com. In the following weeks, we will release our new cycling activity pages as we aim to deliver an experience both runners and cyclists will love.

Here’s a bit of background around our redesigned run activity pages:

Every Run Has a Story
We’ve spoken to tons of you about what’s important when viewing your activities and those of others, and have incorporated your needs and experiences as runners into this new page. Here’s what’s new:

• Social Bar: We added a social bar to the top of the page, putting your activity title, description, comments, kudos, Instagram photos, and other athletes on your run front and center.

  

• Sharing Module:  Easily share your run to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, email, or embed in your blog from the sharing module located at the top, left-hand corner of the page.

• Key Stats: Distance, time, average pace and elevation are located between the Social Bar and Elevation & Performance Chart. Your mile/km splits from your run are located on the right-hand side of your activity map.

• Elevation & Performance Chart: We’ve vastly improved the visual interaction for reviewing and scrubbing all your activity details. Use the cursor to look at your pace, elevation, grade adjusted pace and grade at any point during your run.

• Segment Efforts, Stats & Comparison: We’ve optimized the Segment Efforts within your activity so you can quickly scan your most meaningful achievements. We display key stats of your effort along with your leaderboard ranking. And when you’re looking at another athlete’s segment effort, you’ll be able to compare your PR against theirs.

Premium Race Analysis: See your race results like never before
Layered on top of the new run activity page is Strava’s Premium Analysis, available now to Premium members for just $6 per month or $59 per year. In addition to Pace Distribution and Heart Rate Analysis, runners can now tag their run as a “Race,” giving runners interactive and granular pace data at every point during the race, including:

• A pace bar graph showing your pace fluctuation, as well as your mile/km trends

• Visualization of your meaningful race splits, such as 5K splits for a marathon

• Pace scrubbing data to analyze every critical point during the race

• Projected finish time data based on your performance throughout the race

• Finish flag with the finishing time, signifying the race achievement

Whether you have a goal to finish your first half, or qualifying for the Boston Marathon, Race Analysis lets you understand your strengths and weaknesses, as well as visualize critical points during a race that changed the outcome of your finish time.  Upgrade to Premium and see your race performance in all its glory.

-Caitlin

The Strava Sprinter Is Hitting The Road. First stop – Boston

At Strava, we know a little extra motivation can go a long way, so we are hitting the road this season to cheer on our athletes in person. What better way to do so than in our ‘hard to miss’ bright orange mobile aid station – the Strava Sprinter.

We are excited to debut our chic new van, which we have fully equipped with water bottles, shoelaces, t-shirts, gels, bars, and all things orange. We also have two mobile GPS data upload stations where you’ll be able to upload your runs and rides to Strava right from the van, how cool is that?

The Strava Sprinter debut will be in Boston. For the week leading up to the marathon on April 15th, we will be ‘sprinting’ around town organizing runs, rides, giving away schwag and supporting the local Strava community of athletes. If you are in town, we encourage you to stop by the Strava Sprinter and say hello, share your Strava stories, ask questions and give us feedback. Don’t worry; we have plenty of room to hang out inside and out. It’s going to be wicked awesome.

Where To Find The Strava Sprinter?

Here are just a few of the activities and places we plan to be in and around Boston so you can plan your schedule accordingly. We will also be sharing our location on Twitter with the #StravaSprinter hashtag so keep an eye on it as the week unfolds. We hope you can stop by or join us for a run or a ride. If you see us on the road, snap a pic and share it with us on Instagram or Twitter.

Sunday, April 7th: Strava Group Ride – 100 Mile or 38 Mile Option
8:15 AM and 9:00 AM at Ride Studio Cafe, View routes and full schedule here >>

Tuesday, April 9th: Strava 5.6 Mile Group Run with Davis Square Evening Runners
7:15 PM at Seven Hills Park, run along bike paths and local neighborhoods.

Wednesday, April 10th: Strava 6 Mile Group Run
6:00 PM at the Mystic Lakes, pizza and drinks at Sprinter Van to follow.

Saturday, April 13th: Strava 3 Mile ‘Shake Out’ Runs with Runners World
9 AM and 3 PM along the Charles River.

Sunday April 14th: Strava Celebrates Cycling – It’s A Party, Come Hang Out
2:30pm – 5:30pm at The Washington Square Tavern. We’ll have the Sprinter van out to welcome the finishers of the Ronde Rosey (sorry, it’s already sold out) We welcome you to come hang out and join us for a drink.

Monday April 15th – Marathon Monday, Look for us Around Town

Photos From The Road Trip East… 

LQS Dedicated to Dirt Photo Winners

Thumbs up, flat tires and rocky trails are all reason to applaud the athletes who have showed their dedication to dirt and posted photos to the Strava Instagram Leadville Qualifier Series Giveaway. Thank you for sharing the trail with us!

These dirt-friendly photos with the most likes/tweets have earned an entry to the first Leadville Qualifier race – Austin Rattler on April 13th. Team Strava has also selected a third photo based on epicness, suffer-quality and creativity.

#StravaAustinRattler Winning Photos: (Left) Night Ride by Chris Vachon, (Middle) Waiting On Me To Fix My Flat by Jason Baker, (Right) Focus by Enrique Tello B.

#StravaBarnBurner Winning Photos: (Left) Desert Dog by Edward Fryatt, (Middle) Steeper than it looks by Douglas Kubler, (Right) Mountain Bike Spotlight by Edward Burt.

#StravaWhiteface Winning Photos: (Left) Hours well spent on the trail by Mateus Kaplan, (Middle) Sedona by Garren Watkins, (Right) Single track by Keith Rousseau.

Missed Austin? You’ve Got More Opportunities To Get To Leadville.

As one of the most well known mountain bike races in North America, getting into the Leadville 100 is extraordinarily difficult. We want to help you get there, so we’re giving away three entries to each Leadville Qualifying Series race.

How To Earn Yourself An Entry?

You will need the Instagram photo app for your smartphone and a big imagination. Photos of your bike, mud, sweat, friends and scenery are all welcome. Submit your photo to Instagram using the race-specific #hashtag (#StravaBarnBurner, #StravaWhiteface, #StravaSilverRush, #StravaTahoeTrail)

Full Giveaway details and rules found here >>

New Premium Feature: Fitness & Freshness for Power Meter Users

Premium members with power meters can now track their fitness and peak for that next big race.

When we recently launched Premium power features on Strava we promised to continue upping the ante for our Premium members. Today, we’re happy to announce Fitness & Freshness. This new analysis page is located within the Training section of Strava and gives members with power meters the ability to see their levels of fitness and fatigue after a ride.

If you aren’t already a Premium member and want to get the most out of your power meter, upgrade to Premium for only $6 per month or $59 per year.

Here is a breakdown of how we think about Fitness & Freshness:

Fitness
While fitness is a complicated concept, it can be simplified as an accumulation of training over time. The Fitness Score is calculated using Training Load, to measure your daily training, and an impulse-response model to quantify its effect over time. This will intuitively capture the building up of fitness, as well as the loss of fitness during a break.

Fatigue
Conceptually, fatigue is easier to understand; it’s that tired feeling that limits your performance. We model it the same way as fitness, but on a shorter time scale. You’ll notice your score go up quickly after a couple hard days, but also go down quickly as you take a few days off.

Form
Being in form, or “peaking,” happens when one is very fit but not fatigued. Here we model this as the difference between your Fitness Score and your Fatigue Score.

So What Does it Mean?
While this type of fitness and freshness chart is popular among endurance athletes, it can be difficult to understand at first. In general the overall numbers aren’t as important as general trends.

How It’s Calculated
Our method for calculating Fitness, Fatigue and Form is based off an impulse-response model first developed by Dr. Eric W. Banister in 1975. It was later applied to cycling by Dr. Andy Coggan.

The concepts apply to any measure of training stress. For example, the first models used average heart rate and time. We use Training Load, computed using power data collected by a dedicated power meter. We understand this isn’t ideal for everyone, especially runners and swimmers. In the future we hope to incorporate heart rate and other metrics to create a better picture of your fitness.

Important Note: The feature requires a power meter. If you’ve just started using a power meter, it will take 6-8 weeks for your Fitness Score to be accurate. Enjoy!

-Alex

Stay on Track with the Latest Versions of Strava for Android and iPhone

It’s a big day for the mobile engineering team.  We just released the latest versions of Strava for iPhone and Android…ON THE SAME DAY.  Both apps are now on the same release cycle.  This version includes some popular feature requests, so download the app and let us know what you think.

Live Map: Now you can view the map of the run or ride you’re recording while your activity is underway.  Swipe to the second panel of the Record screen and see where you’ve been.

Splits Display: For Strava Run on Android and iPhone, swipe to the third panel of the Record screen to see your splits and stay in tune with your workout.

Manual Entry: Forget to track a ride?  Want to get credit for a treadmill workout?  Add an activity manually by selecting the + icon in the top right of the Record screen and ensure that your training history is complete.

More Ways to Share: In addition to sharing your run or ride directly from the Activity screen, you can now share by tapping and holding any of your activities in the Feed.  Let your friends know what you’ve accomplished.

Enjoy these updates and have fun out there.

Dedicated to Dirt: Leadville Qualifying Series Entry Giveaway

Team Strava is headed to the Leadville 100 MTB race this summer and we want you to join us.

As one of the most well known mountain bike races in North America, getting into the Leadville 100 is extraordinarily difficult. We want to help you get there, so we’re giving away three entries to each Leadville Qualifying Series race!

How To Earn Yourself An Entry
You will need the Instagram photo app for your smartphone and a big imagination.

Snap a photo from the trail and show us what it means to be dedicated to dirt. Photos of your bike, mud, sweat, friends and scenery are all welcome. Submit your photo to Instagram using the race-specific #hashtag (found below). From there, we’ll compile all the photo submissions in an album. Share your photo from the album with your friends, club members and fellow athletes and rally likes/tweets around your photo.

At the end of the voting period for each race entry giveaway, the top two photos with the most likes/tweets will earn an entry to that qualifying race. The Strava team will choose the third winning entry based on the photo’s epicness, suffer-quality or creativity.

How to Submit a Photo
Entering is simple:

1. Take a picture of your life as a dedicated athlete out on the dirt, trail or mud.

2. Upload your photo to Instagram and tag it with @stravacycling plus the hashtag of the race you’d like to win entry to. For example, if you want to compete in the Austin Rattler tag your photo: “@stravacycling  #StravaAustinRattler”.

3. The photos must be your own original work and submitted by 12:00am PST on the voting deadline date.

Race Schedule and Hashtags

• April 13 - Austin Rattler 100,  #StravaAustinRattler
  Rattler Photo Album – Voting ends April 1
• June 1 – Barn Burner 104, #StravaBarnBurner
  Barn Burner Photo Album – Voting ends May 3
• June 16 – Wilmington Whiteface 100, #StravaWhiteface
  Whiteface Photo Album -  Voting ends May 15
• July 13 – Silver Rush 50, #StravaSilverRush
  Silver Rush Photo Album – Voting ends May 31
• July 20 - Tahoe Trail 100, #StravaTahoeTrail
  Tahoe Trail Photo Album – Voting ends June 10

Who is Eligible?
Anyone can participate, but should a winning photo entry belong to a Strava Premium member, we will send you a sweet new Strava kit (Castelli jersey/bib shorts), so you look sharp on race day!

The Fine Print
* You can submit as many photos as you’d like, but limit one race entry per person.

* We are giving away a race entry. This giveaway does not include travel or accommodations expenses.

*If you don’t qualify through LQS, we’ll be giving away spots to the coveted Leadville Trail 100 Run and Leadville Trail 100 MTB later this spring – stay tuned for more details!

Questions?
Please email community@strava.com if you have questions on how to submit or share your photo submission.