Hungry Work

June 20, 2018

Hungry Work

The Story of a Week of Eating, as Told by Activity Titles.

Whether it be a huge stack of post-run pancakes, a mid-ride stop for a slice of cake or a comforting bowl of steaming soup after a long, cold swim, we all know athletes love to eat! To celebrate the human powered feats of Strava athletes and give you some ideas for your next post-workout indulgence, we’ve gathered data on the food and drink that has been keeping the Strava community fueled and ready to go. We looked at a week of activity titles to see what seven days in the diet of a Strava athlete might look like.

Sundays are a big day for workouts – typically the day of choice for a long run or ride – which means that they’re also a big day for food! Cake eating and pastry consumption are both at their peak on a Sunday as athletes reward themselves for a day of hard work.

Cake is the most popular food on Strava – our community consumed 2,762 slices in just one week! The biggest consumers of cake? Brits might love a slice of cake with their tea but when it comes to ‘Kuchen’ eating, the Germans inch ahead eating just 1% more cake per activity than the Brits.

Pastries lag behind cake in terms of popularity, but Strava athletes still munched their way through 274 croissants and pastries. Canadian athletes put their French counterparts to shame – they ate almost 50% more croissants, pastries and ‘pâtisseries’ per activity than French athletes.

What to say about Mondays? As you might expect, Mondays are not the best day of the week for creative activity titles, when it seems most people are more concerned about getting to work on time than coming up with a quirky title. Monday was the least popular day for nearly every food and drink we looked at except for coffee, wine and donuts. We bet "Morning Run" and "Morning Ride" were really popular titles though!

On Tuesdays, athletes are hungry! There are more mentions of hunger on Tuesdays than any other day of the week. And, although cyclists outperform runners when it comes to mentioning food and drink in their activity titles, runners are almost 25% more likely to complain about being hungry than cyclists. It seems runners, perhaps unsurprisingly, aren’t often stopping to eat or drink. Maybe it’s time to start introducing mid-run cafe stops to keep those hunger pangs at bay!

Bananas are every athlete's best friend. In a single week, Strava athletes munched their way through 619 bananas. Saturdays are the most popular banana-eating day, but when it comes to the work week, Wednesdays take the crown. We estimate by midweek, 80% of those bananas are starting to look a bit brown!

Thursdays are the day Strava athletes turn to peanut butter to keep them fueled. Surprisingly, peanut butter isn’t that popular on Strava – although our US athletes love it, the rest of the world aren’t such fans. 63% of activity title mentions of peanut butter were in the US. Thursday proved the most popular day of the work week for a peanut butter run, ride or swim. It seems by Thursday athletes are running out of lunchtime inspiration!

Fridays are all about beer and pizza. Beer is the most popular item of food or drink on Strava with a whopping 14,972 beers drunk by Strava athletes over the course of the week. Our British community live up to their reputation when it comes to beer: per athlete, they drank twice the number of beers as the next highest country, Germany. Anyone for a pint?

Pizza is the second most popular food on Strava, squeezing in between cake and burgers on the leaderboard. Over 1,000 pizzas are eaten each week on Strava, with Friday taking the pizza consumption KOM. It seems pizza and beer really are a match made in heaven.

Last but not least, Saturday is the day for sweet treats and coffee shop stops. Donuts, cookies, biscuits and coffee are all at their most popular on a Saturday.

Cyclists love coffee! They are more than 7x more likely to mention coffee in their activity title than runners.

But when it comes to cookies runners take the biscuit! They were the only food on Strava that runners talked about more than cyclists. Strava athletes collectively eat 528 cookies each week, with runners almost 25% more likely to indulge in a cookie or biscuit than cyclists. We reckon at least 50% of those cookies were chocolate chip because, let’s be honest, what’s a cookie without chocolate?

Do you have a favorite post-run indulgence or mid-ride snack? A go-to workout breakfast, or track Tuesday dinner? Let us know in the comments below!

This data is compiled from public activities recorded between April 16th and April 23rd 2018.

The Story of a Week of Eating, as Told by Activity Titles.

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