You can now connect your parkrun and Strava profiles. Allowing you to share, compare and compete with other parkrunners and Strava athletes around the world.
Strava is delighted to have partnered with parkrun, here we will describe how you can link your profiles and outline what’s in it for you and the rest of the worldwide parkrun community.
For those of you that are new to parkrun, here is a little explanation of what this phenomenon is all about…
What is parkrun?
It all started in 2004, when 13 amateur runners got together in Bushy Park, South-West London for a weekly timed 5km run along the same course. It grew in popularity and number, attracting a wide variety of runners; men, women, children and adults alike. In 2007 the second parkrun location was launched, quickly followed by the third, fourth and fifth. A new running movement had begun.
The spirit of parkrun has never been lost, under the stewardship of its founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, the now global community is 800,000 strong, with parkruns taking place across 543 parks worldwide. Open to all and totally free of charge, parkrun has changed the running landscape and communities it serves for the better.
Why is Strava involved?
To serve runners is the common bond that makes Strava and parkrun click. It’s a partnership with shared objectives at its core; to serve, entertain and motivate athletes. Both parties are trying to do the same things, so by partnering up we can serve a portion of our shared communities even better.
Through this partnership parkrunners will now be able to easily find and connect with each other on the Strava platform, as well as track their own performance and measure improvement.
How does it work?
1. Be a member: First of all you need to be a parkun and a Strava member. If you’re not already a parkrun member it’s easy to become one and you’re probably not far from a run, have a look here and select your country for details.
2. Go to your parkrun profile page: If you don’t have it bookmarked already, you can get a link to your parkrun profile page by clicking here.
3. Click ‘Link To Your Strava Profile’: On your parkrun profile page you’ll see an option (at the bottom of the list) to ‘Connect with STRAVA’, click this.
4. Authorize profile linking: Depending on whether or not you are already logged into Strava on your browser you will automatically be either; a) directed to the authorize page, or b) directed to the Strava login before being taken automatically to the authorize page. Once on this page click the orange authorize box.
5. Confirmation: After a short moment, you will be redirected to your parkrun personal athlete history, this should now show a Strava logo at the top of the page – you are now linked.
What’s in it for me?
You and all other Strava athletes will be identifiable by way of a Strava badge next to your name in the parkrun results table.
You can click on a badge and it will take you straight through to a Strava profile. This is a great way to find fellow parkrunners on Strava. You may decide to follow each other and offer encouragement, or swap training tips. It’s a brilliant way of bringing the community together and being more social.
Using Strava as a way of improving you parkrun performance is an obvious benefit. By using the segment functionality parkrunners can analyse their performance during every stage of their run and compare with other parkrunners using Leaderboards.
So get yourself down to your local parkrun this weekend and see what all the fuss is about…
Photos: Andy Waterman