Strava is shaping peoples identities as athletes. The app is not somewhere people simply go to log their activities, for many, it is where they go to verify they exist.

The trail zig-zags up the mountain. I climb through dense, wet rainforest where my shoes squelch and slip on muddy roots. My shirt is wet with sweat, it drips into my eyes and mouth.

I emerge into a meadow of hip high grass dusted with recent snow. Higher still and a cold wind cuts across an open valley, quickly freezing my sweat and jungle mud.

The trail climbs ever higher. I am now crossing a rocky ridge, treading carefully over snow bridges, my feet and hands gripping crumbling rock. My lungs sear and my legs and arms burn from the effort of pushing myself upward for so long. The peak is close, hidden behind a closing mass of boiling cloud that has swept in from the ocean.   

There is a storm coming. The atmosphere crackles with energy while lightning flashes over distant peaks. An ominous boom of thunder rolls down the valley like the tolling of a medieval clock tower.

I check my watch. The red sun dips below the horizon and the mountain is plunged into icy shadow.

I have to move fast if I am to beat the record and make it down the mountain before the storm breaks. And things become dire.

The summit, when it arrives, is a slender spire of treacherously crumbling rock, a tower of solitude high above a distant world. I am the only person on the summit, but I wasn’t alone.

Like millions of other runners, I was plugged into Strava.

Later in the night, back in town, I uploaded my GPS watch data to my computer. Logging into Strava, I check my pace, vertical climbed, heart rate, distance covered and calories burnt. I discover that three people had climbed that mountain already that day. With satisfaction, the app awards me a little golden crown for that run. I am the fastest person to run up that mountain, at least according to Strava.

Quickly, the Kudus, the Strava equivalent to a Facebook like begin racking up.

I check the runs comments section several times that night. Basking in the temporary, and questionably artificial, glow of approval from my running network.

Strava is an online global community for endurance athletes. It fuses the human need to compete and compare with the comfort of belonging to something larger. Whether you’re a Stravasshole or believe that unless its on Strava, it did not happen, the social media phenomenon is reshaping how we exercise.

Strava allows you to upload data from a sport activity and share it with your social network. The app allows you to view a huge amount of data, you can track times on ‘segments’ of trail and graph fitness improvements. 

The true genius of the app is, however, the fact that you can view other people’s data, comment on their activities, applaud them with ‘kudus,’ compare your own efforts and compete with them for King of the Mountains (KOMs) on specific user generated segments.

According to Strava’s CEO, James Quarles, community is at the core of the app; “People say they don’t download Strava, they join Strava.” 

Personally, my identity as an endurance athlete is strengthened through the approval of my digital peers and subsequent connections I form within the Strava community.

Strava is shaping peoples identities as athletes. The app is not somewhere people simply go to log their activities, for many, it is where they go to verify they exist.

GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Strava’s use has become ubiquitous within the endurance sports community. The app is growing fast, with close to a million new users joining every two months.

The app acts as a tenuous, virtual thread of connection with these millions.

When I train with Strava, I train with those digital millions, my virtual rivals, and those who have trodden the same dirt before me.

While endurance activities are intrinsically solo endeavours, involving countless hours spent alone training, we are still social creatures who thrive in groups and crave external validation.

Drawing on insights from several recent studies, Alex Hutchinson makes the case that human performance improves in groups. One study by Ouvrard et al. (2017) demonstrated an increase in pleasure when elite groups of cyclists did intense hill workouts together. Another study by Sheridan et al (2018) concluded that, when weight lifting with spotters, performance improved significantly. In the virtual world, Sessions (2010) points out, the effects of these group connections can be sustained through online engagement.

In other words, you are faster and stronger with friends.

However, within the endurance community, opinions about Strava are polarised. To get a better sense how people use the app, I conducted a small user survey across various Facebook ultra-running discussion groups. I found people’s opinions seemed to fall into two broad camps.    

Any @Strava users out there?
Brainstorming for a UNI project.

Wondering how Strava has shaped your experience and identity as an endurance athlete? pic.twitter.com/mnrd7PREXe

— Jed Anderson-Habel (@HabelJed) April 2, 2019

STRAVA VIBES

Strava curates an overwhelming positive online experience. Many other media apps seem plagued by ‘haters’ and ‘trolls’ who introduce negativity. On Strava, based on my personal observations, user comments tend to be supportive and encouraging.

Several respondents to my survey described this positive community experience as “enhancing” their real world experiences. These people enjoy being able to see what others are doing, giving and receiving encouragement and “enjoy the validation of the community when they give me collective kudos.”

Others described how Strava connected them with a “tribe” and that “tribes support and encourage each other.” That being able to follow other athletes in the virtual world “enhances” their interactions in reality.

Overwhelmingly, respondents in this group felt Strava was motivating, inspirational and connected them with a bigger picture.

THE STRAVA EFFECT

Regardless of how positive the environment, social pressure exists in almost any situation. The moment you begin sharing online, the opinions of others begin shaping our behaviour. By posting workouts on Strava, an online athlete identity is formed. Athletes chase self-improvements, achievements memorialised in Strava’s data, sometimes at the expense of living in the experience.

On Strava, living and exercising becomes performance and competition.   

On Strava, an athletes workouts, alongside a snappy title and dreamy photo, becomes a declaration of who they are, and perhaps who the viewer should be to.

This, at least, is what Strava’s detractors argue.

In the lead up to the 2019 Barkley Marathons, regarded as one of the toughest ultra-races in the world, John Kelly wrote that “I didn’t want any expectations or feedback to affect my mindset. I wanted to be 100% sure that I was doing it because I wanted to, and that that remained true as the race drew near and the time crunch grew.”

Echoing this, a respondent to my survey wrote that “I personally hate Strava… It took all the enjoyment away from my running. I like running to be free from all outside pressures and it’s my chance to get away from the world.”

Others have argued that this ease of comparison has reproduced “social context(s) associated with hard-core sporting and leisure enthusiasts, and normalises the cultural values associated with competition.”

SHAPED OR SHAPING

I recently tried quitting Strava. I felt a strong need to connect more fully with myself while training. I wondered perhaps if I was loosing my ability for introspection, whether a numbing of that mind-body connection  was occurring.

I longed for that sense of being adrift in a calm sea of thoughts, not knowing where the tides will sweep me, running without reference or comparison, simply moving.

However, once I had used Strava, I quickly realised, the real world seemed to lose a certain vibrance. I realised that Strava had become integral to my running experience. Strava transformed my world into a living terrain filled with social interactions, PRs, Kudos and KOMs strengthening my connection with the real world community, reaffirming my identity as an endurance athlete.

Jed Anderson-Habel

References
Ouvrard, Theo, et al. (2018) “Mechanisms of Performance Improvements Due to a Leading Teammate During Uphill Cycling.” International journal of sports physiology and performance 13.9 : 1215-1222.

Sheridan, Andrew, et al. (2017) “Presence of Spotters Improves Bench Press Performance.” Journal of strength and conditioning research.

Sessions, L.F., 2010. How offline gatherings affect online communities: when virtual community members ‘meetup’. Information, Communication & Society, 13(3), pp.375-395.