My 5 Favorite things about Strava

Disclaimer: I received an annual Strava Summit subscription and Strava merchandise as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

If you have been following me for a while, you probably have seen some of my posts or references to Strava.  I created my account back in February of 2014.  Back then, it was just a fun place to track my workouts and maybe see what some of my friends were doing…

Now, 5 years later, Strava has become so much more to me!  I’m here today with my top 5 favorite things about the Strava app!

1. It’s FREE and available to anyone with a smartphone!  That’s right, you can download the app for FREE to any smartphone and start tracking ALL your activities right away  You can track your activities right from the app, no smart watch or fitness tracker required.With that being said, you can sync your smart watch or fitness tracker to Strava and have your activities automatically uploaded to your account.

2. All you training in one place!  Once you complete and activity and save it to Strava (either using the app or connecting your smartwatch) you can find all your activities in the training calendar!  At a quick glance, you training calendar will indicate any days where you had activities and they are all color codes based on if you have them tagged as run, workout, long run or race!  When you click on the dot for any given activity, you are able to open up the details of that event!  So for you numbers geeks out there, all your numbers are all in once place!

3. The Groups!  With Strava you never have to be alone and can connect with so many people with similar interests, goals and so much more.  Strava has groups for trail runners, marathoners, mom’s and so much more. 2 of my favorite groups is my Skirt Sports Ambassador group as well as the BibRave Pro Run Club.  Both of these groups connect me with so many people with similar running interests in me from around the world.  We can support and motivate each other each and every day, no matter where we are.

4. Strava tracks your effort for each and every workout. We all know that some workouts are tougher than others, we need to push ourselves differently depending on the workout or how we get through a race. I have started to really LOVE this feature! Some days when I feel like I really struggled through a workout, like I just couldn’t do anything the way I wanted, Strava knows. Last weekend, I ran a half marathon in St Cloud MN and the weather ended up getting warmer than I thought. I felt like I was struggling for every mile. I felt like I couldn’t hit the paces that I wanted.

5. Segments!! When I first discovered segments, I didn’t think much about them But then after I started looking into them more, I realized they were a really cool feature! This is where your competitive side can shine. Whether you are competitive with yourself, of competitive with your friends, segments can be your best friend (or your worst enemy, depending on how you look at it). Segments are marked sections of a route that have been saved off by you, or someone else. Once created (and made public) anytime you or anyone runs or rides that same segment, their time and effort for the segment is recorded and then you can compare your results. did you run it faster this time than before? I love being able to see my progress when I run these segments! I’ve also started created more and more of my own segments to really get more ideas on my training!

All of the features I mentioned are part of the FREE version of Strava. If you are one tht wants even more, you can also check out Strava Summit. It’s a paid version that allows you to get even more data, and get deeper into the details of your workouts. Down the road I will start digging into more of Strava Summit, but right now I’m really having fun with all the FREE options!

Check out Strava for yourself and come back and let us know you what features of Strava you are enjoying!