Strava Year in Sport: Death by Digits or Quality Quantification?

In keeping with the piece’s app-based theme, all pictures were taken with an iPhone.

I haven’t really enjoyed using Strava in the last few months. Though I once fixated on the app and my contributions as a sort of semi-artistic means of illustrating rides I’d all but lived for, in the final months of 2024, I’ve developed a minor anxiety around the small orange and white square on my phone. It isn’t so much about what others think of my output but rather what I’ve come to associate with my own digital footprint and, of course, a distinct sense of FOMO.

Having only used Strava for a few years, I once saw the practice as entirely superfluous. I’ve never been the type to fixate on numbers or be particularly organized about “training.” While I wouldn’t ever care to squeeze myself into one descriptive box, I’m generally not a type A, clean-cut personality. I’m kin to the rovin’ wind, as they might say. However, a former riding buddy planted the Strava seed a few years back by saying, “It’s just a nice way to remember rides I’ve done and works well to track how many miles you put on consumable components.” Once I’d taken that idea on, I slowly worked activity tracking into an unconscious, automatic part of any ride that wasn’t a commute. Tracking component wear never really stuck as it requires some extra “gear” input through the app, but over time, I started to view the activity tracking application as a sort of blank canvas—a way to express the wild and wonderful adventures I found myself on.

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After a year of consistent use, a notification popped up. “View your Year in Sport,” it read. With a memorable 12 months of riding behind me, I was excited to dive in. It ran through some of the biggest moments and rides I’d dreamt of in the days I found myself off the bike. I was proud of the total distance and quantifiable data presented before me, but more than that, I remembered almost every mile of that incredible year. I’d ridden just over 7,000 (!) miles and had so many incredible, life-changing experiences. The number associated with that was big, but the memories were even bigger. As a somewhat sociable person, I took to Instagram to share my Year in Sport. With some comments about how much I’d treasured each and every mile, I didn’t think much about sharing my overview until I saw others speaking about their experience witnessing the onslaught of recaps.

Some decried it as wanton bragging, while others spoke to it as a willful means of displaying a sense of superiority over those who can’t afford the same luxuries. Both were feelings I hadn’t previously considered but was more than willing to try and empathize with. Invariably, after understanding the critiques of the much-maligned data visualization, the thing that Strava’s Year in Sport underlined most clearly was the sense of privilege I’ve experienced. Not only have I found myself in a number of socio-economic circumstances where one—let alone multiple— multi-thousand-mile cycling years have been possible, but I’m also able-bodied. And not just able-bodied, but able-bodied with roughly 29 years of exercising that sense of ability! With childhood and adolescent experiences on sports teams, even making it to the dizzying heights of perennial Division III college athletics, being active is how I’ve come to express myself. Though it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses—bouts of depression followed after my “career” came to an abrupt end following an Achilles tendon rupture in 2017—I’ve only recently come to understand just how big of a leg up I’ve had as someone who finds it odd to be inactive for more than a day or two.

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Experiencing a sense of fitness-related privilege is increasingly rare in the US—as many know, there are a number of health crises plaguing the wealthiest country in the world. From obesity to a simple lack of accessible, affordable healthcare, U.S. Americans quietly suffer en masse. Being able to ingrain consistent activity into my day-to-day life over most of my existence is a massive advantage over those who don’t have the same access to what shouldn’t be a luxury. It limits my chance of developing the kinds of chronic illnesses many Americans struggle with and, from a mental health perspective, has saved my life a few times over. With all that understood, it’s easy to see why some are critical of publicly boasting about our year-end fitness-related totals. Many of us want to be outside, utilizing our bodies in ways that naturally make us feel good for more reasons than one. Not being able to do so is bad enough, but having it squarely presented via social media can seem like a cruel and unnecessary tradition. However, after thinking about my latest Year in Sport, I’ve come to appreciate the quantification of the athletic year in a slightly different light.

Having ridden somewhere around 6,500 quantifiable miles for each of the last three years, this last 12 months marks what is likely an end to that high burn rate. In taking on a more traditional job, it’s likely that I won’t be able to abandon freelance tasks or build my schedule around service industry jobs that don’t demand too much brainpower when off the clock. It’s a change I’ve come to terms with and something I’m not too bummed about—this is a pretty sweet gig, after all. I’m still going to get out every chance I get, but while looking back at the data we can sometimes get all too depressed by, I realized that the end-of-year visualization was simply made up of adventures I’d have forever. Perhaps it’s a bit cliché or even millennial of me to talk about a preference for experiences over material objects, but it’s an idea I wholeheartedly believe in. Having a quantifiable recollection of those summated journeys is both a nice recollection of those experiences and a good motivation for future endeavors.

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Moreover, while I’ve questioned the need for the statistical quantification of every aspect of our lives more than a few times, simply recording some rudimentary metrics is a powerful way to get a big-picture idea of what’s going on. Creating personal proxies that correlate to the data is something I’ve found to be a basic, albeit powerful way to combat depression, malaise, burnout, and a variety of other mental health-oriented struggles. Am I feeling a bit low? Let’s see how much I’ve ridden this week. Am I stuck on an idea at work? I should get out and run. Is my body feeling tired? I should dial it back a bit. It’s not a new or revolutionary idea, but basic tracking of how much meaningful time you’re dedicating to being active is a simple, solid way to set a basis for oneself, especially when so much of our lives can be contained within screens a mere few feet apart. Totaling that data to see how often you made it outside on a year-to-year basis is an excellent tool for assessment. Again, I struggle with the phrasing here, as most people don’t have the choice to get out much at all. But for those of us who can prioritize physical activities, these statistical quantifications of activity are a great, somewhat objective measure of how much we prioritize our health and well-being.

In addition to that, sometimes, I like to live in a world of optimism. I know, what a wild idea. Though I have concerns about a private company amassing and owning a large swath of deeply personal location data, I like to imagine a more positive possibility. What if, and my good golly gosh, that is a big “IF,” something like Strava was utilized as a publicly owned asset for health data? What if our healthcare system was free from the motivations of profit incentives and could use the overwhelming amount of data we are all constantly collecting through various means to better understand how each one of us works and lives best? Again, there are many issues with deeply private data being held by companies that exist in a market where “move fast and break things” seems to be a general MO, but I’m trying to live in a world of optimism. Perhaps, in this theoretical public health asset, our data would have the backing of some governmental or federally mandated protections.

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Health is a profoundly personal equation. What works for one does not work for all. But we have more tools than ever before to help us understand what solutions could aid all of us in achieving a healthier life. The year-to-year statistical quantification of said data could improve not just the lives of specific people but also those of entire communities. Like many things these days, our relationship with the outdoor world is atomized, fractured, and personalized. A communal, hyper-local understanding of what a “typical” active year looks like could better illustrate the hurdles any one place faces. After all, we’re supposed to go in for a yearly check-up (I have not seen a medical practitioner in around five years). Could something like Strava’s Year in Sport help medical professionals assess patients better?

To extend our positive imagination, if something like a year-to-year statistical breakdown of physical activity was publicly owned and used for greater health insights, it could combat the sense of social superiority surrounding the presentation of these metrics. Because much of Strava’s core function is social, it falls prey to the typical means of capitalized social interactions that try to drive engagement and consistent usage. While I do my best not to succumb to comparison, as I hear it can rob us of joy, it happens. If these apps could be relieved of their engagement-driven design, perhaps the numbers could be detached from their hierarchical social value and replaced with a positive, constructive, communal one.

It’s also important to note that while apps like Instagram, X, and, to a lesser extent, Strava use social mechanics to drive engagement, it’s not social interaction in and of itself that should be derided. In my conversations with Lucas about this piece, he noted that we can appreciate our year-end roundups but that they don’t necessarily need to be shared. The existence and subsequent value of something like Strava’s Year in Sport can be private. While that’s entirely fair, I would contest his point. It’s not that I feel something like a Year in Sport needs to be shared, just that it’s far more interesting and valuable when shared.

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It’s no secret that the mere concept of a Year in Sport is designed with a certain degree of “rhetorical velocity” in mind. Perhaps because so many of us find a distinct sense of identity in the way we see ourselves through digital actualization. I’m not going to get too bogged down in modern psychological theory, but as much as we condemn social media–these apps are mirrors. Twisted, contorted, manipulative mirrors with glaziers with potentially nefarious ends in mind, but mirrors nonetheless. Though you’re free to use your Year in Sport however you see fit, I find some of Strava’s social elements extraordinarily useful in extending a sense of community. Through features like their heatmaps and the simple shared outline of how much riding is possible with the year-end graphic in question, sharing my Year in Sport has connected me to others who didn’t know what could be achieved in a place like Florida, for example.

With regard to the negative perception surrounding sharing one’s Year in Sport, it’s useful to look at it through the intention of an infamous quote from Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit. “Hell is other people.” A commonly misinterpreted idea insinuating that our associations with other people are inherently hellish. Except, that isn’t what Sartre meant. In addressing the misinterpretation of his quote, he states, “I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because, when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves.”

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His intended meaning is a useful lens through which to hopefully deconstruct the negativity around sharing a Year in Sport. Solely viewing ourselves through the presentation of individual metrics will invariably yield a sense of superiority to those who can do more and devalue the achievements of those who numerically summate to less because the sense of value is immediate and individual. It gives others the chance to place value through the immediately obvious means in a culture that places social capital on individual achievements, irrespective of their effect on the whole. But how our statistical quantifications of physical achievement are viewed changes when realized through a context that provides a mechanism toward a collective good.

Maybe we’re providing more data on knee injuries for people who run X amount per year or at a certain elevation. Perhaps we’re providing some statistical mean for weightlifters of a certain age or demographic. Maybe we’re simply illuminating how and where riding, running, or hiking is possible in a particular area. The point is–the value of sharing, and inevitably comparing, our year-end statistics can change when it informs a more holistic, communal goal over an individual one.

Ultimately, though I understand the disdain for something like Strava’s Year in Sport, it presents more than a few positives. While it’s easy for an able-bodied person to attribute positivity toward a sometimes exclusionary tradition, I think the potential upsides outweigh the negatives. At its worst, the Year in Sport is a misguided quantification of a positive practice that has succumbed to the ills of a society high on any form of social capital. But, at its best, it’s a simple visualization of a year fully realized and potentially a valuable tool for the greater good. For whatever can be said about these last few years of life, I’m glad there’s a simple, concentrated way to look back on my years in sport.

But what do you think of Strava’s Year in Sport? Is it necessary or needless? Let us know in conversation below!

Further Reading

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