How Strava's Year in Sport became the new Spotify Wrapped

Will you be sharing yours?

How Strava's Year in Sport became the new Spotify Wrapped. Image: iStock

With Strava's Year In Sport report dropping today, Katie Strick argues that little orange fitness app knows more about how we live now than almost any other.

A lot has happened this year, apparently.

I switched my trusty Nikes for a pair of Hokas and set a PB in the half-marathon. I made new BFFs through a running club and booked a cycling trip with them over Christmas. Oh, and I started a new Friday morning swim routine – which was fun, until I realised I was being overtaken by a bunch of 70-something retirees. 

How do I know all this? Thanks to Strava, of course – the app that seems to know more about my fitness, social and love life than any other, if the treasure trove that is Strava’s annual trend report is to be believed. 

The sporting platform’s annual December digest has long offered a fascinating insight into the fitness trends of the year, but 2024’s edition – released today – is a striking reminder of just how much data that little orange app has on us as we go about our increasingly active lives.

Dating trends, Gen Z drinking habits, and even inter-generational sock lengths are among the findings discovered among Strava’s global community of 135 million users. No prizes for guessing which generation likes the longest socks.  

The app’s deep understanding of our lives is hardly surprising. Spotify’s end-of-year Wrapped feature might have an embarrassingly-detailed knowledge of my Taylor Swift listening habits, but Strava knows me better than any music app – and half my friends, too, if my accidental relationship soft-launch this summer was anything to go by (hot tip: don’t upload that hike with your new partner if you’re not ready for questions – and definitely don’t upload that 3pm run if you’re followed by your boss). 

The sporting platform’s annual December digest has long offered a fascinating insight into the fitness trends of the year. Image: Google Images.

I’m far from the only one for whom Strava holds an odd number of my secrets. The app recently joined the ranks of TikTok and Spotify in hitting the 100 million user mark (that’s one in five adults in countries like the UK), and any digitally-savvy singleton will know that this once-basic running tracker has become a far more effective dating app than Hinge or Bumble.

Raise your eyebrows all you like, but you try tracking down that man you met at run club on Instagram or Facebook. Men’s oddly-public Strava profiles are one of the most reliable pre-date stalking tools there is. 

Speaking of run clubs: Gen Z are all over them, according to the 2024 data. One in five of them have been on a date with someone they met at a group fitness activity, with 48 per cent of overall users saying social connection was their top reason for joining a sporting group – good news for kudos-hunters, as the report reveals group activities were more likely to receive kudos than solo endeavours. 

Speaking of run clubs: Gen Z are all over them, according to the 2024 data. Image: Adidas.

The most popular weekday time for group runs was 6-7pm, apparently, and three quarters of activities were uploaded by phone over a watch – I guess you can’t take a selfie with a Garmin, can you?

Other results were more surprising: regular, shorter workouts were all the rage in 2024 (hurrah); Nordic skiing was up 80 per cent (what?); and women almost matched men in the number of half marathons uploaded (about time, too).

The median running pace came out at a comfortable 6.22 minutes per kilometer – though Boomers and Gen X (aged 44-59) outpaced Millennials and Gen Z in both mileage and achieving King or Queen of the Mountain crowns. Perhaps letting my cycling-obsessed uncle follow me wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

The most popular weekday time for group runs was 6-7pm. Image: iStock

Only kidding – Strava’s camaraderie is exactly its appeal. We tease our friends for their Spotify Wrapped roundups, yet there’s something about the community of Strava that has us cheering them for the 33 runs we’re told they completed in 2024, even if we’re secretly jealous their PB was one second faster than ours. 

Sure, there’s a fashion element to exercising that didn’t exist five years ago (scrunchies and carbon shoes are still the universal aesthetic, says the report) and the odd user might be a little fanatical about split times.

But Strava isn’t about filters or posing or algorithms that favour snazzy videos – it’s about achievements and well-dones and numbers that don’t lie – perhaps that’s why it’s endured when so many apps haven’t. And perhaps that’s why it’s become one of the most telling indicators of how we live now. 

Run clubs, crew socks, whatever your Year In Sport stats tell you when they drop next week, one thing’s certain: you’ll want to be mindful before you post them all over your Instagram Story. Your boss might be watching – or worse, your run club crush. 

Originally published as How Strava's Year in Sport became the new Spotify Wrapped