“Your friend just completed a run. Go give them kudos!”

As soon as I come back from my daily afternoon workout, my phone lights up with notifications. While I complete my afternoon post-workout stretch, I simultaneously scroll through Strava. Strava is an app that allows athletes to track their own activity and see their friends’ progress, creating healthy competition between teammates and athletes across the globe. People of all ages, athletic abilities, and sports pop up on my feed. The posts are as diverse as the people who share them: They may consist of song lyrics, long rambling streams of consciousness, an adorable dog sighting, or a love letter to a pair of shorts. Many titles and descriptions go far beyond just describing their activity as they give greater insight into their lives. This app for so-called mentally tough athletes can get very personal.

When athletes upload their activities, the app can track distance, time, and repetitions. “Likes” are measured in “kudos,” and the more interesting the caption or more important the race, the greater the amount of kudos. Strava is mainly designed for individual sports like running, swimming, and biking, where the activity is continuous and the competition is mainly individual. Although Strava is not very far-reaching as a social media platform, it provides athletes a far more personal support system that offers social and physical benefits, unlike mainstream platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat.

Part of the reason I love Strava is its unique ability to connect athletes across sports. While I primarily run, I am inspired by the determination and drive of swimmers, bikers, and even triathletes. As a runner, I am aware of the kind of training and mindset the sport requires, so the best part about Strava is getting to see other athletes’ training schedules and how hard they work for their sports. When I befriended some swimmers and bikers through initially commenting on their posts, and later meeting them in person, we decided to start a Strava training group to log our activities. After seeing how much everyone enjoyed their own sport, we were persuaded to try each other’s. I have since tried biking for far longer than I am used to and have discovered that it is very enjoyable. To further push my training, my group intends to do an adventure triathlon in a couple of months. We have created a Strava group to log mileage and time for this endeavor and to hold members accountable for sufficiently preparing to compete in the triathlon. As we all have been focused on our own sports, it was crucial at first that we mimicked each other’s training plans since a triathlon requires training across running, biking, and swimming. This increased sense of accountability has helped all of us tremendously in staying motivated.

The special thing about Strava is being able to see the different ideas, thoughts, feelings, and experiences people have while doing their activities. It is difficult to know what goes on in a teammate’s head during a workout. While one person in a group might struggle during a run, others could have had a great time and think the run is easy. After workouts, when our heavy breathing limits conversation, checking on Strava is a great way to reflect on the run, learn from peers, and identify ways we can improve. If someone is upset after a bad race or elated after a win, a teammate may mention it on a Strava post. Seeing the comments under my workout creates an unexplainable connection and sparks real life empathy and support. Strava also allows people to see the training and activities of professional athletes, making role models accessible. It is amazing to see that at any level, athletes have high and lows within training plans and workouts. As a massive sports science nerd, I enjoy following their training and progress, being able to see their workouts, and more importantly, mentality while training. Every athlete should download Strava to have a built-in support group of motivated athletes who are elated to give “kudos” to your workout every day.