Being an idiot, the idea for this article came to me on my ‘lunch run’ just now as I deliberated what to call it once I’d eagerly got back to my desk to upload it to Strava. So keen was I to pat myself on the back for all my new PRs and segments.
As I began to consider various names, a lightbulb sparked through the grey matter in my brain. Daily, I see these weird and wonderful run names on Strava and over time, form a picture for what some of them mean from various people. Underneath, there lies another meaning for many of these runs (well it does in my head), so I thought it would be a great idea to provide an idiot’s guide to translating this mythical naming rights people appear to bring to the world of Strava.
*Note, if you have a sense of humour failure, this is just for fun. I know 99.9% of people will understand this, but believe me, I once was asked to add a disclaimer, which kind of defeats the object of satire…
Here we go, the idiot’s guide to Strava running title lexicon. How many do you know of?
#1 Strava name: ’80’ or ‘120 or ’45’
Real meaning: The joyless coached runner
These are the serious boys and girls of Strava who have coaches. These people don’t measure their runs in terms of enjoyment, it’s about getting shit done in the amount of allocated time stated by their coach. These runs are devoid of any form of joy and performed by metronomes who munch on salad leaves, aiming to lose that extra 238grams of weight ahead of their next half marathon attempt. They have no life. They eat, sleep and run. Period.
#2 Strava name: ‘With strides’
Real meaning: ‘Serial crown bagger’
You know these people. They want you to think they’ve just been on an easy run and then put in a few bits of effort here and there to make it look as if their run had some meaning. The reality is they know full well where the ‘soft’ Strava segments are, so they jog nice and slowly to the start, smash the segment, then sail off into the sunset with another crown down their jockstrap. Muppets.
#3 Strava name: ‘Night run’
Real meaning: ‘Parent’
Much respect to these guys and girls. They are the hardcore of Strava, the ones who you see with a 3:09 am start time to their name. They invariably have eight kids and spend their entire weekends shipping the little buggers around to various sports. They then head off to do some shopping, come home and clean the house, cook, wash-up and eventually get to bed just after midnight. But that’s just child’s play. They’re up at 3am to hit the trails for a quick 50km or so before they do it all again. Ree-spect!
#4 Strava name: ‘The morning run or evening run’
Real meaning: ‘Commute’
These runs are typically seen in the inner suburbs of our major metropolitan areas and are also great for potential thieves to understand where exactly people live too, such is the regularity with which they are performed. What also signals them out as a commute is the ‘actual time’ recorded is almost always double the time of the ‘moving time’ due to the excessive amounts traffic lights these runners have to negotiate each morning or evening on their way to and from work. In short, these runs hold no value whatsoever to a training program.
#5 Strava name: ‘Lunch run’
Real meaning: ‘Unemployed’ or ‘Bored at work’
If you’re running at lunch, you’re either a genius or an idiot with no job. If you’re in the genius category, you’re clearly bored at work and can clearly knock off your 40 billable hours in half that time, meaning you have hours to piss about running the streets of your local city during the middle of the day. If you’re not sure if you’re an idiot or a genius, open your wallet and check to see if you have money.
#6 Strava name: ‘Hike’
Real meaning: ‘Shit runner’
Let’s face it, anything that resembles a walk should never be on Strava at all. Most of us ‘walk’ at some point during the day, that’s just what we do as part of being a human being, so why the need to record it? Seriously dude, leaving the walking in your head and get the cadence up to something resembling a jog, even if it’s just on the spot at a traffic light wearing some fluro activewear yeah?
#7 Strava name: ‘Easy run’
Real meaning: ‘Tempo run done at 4min/km pace’
Man these people piss me off. They get a little bit fit and running at low 4s seems, while a little bit of effort, plausible. So off they go for a little 5km around the block, keeping the pace high and it feels nice and easy. Upload to Strava and cue all the happy clappers patting said runner on the back for being ‘so quick on an easy run… wow’. Mate, we know the truth, leave your ego on the doorstep!
#8 Strava name: ‘Progressive’
Real meaning: ‘Lazy’
Ahhh the good old ‘I started slow, then realised I need to put some effort into this’ run. It’s OK, we all get a little lazy at times, but at least we finished strongly and made something out of this dead-assed run in the end. Should get a few likes at least!
#9 Strava name: ‘The Eddie’ (Or some other random name)
Real meaning: Weird trail runner
Trail runners are a little weird if I’m honest. They spend their entire long runs trying to think of some warped and out there name for their run which will basically start a conversation on the comments board. Don’t do it! It’s a ploy for them to tell you all about their slow bush walk!
Those are nine that I could come up with, what others are there? Leave them in the comments below!
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Song lyrics.
Be they the number 1 song of the day or an abstract band “you probably haven’t heard of yet”, these runs show the runner has spent too much time trying to think of something to replace the Strava default.
I always put my dog’s name in the title if I take her. It reminds me and makes me feel better about why I had to stop so many times. Lol
Family bushwalk
3-5k walk complete with photos of smiling kids in beautiful surroundings prompting comments of ‘how do you manage to get your children into walking so far’
Reality is a 30 min warm up of ‘I hate walks’ followed by 2 hours of feet dragging at a pace slower than an ascent up Furber after 99kms in the mountains.
Gold, haha yeah photos and a stupid name for a training trail run (40k)-(50k) are a must lol
Helps time go by.
And in there’s runs look for segment areas and go for them so it looks even more impressive.
this thing is so stinkin funny, because it’s so stinkin TRUE! i’m guilty of one, but I’m owning up to which. 😉
Haha! Solid article. Strava titles are important! You can’t just leave it at “Morning Run”. Most people in my feed use “recovery” or “recovery run” in exactly the same way you discuss people using “easy run”. I also hate the people who have no idea there is a description section within the run, so they write like three sentences describing the run in the run title.
Good work!
“The Usual”
Either they have no imagination (me) or they have found a b***-tearer of a training run that they are chipping away at trying to get better at the type of running they like (me also).
I’ll put my hand up for the commute “Morning Run”, “Afternoon Run” and from time to time an “Evening Run”. Beats sitting in the car or bus, and with weather here in paradise, it is a pleasurable way to start and finish the working day. As to changing the Strava default name, I can’t see that “Going to Work” or “Coming Home from Work” makes it any better as part of my training program, and I am too lazy to bother editing runs anyway.