{"id":5633,"date":"2025-08-10T20:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T20:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5633"},"modified":"2026-03-14T21:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T21:23:52","slug":"fun-things-to-do-with-strava","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dalelane.co.uk\/blog\/?p=5633","title":{"rendered":"Fun things to do with Strava"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I think of Strava as a running app. But every now and then, I do something a bit different with it.<\/p>\n

Here are a few examples!<\/p>\n

Record your way through a maze<\/h3>\n

When we explored the maze at Wildwood<\/a>, Strava was a fun way to see just how lost we got.<\/p>\n

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Being able to see how many times we went round the same sections of the maze on an interactive map adds a great layer to the experience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is a great use of Strava… you just need to find a large outdoor maze.<\/p>\n

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link – Strava activity<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Run on a moving surface<\/h3>\n

We were on a ship with a running track last week, so I thought this was another chance to do something weird with Strava.<\/p>\n

My plan<\/a> was to run laps of the ship deck while it was at sea, and use that to draw a cool spiral GPS trace with each lap’s GPS location slightly offset from the last.<\/p>\n

I massively overestimated how fast I run compared with the speed of a ship.<\/p>\n

My GPS trace was essentially a straight line. The waves in the line reflect the slight difference between when I was running in the same direction as the ship to when I was running the opposite, for each short lap.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

The resulting stats are entertainingly ridiculous. I love that Strava was suspicious of my ability to run sub-3 minute miles.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Draw pictures<\/h3>\n

This is the most common “something weird with Strava” idea I’ve seen people try: find a field and use GPS as a massive virtual Etch A Sketch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Our local park<\/a> is ideal for this. <\/p>\n

link – not actually Strava, but similar enough!<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

geo-tagged photos<\/h3>\n

We stumbled upon a ceramic tile mosaic styled to look like 8-bit video game pixel art. It was just on a random wall, with nothing announcing, explaining, or sign-posting it.<\/p>\n

After accidentally finding a second different mosaic nearby, I decided to spend an evening finding more!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I took pictures of each mosaic.<\/p>\n

With Strava, a random collection of photos becomes an annotated interactive map, showing where each photo was taken and where each mosaic is.<\/p>\n

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(I’ve since learned<\/a> that these are the work of a street artist called Invader<\/a> – thanks, Paul<\/a>!<\/em>).<\/p>\n

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link – Strava activity<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

What else?<\/h3>\n

If I played sports, I’d try recording that – I think a trace of where you’ve run during football<\/a> sounds like a fun idea. <\/p>\n

What other uses are there for a GPS trace? <\/p>\n