During January, the first month of my walk 1000 miles challenge, I used the Under Armour app, Map my Fitness to track all my miles.
For February I decided to use Strava, I simply couldn’t ignore all the recommendations on the walk 1000 miles Facebook group that it was the best tracker to use, I figured I’d give it a go and compare it with MapMyFitness.
I found the app easily on the Google Play Store (yep, I’m using Android). The app installed quickly. I had used Strava before for tracking my bikes rides and sure enough as I signed in with my Google account the a ride I had tracked from 2017 popped up. Signing in is easy, you can create an account in minutes with your Facebook or Google logins or alternatively just with an email and password.
Ease of use
The app itself, like most trackers is a cinch to use – especially if you’re a previous tracker user.
To start a workout you just need to open the app, select the type of activity you are doing and press the record button and off you go.
As you take part in your activity the app constantly tracks your position and speed. you can open the app at any time and check your position on the map, but other wise you can put your phone back in your pocket/rucksack and forget about it.
Like the MapMyFitness app, if for any reason you want to pause the activity there is a button to do this and again to resume your workout after you’ve had your rest, tied your shoelaces etc..
Once you’ve completed your walk/run etc.. its simply a case of stopping the workout. Once it’s been stopped you can then, optionally, add a title, description and photos to the workout. It’s then saved and a few minutes later the activity is available to view. Viewing an activity gives you a map, distance, time and calories among other data that may be useful.
How well does Strava work for the 1000 mile challenge?
Like the MapMyFitness app the Strava app links directly to the MyMission walk 1000 miles challenge. At certain times of day the app will send your latest distances to your account and they are automatically added to the total.
The Strava app seems a little slower at doing this than the MapMyFitness app. This isn’t really an issue unless you are desperate to see your overall total update immediately, for me it wasn’t a problem, I don’t check my overall total too regularly. The one time I did check and the total hadn’t updated was just bad timing , I checked again an hour later and the update was complete.
There are a couple of features that have stood out and made me feel that, for me at least, this is the app I will be sticking with for the remainder of the challenge.
It’s more social
I had previously linked my Strava account with Facebook, so any Facebook friends using Strava will automatically show in your fiends list to ‘invite’. Since I last logged in there were a few more – so I was instantly connecting with friends. My daughter is currently training for her bronze DofE, she’s using Strava to keep a log, and I managed to connect and add her as a ‘friend’ in minutes. Compared to MapMyFitness, where I couldn’t find any friends – this is a great improvement. I’ve already had encouraging words and message from my fellow Strava friends. Friends can comment or give ‘kudos’ (basically a like or thumbs up) – it’s surprising how motivating that has been.
It offers connectivity to your own websites
This one is a bit nerdy and probably won’t appeal to many, but Strava allows you to embed your workouts and routes in your own website. See above.
This is a niche, but very welcome feature.
It’s fast
I complained about the startup and GPS acquisition times in MapMyFitness – sometimes I was waiting around for minutes before I could start. Strava has so far, started instantly and been ready to start my activity within a couple of seconds.
Reliable tracking
In my three weeks of using it, I have not lost a signal, or had any glitches where it shows you’ve walked 100 miles extra (due to a GPS error) or that you’ve only walked half as far. I’ll keep monitoring but this is very promising.
Update March 2021: There has been a recent update on the app which looks like it may have introduced an element of instability. The App has now crashed on me about three times, however it did manage to recover the walk in each occurrence. Hopefully there will be another update to fix this issue.
Downsides
I’m using the free version of the app, so it’s possible the paid version might fix the issues, but for me the paid version isn’t really compelling enough to justify the expense.
Walking is not the main focus of the app
The reason I didn’t go straight to Strava was a feeling it was geared to cyclists. This is partly true. Cyclists and runners and clearly the focus of this app. It tracks lots of activities, but like walking, these feel like lesser activities. The main dashboard give you an overview of your progress but doesn’t give any information about walking. If you’re only walking – it will show no activities, unless you dig a bit deeper. (Maybe there is a setting – please shout if you’ve found it) I’ve so far almost walked 140 miles this month – yet on first glance, my dashboard says I’ve done nothing. As I’m only using the app for tracking it’s not a huge deal – but it could be if I was setting fitness goals etc.
No connectivity with Relive
I’ve been trying out the Relive app, it plays back an animated route with stats of all your activities. It’s a fun app, ideal for sharing your achievements on social, but it is no longer compatible with Strava (looks like they had a falling out a few years ago).
If you’re a big Relive fan this might be a deal breaker.
Overall
I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed using this app, I had some preconceived opinions about this being a ‘cycling app’, and while that’s partially true, for the purpose of the walk 1000 challenge this works well enough. that I can ignore the shortcomings.
The connection with friends, the faster start up, and the extra website features have converted me. For the remainder of my walk 1000 challenge I’m going to use Strava for the vast majority of my walks. (unless anyone can convince me otherwise)
While MapMyFitness was a good app, which does the job well, Strava’s extra features just nudge it out of my app drawer.
If you’re using Strava for walking activities let me know how you’re getting on, or is there an even better app. Let me know in the comments or on social.
Talking points