How to adjust your Strava privacy settings

Strava is one of the best running apps out there and is probably the friendliest social media app I’ve downloaded on my phone. I’m on it almost daily, whether to log my own workouts or to check in on friends’ adventures and send a few kudos. It’s the social side of Strava that I love most—but, like with any social platform, there are risks, especially around how much data users might be unintentionally sharing.

As a female runner, I grew up a part of an athletics club where safety was a given, surrounded by teammates and coaches. But moving to a large city and running as a solo runner was a wake-up call. Stories of incidents involving runners—more often than not female runners—made me rethink how I approach safety, including my online presence.

I’m not alone; for many of my female colleagues and female friends, we have to always be thinking of ways to stay safe while running in the dark (and even in broad daylight). Whether that be investing in gear that makes us feel safer like a pair of the best bone conduction headphones, or carefully selecting where and when to run.

It also means adjusting the privacy settings on our Strava profiles. I’m less concerned about collecting followers or kudos and more concerned with who I allow access to see my running activity details and training locations. It also isn’t just women who need to exercise caution, male users aren’t exempt from the potential dangers of running alone and posting personal data to an online platform like Strava.