Every subscription service now seems to do a ‘wrapped’ end of year retrospective. Strava is no different.
Given these stats, I should be at 800km of running by the end of the year. I’ve been to the gym 167 times so far in 2023. Sometimes I run on the treadmill there instead of outside, so in total I think I’ve had around 300 days active.
I can go a lot harder than this, as evidenced by what happened in 2022 when I ramped up my training too fast and ended up in hospital. It’s also the reason my Strava profile is private: I’m a bit too competitive.
This may seem like a humblebrag, but it’s actually a bit of a curse. I’m working on it. I have too, as I’m getting older (43 this month!) so I really should have learned that the only person I’m competing with is myself.
That being said, targets are good. So 1,000km feels like a good number to aim for in terms of cumulative running distance in 2024!
What I’m thankful for is that I had zero injuries in 2023 that stopped me from doing exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind.
TL;DR: would a Fediverse instance for fitness / exercise be popular enough to be sustainable? How would it work? More questions at the end of the post!
As I mentioned on this blog recently, I’ve rejoined Strava. It’s pretty much the go-to social network for people into various types of fitness and exercise, with most of my network either being runners (like me), cyclists, or swimmers. Or, of course, a combination of all of this and more.
I’m wondering whether a federated version of the social elements based on a Fediverse platform might be interesting to people. By the results of a casual question via Mastodon this afternoon, I think it might…
Some history and context
In the early days of social networks, there was a trend of lifestreaming, where you’d literally share a firehouse of everything you were up to, everywhere. So if you did exercise every day, that would go on (for example) your Twitter stream, along with books you were reading, thoughts you were having, etc.
We’re in a different environment these days, with more awareness of privacy concerns, and even general-purpose social networks tending to skew towards certain types of content. For example, Twitter is more more about sharing news and politics than a decade ago. Instagram is less about generic ‘photo sharing’, more about following influencers and (from what I gather) buying what they recommend.
The situation on the Fediverse is different. This is mainly because there are not only lots of different kinds of software platform that make it up, but many different instances of each platform within the wider network. Niche interests for geeks are well catered for, and you can find everything from instances for people interested in co-operatives (like social.coop which I’m on), people into Open Source software (like fosstodon.org which I used to be on), to people interested in movies and obsolete technology (like laserdisc.party!)
What there seems to be an absolute dearth of, however, are instances related to fitness and exercise. This is a real shame, as I know there’s plenty of people tracking their activity in a multitude of different ways. Having a community around you to both compete with and encourage you is important. It’s about recognition of effort — which you don’t just get when you’re using an app that merely tracks your activity.
Some features we’d need
Strava is, as far as I’m aware, the mostly widely used social network related to fitness and exercise. I use it by connecting my Garmin account, which takes data from my smartwatch, to Strava. This is posted to a feed (with various privacy controls) whereby connections can ‘give kudos’ and/or comment on each activity. There are competitive elements based on sections, which is motivating. But just someone giving you a thumbs-up for having done the longest run you’ve ever done is sometimes enough.
While it would replicate everything that Strava provides, I’m wondering whether a specific Fediverse instance for fitness / exercise would be of interest to people? I can certainly see myself having an account where I just post such things and have discussions with others about both activities and gear.
It could just start with people posting whatever they feel comfortable sharing. For example, Strava automatically puts a geofence around my home address for privacy, so I would probably share this kind of thing that can be generated by my Garmin app:
I don’t tend to take my phone running, so I don’t take photos, but you can imagine that being a sweaty selfie!
Questions
The things I yet to figure out are:
Is it worth my time to pursue this?
Who else might be interested in moderation?
Which platform would we use?
What features do we need to turn on/off?
Which languages would we support?
How can we make it welcoming to people of all types, while allowing for an element of competition?
Are there any custom features which would help differentiate it from just a vanilla Fediverse instance?
Answers and suggestions welcome in the comments below! 🏃 🚴 🏊
I’m really enjoying discovering new blogs and reading other people’s posts tagged with the #100DaysToOffload. One I came across jist over a month ago has had a big impact on my approach to exercise.
In this post, Graham Williams (who goes by the handle ‘gray’) talks about experimenting with a month of using the MAF approach to his training.
There’s no need for a lot of waffle here. We’re looking to train in a low HR zone – I need to know my targets. This is how you get that:
Subtract your age from 180, then modify from one of the categories listed. For me this worked out to be 180 – 34 = 146 (Training consistently for ~ 2 years without injury).
Graham Williams
I’m five years older than Graham, so my target should be 141. By way of context, my heart rate has often been around 160-165bpm when finishing exercise.
The creator of this system, Phil Maffetone, suggests that you may add 5 to your target heart rate “if you are a competitive athlete training for more than a year without issues”. I’m not a competitive athlete, but I’ve been doing regular exercise ever since I can remember, so I decided that I’d aim to stay in the 141-146 range during exercise.
I have an Amazfit Bip smartwatch which allows me to see my heart rate in realtime while I run. While it’s not as accurate as a chest strap, I’ll not be buying or wearing one of those anytime soon, so it’s the best I’ve got for now.
It’s been almost a month since trying this approach and, looking at my data (11 runs) I can see that I’m running slower, sometimes much slower, as heart rate depends on multiple factors. For example, when we were on holiday in Devon, it was hotter and I was drinking more alcohol.
On average, this approach has slowed down my average pace by ~20 seconds per kilometre, which is significant. I can feel it while running, wanting to go a bit faster, as this method doesn’t really get the endorphins flowing.
What it does do, however, is ensure that I’m not exhausted after running first thing in the morning. I tend to be hard on myself, so the MAF approach looks like a simple way to have a more sustainable approach to my exercise regime.
