Colin Sheridan: If you didn't tell Strava, did you even go for a run? 

Once you’ve started telling your story, it’s very hard to stop. Pic: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

There was a time when exercise was a private business. You went for a run, you came home, you drank a glass of water like a saint, and maybe you told one person about it if they asked. Now, if a tree falls in the forest and it isn’t uploaded to Strava, did it even happen? Sweat, in 2026, is only truly real once it has been turned into a map, a set of splits, and a small orange line that politely but firmly informs the world that you were out there, doing something virtuous, while other people were still negotiating with the snooze button.

Somewhere along the way, Strava didn’t just become a fitness app. It became the fitness app. The town square. The confessional. The place where cyclists, runners, swimmers, walkers, hikers, triathletes, and people who mainly just like nice graphs all gather to see and be seen. Fitbit counts your steps. Apple watches your pulse. Garmin tracks you like a particularly intense parole officer. But Strava? Strava tells a story. And more importantly, it lets other people watch that story unfold, kilometre by kilometre, in real time or painful replay.