Here’s the thing that grinds my gears: I ran a 3:01 marathon a few months back. I’d say decent, right? Then I took some time to recover like a normal human being, kept training, and stayed active. I’m not marathon-fit anymore, but I’m fit AF. Healthy. Strong. Could probably hop into a marathon tomorrow and run somewhere within 10-20 minutes of that 3:01 time, and it wouldn’t turn into a complete disaster.
And my Strava fitness score? Dropped from 80 to 40 in a month. That’s 50%. FIFTY PERCENT.
According to Strava, I’m literally half the man runner I used to be (cue up Stone Temple Pilots – Creep for you 90s folks).
But half. Half?! HALF??!?!?!?!? That’s diabolical.
Like, do they think I’ve been sitting on the couch eating Doritos for weeks? Come on!
Besides me being annoyed with some arbitrary number by a Silicon Valley fitness app AI Algorithm, if you don’t understand how fitness actually works—if you haven’t been through enough training cycles to know your own body—this kind of drop will freak you the hell out. You’ll see that number plummet and think you’re falling apart. You’ll panic and skip rest weeks. You’ll refuse to take an off-season because watching that score drop feels like watching your fitness die in real time.
And that’s dangerous for your training and mental health. I’ve seen it with the runners I coach, and it’s like talking someone off a ledge. Not cool, Strava.
This needs to stop.
I’ll say it again, Strava’s fitness score is just an algorithm. It doesn’t know you slept like garbage. It doesn’t know you’re managing life stress. It doesn’t give a damn that showing up for that easy run took more mental fortitude than your last tempo workout. It just sees: less overall load (volume x intensity x timeframe) = you’re getting weak.
But that’s not how being a functional human athlete works.
The real fitness is in showing up consistently and understanding that peaks and valleys are part of the process. It’s knowing that sometimes backing off is the actual training.
So yeah, Strava can tell me I’m 50% less fit all it wants. But I’m out here running, lifting, being healthier, not getting injured, and generally enjoying the downtime that comes post-racing. And I’m pretty sure I’m winning.
Question for you – If Strava vanished tomorrow, would your fitness suddenly disappear with it—or would you finally realise you were fine the whole time?
PS – I went deeper down the Strava/Smart Watch AI coaching rabbit hole and explored how we got here with all these numbers causing anxiety and what we can actually do about it. Check it out here.
