Normalize Rest Days on Strava

A few months ago on the podcast I had a conversation with my good friend Simon Freeman, publisher of Like the Wind magazine, about the importance of making time for quiet, creating space for ourselves, and slowing down in both running and in life. In that episode we got on the topic of how platforms like Instagram and Strava glorify work and ignore rest, as if the former is all that matters in the pursuit of performance. For example: You can log virtually any and all manner of activity on Strava, from running to cycling to swimming to weight training to walking to the mailbox and back to yoga to canoeing to kite-surfing, and even badminton, for crissakes. But you cannot log a rest day—at least not intuitively or “officially,” anyway. But rest is an important part of training, right? I believe so, as does any experienced coach or athlete worth their salt.

Needless to say, this has generated some good dialogue, so, along with longtime shakeout reader Henrik Wist, we’re starting a little movement that attempts to normalize rest days. Here’s how to join it: If you’re on Strava, manually add a generic “workout” with a duration of 00:00:00 to denote whenever you’re taking a rest day. (I just started doing this last week.) It’s our hope that if enough people start doing this Strava will create an easy option for athletes to share a big fat zero (along with whatever other notes/details/photos you might want to share) in their “activity” feeds.