Strava adds AI training plans
Also, the beginning of marathon training season and running "style."
Programming note: I’ve decided to start writing this newsletter in the style of a weekly column. I give my take on topical running news + observations about running culture + tidbits from my own training.
If I’m being totally honest, Money Stuff by Matt Levine (Bloomberg) is the biggest inspiration in terms of format (and aspirationally, style and wit). If you are a reader of Matt Levine’s excellent work, and have somehow stumbled upon this newsletter, I apologize for the striking similarities in structure. I hope you’ll bear with me until I find my own distinctive style.
Let’s begin.
Strava acquires Runna
This week, Strava announced its intent to acquire Runna, “a UK-headquartered tech company developing personalized running training plans and coaching.” As a paying customer of both, I honestly don’t know how I feel yet. But as I always say, when in doubt, head to Reddit.1
The Runna executive team (bravely) posted on their Reddit channel after the acquisition announcement, implicitly inviting comment from their community. Most of the replies were civil in nature — congratulatory, but with a tinge of melancholy. Runna users are worried about: (1) losing the standalone app, (2) paying more for the same product (if it gets folded into Strava Premium), and (3) the potential degradation of customer service (which Runna allegedly excels at, and Strava allegedly is terrible at).
All of which are valid concerns, but I was particularly struck at the Runna team’s appeasing responses (screenshots below). I highly doubt that Strava would agree to keep Runna entirely independent forever, and even if the two teams had agreed in principle to that, it would surprise me if that was codified in any of the acquisition documents. Based on my internet sleuthing, it does seem like there is an agreement in place to keep Runna independent for two years (based on this comment from Runna’s principal product manager). This pre-set term seems more plausible to me, and likely in-line with how long Strava is asking the current Runna management team to stay on to ease the transition (and earn a nice bonus), both common negotiating points in M&A transactions.
Taking a step back to examine the motivations behind the transaction: Strava, as the self-proclaimed “world’s largest fitness community,” seems to struggle somewhat with monetizing its significant user base. Third-party estimates of Strava revenues place it in the ballpark of ~$300M in 2024, give or take, and most of it reportedly comes from Strava Premium subscriptions. By my math2, I’d estimate that Strava has 2-3 million paying subscribers, which would only account for less than 2% of its total user base of 150 million registered users. This is perhaps unsurprising because many of its core features — e.g., the social platform and recording activity through the app — are free to use. Some of Strava’s paid features are great (their route builder, and even their grade-adjusted pace estimates come to mind), and some are downright terrible (AI-generated “personalized insights” on activities). In my opinion, there are zero of Strava’s paid features I couldn’t live without.
On the other hand, Runna’s entire active user base are paying customers — I am one of them! The product works well, and people are willing to part ways with $20/month or $120/year to use it. They have a valuable and engaged customer base (probably ~100K paying subscribers, give or take).3
Anyways, my grand hypothesis is that Strava is focusing on improving user monetization by bolstering its paid consumer services segment and becoming more of a vertically integrated product. Strava has long been a central hub within the broader fitness community, with hundreds of integrations to third party apps (like Training Peaks) and hardware (like Garmin, Coros, Wahoo, etc.) that supplement Strava’s core services. As Strava builds or acquires its own ancillary capabilities (that it makes money on!), one could imagine a future where they start killing connections to third party apps (which they don’t make money on!).45 And in my mind, that would be a bad thing for users — not because Runna itself is bad (quite the opposite, as I mentioned above, I am a fan and patron of the service), but because there would be less user choice. Strava explicitly mentions that even with their acquisition of Runna, they remain “firmly committed to maintaining this role as the open platform for fitness and to supporting all developers, alongside Runna.” Color me skeptical, but that is hardly a binding statement.
Anyways, enough with the doom and gloom, what we all really want to know is whether Strava will invest in new verticals to extend the Runna name archetype (Swimma? Cycla? Skiia? The possibilites are endless).
You can just do things
As I approach ten years in the rat race (aka working a desk job), I increasingly see examples of people my age who have a similar background to me, but have broken out of the contained world of W2 employment. A small but growing population of my prior classmates and colleagues are now founders of their own companies, business owners, content creators, independent consultants. Even five years ago, I naively didn’t think those pursuits were plausible for your average corporate desk jockey.
I guess the life lesson here is that you can just do things. In Silicon Valley (or perhaps more precisely, Tech Twitter), the buzzword is “Agency.” People who have copious amounts of Agency can figure out what needs to be done and how to execute those goals, even if it is extremely difficult or against conventional wisdom.
I’m reminded of this truism every time marathon training season starts. My local marathon race is The San Francisco Marathon, which usually takes place in July, and training groups geared towards that race are commencing right about now (shoutout Run365!). For the newcomers that put in the work, and perhaps a lucky few who don’t, they will be among the thousands of first time marathoners who cross the Embarcadero finish line in July. Growing up as a swimmer, I favored sprint distance events which lasted a minute at most. I also have a bad ankle from one too many sprains playing basketball as a kid. The thought of running for 3+ hours at 80-90% of max HR seemed absolutely mental to me.6 And yet, here I stand a 2x marathoner. You can just do things. Even if they seem impossible at first.
Yuppie runner starter pack
Look, it’s criminal to talk about a “starter pack” online and not include a visual.7 Instead I will direct you to this excellent Instagram video depicting the modern day yuppie (derogatory) runner starter pack.
We all know the type: Ciele hat, Oakley sunglasses, Tracksmith / Bandit apparel, carbon plated Nikes, Garmin + HR strap, and a hydration vest — all to run 3 miles at conversational pace. It’s not that I have any aversion to amateur runners (like myself!) buying nice gear (double hands raised!). It’s just that suiting up in this specific uniform — with all the bells and whistles — seems like a lot of wasted movement for a presumably short and easy weekday effort. It seems more performative than utilitarian. The tools do not fit the job at hand.
I also don’t get the vibe that the running community at large is ready to poke fun at themselves for all this brand-flaunting, aesthetic-chasing behavior. Perhaps we’re not yet at that point in the hype cycle. (At least the cycling community is self-aware to some degree — look no further than the popular subreddit called r/BicyclingCircleJerk.)
Thank you for joining me in my highly unscientific analysis of modern day running style. It is a topic I deeply care about, and also a topic in which I have zero professional insight (my day job is probably the furthest you could get from the “style” and “fashion”). In this instance, I admit that I am merely a crotchety old man, sitting on my porch, shouting in the wind. I hope you can excuse the somewhat bitter tone; I am certainly not projecting my own insecurities about “doin’ too much” (helpful visual below - h/t ash callaghan's excellent YouTube channel) to dress myself for a run, or spending too much money on gear…
Strava’s CEO dropped a cheeky hint at the Runna acquisition a week before the announcement — on Reddit!
If we assume ~90% of Strava revenues are generated by subscriptions (placing subscription revenue at ~$270M), and there is a roughly equal split in monthly vs annual subscriptions (placing average annual revenue per subscription at ~$112), we can infer that there are roughly 2.4M paying Strava Premium users.
My personal ruminations: Runna’s ideal customer profile probably ranges from true beginners to intermediate level runners who want personalized training without paying an actual run coach (I’d place monthly costs at ~5x or more for a run coach vs Runna).
I am unsure if Strava charges developers for any API calls, and what those economic arrangements would look like. I haven’t read about anything to that effect online.
Strava’s API agreement does not allow for third party developers to “compete with or replicate Strava functionality.”
There is certainly no imperative to going “balls to the wall” as it were, in a marathon race. Alas, that is how I chose to race my last marathon. It took me ~3 weeks to feel like myself again, but I got a 1 hour PR which means it was worth it…right?
