It's looks like an auto generated answer!

Product team continue to make ridiculous decisions and don't understand completely what is the audience of the service!

I got something too but at the same time nothing 😄

First replay:
"Thanks for writing in and thanks for your feedback about walks being added to running challenges.  Our Product Team is monitoring the feedback being provided in the Community Hub.  We don't have any update to share at this time, but if one becomes available, we will be sure to update that thread.
 
We appreciate your interest in this topic and thanks again for taking the time to share your input."

Second replay:
"Sorry but this request and discussion is beyond our Support team. While our team reads and responds to support inquiries, we don't speak to the direction of the product or policy, nor reasoning for product or policy decisions. We do appreciate the feedback though, and I've passed your comments along to the rest of our team."

April challenges are up. Still no change, and still no reasonable response from Strava. Time for another 1 star review on the App Store.

Very good idea, it was funny that this coincided with Strava asking for feedback. Another one Star for their collection

I've sent the same email too, this said I had to change the cancel subscription as I was automatically renewed as I didn't cancel it on time. Might still do the cancellation!

anyone else notice they removed the comment feature from the challenges this month?

Yeah I saw that and I thought that it's some kind of defect for me or something but it looks that Strava getting better and better... 😄 Such a progressive platform 😄

100% Agree! 

A run challenge is a run challenge! I saw that I had almost achieved the 100K challenge for the first time! Super excited I looked at my totals wondering how and found that it counts my walks. What a joke! When I finally get my run 100K in a month badge It's going to be a lie. This is something I've been working towards for years and when I am actually close to really being strong enough to run 100k the challenge is as good as gone. 

I started my running journey walking 100 miles for charity over a month. Very achievable! Running 100K takes alot of hard effort and training. Total rubbish.

Hi, as a runner I enter every month in a number of running challenges, like Half marathon for April, 100km running in April etc. 

To complete such challenge, you actually need to complete say a half marathon, i.e. 21.1km.

The challenge describe which activities are accepted to complete. Recently, also 'walking' is accepted to complete running challenges, which results in that my 'Half marathon for April' challenge got completed through a 23km walk activity.

Similarly, my 100km running in April got completed after only 55km of actual running activities.

Who would be able to correct this? Or is there a specifc reason why also walks count for running challenges?

KR Wim

There was a request a while ago (that had very little support, mind you) requesting to add walks to running challenges because for some people "walks feel like runs" for people with disabilities. The response to entirely eliminating running challenges was totally bizarre though. Walking challenges already existed, making a combined run/walk challenge for people who would use that, or encouraging people to record their walks as "runs" if they want to would all have been reasonable responses to that request, rather than eliminating running challenges on what's probably the biggest running app out there. A bunch of us have been asking for this to be changed back for a long time, with no response from Strava. I encourage you to cancel your subscription if you have one and leave a bad review on the App Store. People have also been emailing customer support. Not sure how else to try to get them to listen to us!

Agreed now i just don't use Strava for walks. So basically I use the app less than before. Seems counter intuativeof them if you ask me

Just noticed this today and it is not a good change.

On the original discussion someone suggested replicating the run challenges for walks. That could then include hikes.

For now I notice that hikes are not included in the run goals, so I'm moving all my walks to hikes.

But this  change was a bad one that was not thought through properly.

Please, Strava, reverse it and make a proper solution to the original request

It’s a bad idea to combine running with walking. They are quite separate activities. I’m now out of the walking challenge and will not renew my subscription if this is not changed back. I’ve emailed Strava, but no response that makes sense has been received. I’ll go back to the free Strava.

My subscription ran out on 1 June, and I refused to renew for this specific reason alone. Combining running and walking completely ruined the challenges for me and the badge streaks I’d built up. I’m now using free Strava which is fine as all my stats are on my Garmin app anyway. Strava refused to listen to this thread for some unknown reason and I know other people are also voting with their feet.

I agree with all the sentiments expressed, although I understand the original intent of expanding inclusion in the running challenges the feature enhancement has definitely been a net negative for end user value. At a minimum Strava can add more walk challenges, or more total activity minute challenges, if inclusivity is the goal. It's fair that folks that do more walking than running might feel less valued since there has always been more running challenges than walking. Why was that not the first enhancement instead of diluting the run challenges? Also, as runprime mentioned, there is materially no difference in a user labeling their activity a run vs including walks in the challenges if the end user just wants to complete the running challenge. They might as well fudge their activities vs ruining the run challenges for the hundreds of thousands of runners on this app. Although hikes count towards walking challenges, I feel those are significantly more similar activities than running vs walking. My point being it doesn't always make sense to just expand activities that count for challenges, put some rigor into whether it makes sense.

I strongly feel this enhancement needs to rolled back, it has completely diluted my strava experience.

So, since Strava decided that running and walking are the same thing, I am not taking part in any challenges at all. Hope all the brands that run their promotion activities will pull out and make revenue so small for Strava that it will go back to a sport is a sport running and walking are 2 different sports. 

I really miss the running challenges that are no longer there, that had longer distances, and were JUST running.

Suggestions:
- Have 100k, 200k, 2000m vert running challenges where running and trail running count
- Have separate walking/hiking challenges where only walking counts. 50k, 100k, 1000m and 2000m vert perhaps

I can't be the only one who wants my running to only count for running challenges and my walking for walking ones.

Why is this important? Personally when I am training for a race and I am doing lot of running I want to work towards running challenges and some of them to actually be hard. I don't want my village dog walks to also count, as it makes them too easy!

I’d like to see runs used towards running only challenges, in which I’ve used my HRM.  I cannot currently see a way to add it as gear.  

I also cannot see 200km and 300km monthly running only challenges.  I’ve searched the other ideas etc on this site and I cannot actually see Stravas response to the question, are they coming back?  Do you need another 8 months to think about it?  

thanks 

@Jane11 @Scout 

I got this response: “I don't have any updates on Challenges that I can provide at this time”

So this has not even been considered by Strava yet?  How much longer do you think it will be?  What is the normal time for a formal response (yes or no answer)?  I think the first time this issue was raised was about 8 months ago. 

Did the same thing

As it seems Strava has lost the plot, can you please add run to the walk challenge I fear this is very unbalanced… I have not joined a single running challenge and will delete my subscription and profile now that I have almost finish updating Garmin. I’d be sad to leave but I don’t know why I should stay since you ate mixing sports only one way!

I agree completely with the desire to be inclusive, however since 'walk' is also counted as a separate, distinct activity anyway, I feel like this is going unnecessarily far. I mean, you can't count a bike ride as part of a run challenge (no, don't go there about people how don't change their default activity LOL), so why does a walk count as a run when it clearly isn't?

"I strongly feel this enhancement needs to rolled back, it has completely diluted my strava experience."
+1, definitely.

@Scout @Jane11 

In regards to stopping walking activities being included within running totals. 

Please can you confirm:

* Has this been considered by Strava yet?  

* If it has, what is the official decision?

* If not, how much longer do you think it will be?  

* What is the normal time for a formal response (definitive answer)?  

Thanks in advance

I totally agree here. I was so excited to try and run 100km this month, only to be disappointed when I got the badge after having run 70km or so and having a couple walks. A walk is absolutely not a run. Please separate these! There are separate walking challenges anyway, and running does not count towards those either as far as I know.

A hike does not count towards running challenges, so until this is fixed, I guess I will mark my walks as hikes instead. Or not track walking at all, because this is just stupid.