Hey @Sport_Addicted,

Thanks for writing in!
To answer your question, unfortunately this setting cannot be changed. 

Most of our Features that involves dates (Training Plans, Training Log, Training Calendar, etc.) start the week on Monday opposed to Sunday. I do apologize for the inconvenience, however this feedback of what you would prefer is greatly appreciated.

I as well think this should be an option… I’m sorry that you don’t have a good enough programmer to make this happen, but for a topnotch programmer that should be a piece of cake… why would you want my week and why should I have to settle for your week…

Hi Bryant, I appreciate that this is probably something out of your hands but... As I have other activities on fixed days I'd like the training programme to work around them but cannot. It makes signing up for the advanced features a bit of a waste of time unfortunately. I will probably cancel my subscription when the trial period ends.

I agree this should be able to be changed, it is very odd that when all calendars start on a Monday or a Sunday both of these should be an option. why would you make so many great options for us but not on the Calendar. it makes it weird that my goals and options are different in Strava and the Garmin.

I too will cancel my subscription since this setting is not a feature of Strava app. I recently created my training schedule to begin on Sunday, and end on Saturday. Garmin allows me to change the start day of the week. How many unsatisfied subscribers will it take for Strava to appreciate the value of this setting?

In order to change the first day of the week i was looking for a way to do this in Strava. This shoukd be very basic functionality, but this is not implemented. Is Strava considering this in a future update? 

This should be allowed is not that complicated. Garmin has the option how come Strava doesn't offer this? So much for a customized experience, we pay a premium for it

It’s very inconvenient and weird to beginning of the week is Monday.

I would guess the reason that beginning of week starts on Monday for everyone has likely something to do with challenges and group leaderboards. That requires weeks to be aligned across all users. Remember that all the stats, including weekly mileage, are computed not in the app, individually for each user, but in the cloud on the servers. Making this customizable would likely make it more expensive (e.g. database joins would be more complex and touch more data).

I am not defending Strava's solution but attempting to at least reason about it.

Furthermore, I wanted to add that even though I am in the USA and my week starts on Sunday in the calendar, I strongly prefer my training week in Strava to start on Monday. It makes more sense for the following reason:

30-50% of my weekly volume comes from a single long run. Depending on weather I often shift my long run between Saturday and Sunday. If my training week started on Sunday, then inevitably some weeks would have two long runs while other weeks - no long runs, for example if I did a long run on Sunday followed by another long run on Saturday 6 days later. This would make weekly mileage quite uneven. But if my week starts on Monday, there is no such issue since every week still has one long run even if I shift it.

I would also really like the ability to change the start day. Garmin Connect allows you to configure Saturday, Sunday or Monday. I like to do my long run in Sunday not worrying about my weekly time targets. If nothing else you could lock this feature behind a pay wall.

Please make this an option to start weeks on Sunday

To me it is very weird that a calendar week starts on Sunday. That makes no sense considering that I go back to work on Monday and that weekend includes Saturday and Sunday. Even though I am in the USA, in my mind I always think of Monday as beginning of each week and Sunday being the last day. I always try to achieve my weekly mileage goal on Sunday.

Please make this an option to start weeks on Sunday

I was bothered to sign up for this community and write this comment because this feature request is necessary for my wellbeing. Please make it happen  

To counter your points, not everyone's work week begins on Monday. Some people don't work a paying job. The standard calendar starts the week on Sunday, and it makes sense for Strava to allow for people to adjust their weekly plans and goals to start on Sunday. I always think of Sunday as the start of a new week, whether or not I'm working on Monday.

Since you base your mental start to the week on Monday, are you saying that if you are on vacation, your week will start on a different day or not at all?

And not that it should matter, but I'll bring it up since you did. I was born and raised in the US, and I learned that Sunday is the first day of the week.

I asked Gemini (Google’s AI) about the reasons Strava’s week starts on Monday. Here is the full answer

Strava primarily sets Monday as the first day of the week for several key reasons, even though it causes some friction for users in regions that traditionally start their week on Sunday:

1. Alignment with ISO 8601 (International Standard): The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 8601 standard defines Monday as the first day of the week. While not universally adopted culturally, it's a common standard in many parts of the world, especially in Europe where a significant portion of Strava's user base resides.

2. Practicality for Training Schedules: For many athletes, particularly those with a traditional Monday-Friday work week, starting the training week on Monday makes logical sense.

   • It allows for long, demanding workouts to be placed on the weekend (Saturday or Sunday) as the "end" of the training week, utilizing the full non-work days.

   • Monday then becomes a natural start for a new training cycle, often beginning with recovery or easier sessions after the weekend's efforts. This aligns with the common "hard/easy" principle in endurance training.

   • If the week started on Sunday, and a long run was done on Sunday, followed by another long run the following Saturday, it could potentially skew weekly totals if not managed carefully, making it seem like two long runs were in one "week" and none in another, depending on how the app tracked it.

3. Consistency for Leaderboards and Challenges: This is a big one. For Strava's social features, like club leaderboards, challenges, and overall weekly stats, having a universal start day is crucial. If every user could customize their week start, it would make comparing weekly performance and calculating challenge results incredibly complex and potentially inaccurate across different users and regions. A fixed start day ensures everyone is operating on the same "week" for these collective features.

4. "Work Week" Mentality: For most of the working population globally, Monday marks the start of the "business week." This naturally influences how people perceive and plan their weekly activities, including their training.

While many users, especially in the US, wish Strava offered the option to change the start day to Sunday, Strava has generally maintained its Monday start. They've acknowledged the feedback but haven't implemented customization, likely due to the complexities it would introduce for their data processing, leaderboards, and maintaining a consistent user experience across their global platform.

The feature of optional start of week on Sunday is really missing!