Heart of a Champion - Award for Relative Effort on Segments

[Shant]

I think it will be great for Strava to add Heart of a Champion award for relative effort on segments. 

Current Functionality: 

Strava currently awards the fastest times and the number of efforts on segments. There are no awards for highest relative effort on segments. 

Proposed Functionality: 

The person who works the hardest based on relative effort wins the Heart of a Champion award on a leveled playing field. Reset the award every year on a rolling basis from when the highest relative effort is set. This will be great for all types of competitions - 100, 200, 400, 800, 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, marathons, ultras, and centuries. Who pushed themselves the hardest?

Why is this important: 

The award for the highest relative effort for the segment equalizes competition based on the maximum heart rate of each individual. Athletes should know that they can win a segment on effort and not only on fast times. 

Potential Issues: 

We would be pushing people to hit close to their max. Need to think about how to balance a new challenge with the safety of the athlete. Athletes shouldn't do max efforts all the time. 

[anchskier]

This wouldn't really be possible, at least not equally across the field, since relative effort data would only be available for a small percentage of those participating in the segments or challenges.  Most people do not use HR or power or other things on their activities.  

[Shant]

Do we have data on the number of people using Strava without a watch or HRM? 

Based on what I could find online, there are 60 million Garmin users worldwide, 16.6 million own a Garmin watch and Apple Watch has 100 million users worldwide as of 2021. There are more across the other companies. 

I think these are the users most likely to value and use Strava for segments/relative effort data. 

[anchskier]

@Shant - Just because people use a Garmin doesn't mean they measure HR.  Many don't want that information posted even if they record it.  A simple look through segment leaderboards shows a lot of people, even in the top 10, don't measure/report HR.  Trying to base a leaderboard off of relative effort would be excluding a large percentage of those competing on the segments, making the results fairly meaningless.  

[Shant]

Got it. Just to clarify on leaderboards, 

I'm not saying to replace the current leaderboard competitions based on fastest times on a segment.

I'm just suggesting to add a new award for the people who do share their HR data and consider having a separate leaderboard for that award. That way, the new award is not based on the fastest athlete (who might have an advantage based on their age and experience), but the hardest-working athlete on the segment who could be anyone. 

Even the athletes who don't want to share their HR data could check the leaderboard and know that they were the hardest working athlete on that segment. 

[Soren]

Interesting discussion here, thanks for submitting your idea, Shant. This idea has been reviewed by our moderation team and is now open to voting.

[Shant]

Thanks Soren! 

Do you know how many users on Strava use watches or heart rate monitors to track their activity? I understand if can't respond and this is internal company data only. Just curious for the purpose of this convo. 

[Soren]

I don't have access to that data, sorry! I'd be equally curious.