1 month down. How is your 2023 shaping up?

@Shant Thought you might be interested in this post. You shared some of your goals in our Tuesday Chat with Team Strava and we would love to hear how it's going and which Strava tools help you stay motivated and on track. 

Thank you @LouB and @mal !

My favorite Strava tools to keep me motivated this month:

• Challenges: I love collecting the running challenge trophies and these motivate me to do more. I also really like how the design was updated for each of the challenges. It looks really cool. I was motivated to run 300K, climb 2000m, and run daily mile challenge with Strava Japan Club. Can this type of trophy design be used for the weekly goal as well? 
  
  
• Profile: I like seeing a visualization of the number of miles I ran each week. I use this tool almost every day for years and compare it week over week to see if I am progressing in volume. One thought I just had here might be to add the average pace/mile and average bpm/mile for each week. I'll post it in the ideas page. 
  
  
• Routes: This has been a game-changer for me this year. I am using the route of the LA Marathon to prepare for the actual course on weekends. I track my run on my watch, but I carry my phone with me to follow the route of the race. It is really helpful to have Strava route map available for races. I will be using it again this weekend. I think this is another thing that is necessary for all races. Race routes should be plugged into Strava so athletes can use it for training or for races. 

Overall: training is going really well! Running every day, training for LA Marathon, and I just plugged in my annual goal into Strava. It is telling me that I need to run more to hit my goal 😂😅 I will try to hit the same volume this week.

How about you?  

Well for me I have a few goals

• 1200km distance this year
• Aim for a 5k and 10k PB
• Beat a local uphill segment PB
• Finish doing all 61 London Parkruns this year, half way there!
• Complete 1 Strava art route, I made a kite last year but haven't done it yet.

However the best goal is to have fun and enjoy it!

Thanks for sharing @VikK - you are crushing those goals already especially with that Parkrun goal. Impressive. Your last goal is definitely the best one I totally agree. Hope it's lots of fun marking those goals off your list for 2023. 

@Shant Thanks for sharing how it's going. Sounds like you're making good progress on your LA Marathon goal and finding some tools to keep you motivated and on track.

With all the daily running I wonder if you've taken a look at the Recover app for some pre and post run recovery exercises? There's an excellent Insider Journal article: Discover Recover that you might like. We'd love to hear more if you've used it and what has worked for you. Good luck in your preparations for the marathon next month. 👟

Thanks Eve!

I have used the Recover app, but not as consistently as I want. I need to do it more as prehab. 

Last year, I used Recover a month before CIM when I felt like I was about to get injured. The videos for hamstring specifically helped me and then I started doing the recovery exercises without using the app. I like how it allows athlete to select what they are interested in, but need to use it more to get better understanding. I wish the videos were integrated into Strava directly as a reminder to use the app. 

Currently, doing easy night walks as active recovery in between running days. 

Great THought