In doing RAPHA500 I posted screenshots of my progress on Instagram and realized I had to use STRAVA. People ask me now and then why I don’t use the app, why all my runs are set to private and why I don’t accept friend requests.

Thing is, I like to keep my training private. In a world with oversharing and toxic positivity, my training log can’t help but send the wrong message. I do hard and easy sessions. Short and long. Morning, daytime and night sessions. I train with elites and amateurs alike. I just hate people jumping to conclusions without getting the full picture – and that’s a picture I just don’t feel like painting.

There’s also an issue of too-much-data. Garmin Connect. TrainingPeaks. UltraPacer. Then comes STRAVA. I somehow had it still on my phone by late 2025 but it felt like a relationship with a friend from childhood with whom you didn’t have anything to do anymore but didn’t unfollow on SM. Then by late 2025 came the lawsuit against Garmin and, for a short period of time, STRAVA decided to stop syncing with Garmin (later rolled back on this decision, of course). That was my tipping point. Uninstall it and never looked back.

But then came RAPHA. No problem getting back on the wagon. As any social-media platform, it was as easy as saying one-two-three. Installed it. Logged in. Boom! Everything just as I left it.

Now that the challenge has come and gone, I’ve uninstalled it again. Guess I’ll see it again back in December.

Last but not least, all these platforms grab too much of my attention and it feels like instead of them serving me, I end up serving them.