PROJECT PAGE
When you request a download of all your personal data from Strava, as well as getting a .gpx file of every activity you have ever uploaded (see my other Strava post if you’re interested to see what I used that data for), you also get a summary spreadsheet of all your activities with some key stats. Some useful (average speed, length, duration) and some less useful (the moonphase and dewpoint at the time of recording to name a few).
Since I had all the data to hand I thought it would be a fun exercise to summarise and visualise this in a way that makes my sporting achievements seem just a little more impressive.
At the time of writing I have scaled Mount Everest 21 times, I have cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats’ over 11 times and I have run just under 53 marathons. Granted this has all been cumulatively over 668 individual activities
I started out using Strava exclusively for cycling and while I dabbled in running, the switch to running started during lockdown and really took off in 2021. The plot here shows how the proportions of running and cycling have changed over the last decade in terms of time spent doing these activities. The distance version of this chart favours cycling slightly more (and almost entirely excludes any walking, hiking or other workouts I may have done) however I feel time spent is more representative.
My preference for running was really kicked off by going to ParkRun with my parents. The weekly 5k was a fantastic way for me to be overly competitive with myself. As a result I'd love to be able to say my times have been improving with more regular running. Initially, and indeed looking at the general trend it seems I'm getting slower although this doesn't take into account the increasing number of 5k runs I have completed each year. While the overall average time at this distances decreasing my fastest times remain reasonably consistent (at least for now!)
My increasing preference for running can be seen a little more clearly below with a much higher density of activities increasing from 2020 onwards. Again there is a very slight decrease in average speed over this time however given that the distance I have been running has also increased this isn't entirely unexpected.
Unfortunately I haven't been running enough to provide a large enough dataset from which to draw any significant conclusions, but the intention with this project was to focus on the process rather than the result. I've really enjoyed getting to grips with the ggplot2 package in R and will hopefully be able to apply these skills to more projects in the future.
