signing up is easy, it is as simple as downloading the app on your chosen android or apple phone. Once the app has downloaded, decide if you want to sign in with facebook, email, google or apple id, this will start to build your profile.

There are two options when choosing to use strava, you have the free trial or strava summit.

Strava summit is a paid subscription that has premium benefits, it costs $60 a year if the subscription is paid annually, or $8 a month which is $96 a year.

The premium subscription allows for more data tracking, custom goals, training plans and many other features that the free version does not allow. However, if you are a weekend warrior just keen to track your running distance with ease, the free version will suit you just fine!

Don’t have a smartwatch to track activity? No worries! Strava allows you to track your activity with just your phone.

All you have to do is select the sport/activity you are about to begin and it will set up the tracking for you.

When you are ready to start, just hit the ‘START’ button. There are also a few options before starting your activity, on the left you can click the icon to show routes you have created and the app will give you direction cues during your run, in the middle is the button you select to choose your sport incase you selected the incorrect one before starting and the one on the right is a beacon, so someone can live track your route.

One of the biggest reasons to use strava is the motivation you get from others around you, it is a community of friends that want to push you as much as you want to push yourself. Connect to any contacts or facebook friends that have the app to start to build your community.

Some of your friends may be set to private, in that case, just send a request to follow their running page. One of the benefits of following people who live around you, is the added bonus of finding new running routes and challenging yourself against others in some friendly competition to see who can set the best pace.

Once you have set up your app, this is the section to use as your ‘social media’.

In the ‘following’ section, it will highlight your friends that have completed activity recently, showing their routes, times and any comments they wanted to make.

The ‘you’ section is focused towards what you have achieved and logged. Anything that you have completed will be added to here.

One of the best parts of strava is the ‘clubs’ feature. Just like running clubs that you can join in person in your local cities, clubs allow you to join running groups all around the world. Sharing routes, times or wins that you are proud of.

There are other options to post manual activity, photos or other resources you find useful or want to share with others in the plus button in your feed.