Help & FAQ

A running app built around virtual routes — famous paths around the world, from a few hundred kilometres to continent spanning thousands of kilometres.

You pick a route, keep running the way you normally do, and every kilometre you log moves you further along the virtual route, a long-term goal that keeps you motivated and inspired for years.

No. Every run counts no matter where in the world you do it. The route is virtual — the only thing that matters is the distance you cover.

Press Connect with Strava on the front page and approve the connection. We create your account from your Strava profile, so there is no separate password to remember.

Once you are connected we start pulling in your running history, and you can pick your first route straight away.

Go to All routes, pick a route you like and press Do route. Your progress starts counting from the day you start the route, and your dashboard switches to showing that route's map and progress.

New accounts go to the front of the refresh queue and we page through your entire Strava history, which can take a while for someone with years of activities behind them. You can pick a route and look around in the meantime — the numbers fill in as the import progresses.

From Strava. We read the distance and start date of your activities and store one daily total per day. Nothing else about your activities is stored.

Activities that are done on foot and have a distance greater than zero: Run, Trail run, Walk, Hike and Virtual run. Rides, swims and other sports do not count towards your route progress.

Roughly once a day. Routes and groups are then recalculated from that new data, so a run usually appears within a day of uploading it to Strava.

Almost certainly not. Give it up to a day. If your milage still has not moved after that, check that your trial or subscription has not expired (we stop refreshing expired accounts) and that In the Long Run is still an authorised app in your Strava settings. If both look fine, email [email protected].

Everything you run from your route's start date onwards, including runs you did earlier the same day you started it. Runs from before the start date count towards your overall stats and charts, but not towards that route.

Yes. On your active route, press the edit icon next to the start date and pick a new one. Your route distance is recalculated immediately from all your milage on and after the new date, so you can backdate a route to a January the 1st or to the day you actually started.

Yes. Open the account menu in the top right corner and switch the unit between kilometres and miles. The choice is stored in your browser, so set it once per device.

One. If you start a new route while another one is active, we ask whether you want to switch. Switching stops the current route and its progress is not kept, so only switch if you are sure.

The route is marked as completed with an end date, you get a congratulations message and a shareable map of the whole journey, and — if we have your email address — a route completion email. Completed routes stay under My routes, and you are free to start a new one or run the same route again.

Yes, press Stop route. Note that stopping a route removes it and the progress recorded on it. Your daily milage itself is never deleted, so a new route simply starts counting again from its own start date.

Selected routes have Points of interest along the route — cities, mountains and landmarks you would pass in real life. They unlock as you go: only the ones you have already run past are shown, so the map fills up as you progress. Click a marker for a short description. Not every route has them yet.

Group maps show them too, unlocked by the group's progress: the leader's distance in a race, everybody's distances added together in a relay.

If you would rather look at the route on its own, the Hide points of interest button in the top left corner of the map takes them off, and the same button brings them back.

Point of interest data comes from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0) and the descriptions from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), with a link to the source article in each popup.

We would love to! Send the route to [email protected] with as much detail as you can — where it starts and ends, gps coordinates, what it follows, any official name — so that we can find the route and add it.

A shared route that several runners work on together. Groups come in two flavours, race and relay, and you choose which when you create the group.

• Race — everyone runs the same route side by side. Each participant has their own position on the map, and the group's progress is that of whoever has come the furthest.
• Relay — everyone pulls in the same direction. All participants' distances are added together, so the group moves along the route as one.

1. Go to Groups
2. Press Create new group, give it a name, pick race or relay and choose a route.
3. Tap the Copy invitation link button on the group page and send that link to whoever you want to join. The link contains an invite key, and anyone with it can join the group — so only share it with the people you have in mind.

From the moment the group is created. Every participant's daily milage from that date onwards counts, including milage run before they joined, as long as it is after the group's start date.

No. Your personal route and any groups you are in are counted separately from the same daily milage. Running one kilometre moves you forward on both.

Participants can leave a group whenever they want, and the group owner can remove other participants or delete the group entirely. The only exception is that the sole owner cannot leave — delete the group instead, or make somebody else an owner first.

Yes, unlike with the personal routes you can take part in many group routes at the same time.

Every new account gets a 90 day free trial with everything included. After that a subscription costs $25 a year.

Detailed maps, monthly progress emails, group routes, long term running inspiration and motivation — and you keep an independent, ad-free app alive.

Your account and your data stay as they are, but we stop fetching new milage from Strava, so your route and group progress freeze where they were. Subscribing starts the updates again, and the milage from the meantime is picked up on the next refresh.

Use the Subscribe page to start a subscription. Once you are subscribed, Manage subscription in your account menu opens the payment portal where you can update your card or cancel. Payments are handled by Stripe — we never see your card details.

• A welcome email when you first add your email address.
• A monthly progress report, at most once every 31 days.
• A congratulations email when you complete a route.

Strava does not share it with us, so we have to ask. It is optional — the app works just fine without it, you just will not get progress reports or route completion emails.

Open the account menu, choose Profile and untick the monthly report option. You can also remove your email address entirely.

Only what we need to work out your daily totals: the distance, sport type and start date of your activities. We do not store your GPS traces, activity names, heart rate, pace or anything else, and we never post anything to your Strava account.

You. Your dashboard, milage and personal routes are private to your account. In a group, participants can see each other's names, avatars and distances — that is the point of a group — and anyone holding the invite link can see the group page.

Sharing is always something you do on purpose: the share button builds an image of your progress that you can then post wherever you like.

Open the account menu and choose Delete account. That removes your profile, your milage, your routes and your group memberships, cancels any active subscription and disconnects the app from Strava on your behalf. It cannot be undone.

You can also revoke our access from Strava's own settings at any time; without it we can no longer fetch new milage for you.

Email [email protected] and tell us what you were doing and what you expected to see. Screenshots help.

We are on Instagram and there is a Strava club for everyone using the app. Both are linked at the bottom of every page.