should runners rethink Strava for safety reasons?

What about checking-in at locations on Facebook and Instagram? They’ll have to give that up for safety reasons too.

Unless there's details I'm unaware of I don't see how this has anything to do with posting on Strava, nor would provide any logical reason to change how someone posts on Strava.

Avoiding Strava all-together does nothing to mitigate the factors that led to this tragedy.

Off course it's still good to use common sense precaution with Strava -hide a significant radius around all start and stop locations, consider timing of posting, making certain things private, etc.

Great idea. But then we’ll have all the miserable pos “fans” on here complaining about why their favorite pro runner they want to know more about won’t post all their secrets training sessions, claim they’re “bad for the sport”. Can’t win it all, can ya?

Has there ever been an instance of anyone being stalked on Strava and then being attacked?

I feel confident that this is NOT what happened to the woman in Athens.

jesus, people are still doing that? who?

you're right, it was absolutely not what happened in the Athens case.

But the incident led to a conversation about safety for female runners in general and Strava was mentioned as it can reveal locations, some remote, which might not be the best idea to have out there for public consumption.

obviously the easy solution is to make Strava private, only accesable to close friends and coaches.

Keep it private and only let people you a really know in real life see it. That should take care of it. I have no desire for anyone else to see my activities or to see the activities of anyone I don't speak with regularly.

I had non-running friend away on business in some random East Coast city mention a team ran by him. I was curious which team, within 5 minutes looking at his address, Strava segment close, the daily leaderboard, and about 4 of the runners had public profiles so it was that easy to figure out.

I don't anything can be done with that and nice now that Strava blocks out your start and end by default. Many times someone passes me etc and just being curious I can find them on Strava what kind of pace and miles they're doing.

Sounds like victim blaming to me. Why should women be denied the pleasure of posting their Strava runs? Maybe you think they should only leave the house with a male chaperone and covered up?

I think these tend to be public places whereas running routes are more remote. But it's still a valid point.

I hate the idea of some rando finding out stuff about me like that. Fortunately, you can chose to not appear on the Fly-by.

Some women I know don't post the maps of their routes for safety reasons. I guess you can also omit the start and finish location- maybe eliminate the first and last 1/2 mile- mile.

Anything like this can lead to danger and that's just sad.

I think y’all should play hide-and-seek with the killers. Predator (1986) style. See the training runs as cross training, tactical, tough mud sessions, and see your stalkers driven before you before you hear their mortal lamentations

This murder has nothing to do with Strava. Has there been a single article linking the two? Did the victim even have a Strava account?

Isn’t that what happened in that female pro cyclist’s murder?

most people have A VERY DIFFICULT TIME cutting out behavior that feeds/fuels their attention-seeking behavior. They'll stay on Strava even if it's unsafe.

Right. It's smart to be prudent about what you post online, but is there any indication that the killer was specifically targeting her via online stalking? And via Strava, in particular?

I have all my runs public. Makes people real confused when I spend all week jogging 10 min miles then drop a 15 5k. I have the flyby feature on too so I can replay the race day jostling from the comfort of my home. I like seeing all the little avatars racing around the course.

I think it's been mostly said here, but I did have something pop up on Strava that I thought was a little odd. I ran a workout on the local track and there were a few people doing the same. It just so happened that my workout and another guys workout lined up pretty close to the point where we were occasionally running fairly close together. I had no idea who this guy was, like I said, it was all just coincidence that we ran for at least a few minutes together.

I posted my workout and it AUTOMATICALLY put this guy into my workout as part of my "group". Now for me that's no big deal, we both commented on each other's workout and moved on. Totally normal and nice guy. But I could see how someone could easily run with or near someone just to have Strava automatically connect them with that person.

This might just be another privacy function people will want to turn off that is automatically on.