In the past week, users across Reddit have been raising alarms about a significant shift in how Strava is pulling workout data from your Garmin, Runna, or TrainingPeaks entries. What once appeared as generic activity titles like “Morning Run” are now showing detailed workout descriptions, pacing notes, and even personal coach comments that users never intended to share publicly. And if you’ve been on Strava for a minute, you know it can be a pretty competitive place. It’s social media, after all.
If you wanted your Garmin and Strava titles to be in sync, that’s great. However, for those of us who would prefer to keep our easy days or workout flubs private, here’s what to know about your data being shared for all your Strava friends to see.
The perfect storm of acquisitions and integration
Strava has made two major acquisitions in recent months—first purchasing running training app Runna in April, followed by cycling app The Breakaway in May. And the integration of these apps appears to be happening rapidly and without clear user notification. Runna recently began pushing through workout images and detailed training data to Strava, while Garmin users are seeing their custom workout titles and descriptions automatically imported into their Strava activities.
“Definitely feels like a violation of privacy and also intellectual property as a coach,” wrote one TrainingPeaks user on Reddit. “Pulling through the descriptions of the workouts, where sometimes I write personal notes for athletes, and now it’s showing on Strava for the world to see. I’m going to have to change how I set workouts up in TrainingPeaks.”
Sadly, this sort of privacy concern is nothing new for Strava users. The company has been at the center of several data privacy controversies, including the famous heatmap incident that exposed the location of numerous secret military facilities. The network’s global heatmap showed the locations of sensitive military bases because personnel at those facilities did not switch on privacy settings.
Beyond the military base controversy, users have always called out the app’s “creepy” privacy settings, which can automatically add other runners’ data onto your phone unless changed. As a longtime fan of Strava, I’ve personally watched the company face ongoing criticism about how users can track each other and the default visibility of personal fitness data.
And now, the Runna integration reveals how these acquisitions are creating unexpected data flows. Runna users can now access routes saved in Strava—even all those little nonsense routes created for planning purposes that were never intended for actual use or sharing.
What’s being shared (and what wasn’t before)
If you use a Garmin device, you may find that workouts with specific pacing instructions, training notes from coaches, and personalized workout descriptions are now appearing in your public Strava feeds. This includes:
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Custom workout titles from Garmin devices
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Detailed training descriptions from TrainingPeaks
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Coach notes and pacing guidance
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Personal performance targets and training phases
The change appears to affect data that was technically always present in activity files but was previously filtered out by Strava’s display logic. Now, that data is being surfaced automatically, catching users off guard.
The frustrating aspect of this situation is that enhanced workout data integration could be genuinely valuable. Seeing detailed training information, coach notes, and structured workout data in Strava could help athletes better track their progress and share meaningful training details with their community.
“This is a very cool feature that I think we would all love if it weren’t implemented by surprise,” captures the sentiment of many users. The technology exists to make fitness data more useful and connected—but only when users understand and consent to what’s being shared.
Plus, for coaches and trainers, this represents a professional concern. Training plans and workout descriptions often contain proprietary methodologies and personalized guidance that coaches consider intellectual property. When these details suddenly become public without warning, it affects how they can do their work.
The bottom line
As a loyal Strava user, the core issue isn’t just about privacy settings or data visibility—it’s about trust and communication. When platforms make significant changes to data-sharing without clear notification, they erode the trust that users need to feel comfortable sharing their fitness activities.
Stay tuned for how exactly to opt out of this data sharing, or whether Strava plans to make a formal announcement. When you log a support ticket with the Strava help desk, you get redirected to this thread as the place where they are currently “collecting feedback.”
Until then, it looks like us athletes are left checking privacy settings more frequently and wondering what other personal details might appear in our public feeds tomorrow.
