If it’s not on Strava, did it really happen?
As something of a runner myself, the answer to that age old question — about fifteen years old, to be precise — is obviously a resounding “no”, but I get ahead of myself. For the uninitiated, Strava is an app that allows users to track, and perhaps more importantly share, their physical exercise, usually cycling or running. Such metrics as the pace, distance, and average heart rate of your latest jaunt down to the Schenley Oval can be displayed for all of your followers to see.
Needless to say, as with anything that can be tracked, people get a tad competitive and are constantly trying to outdo their fellow pain cave inhabitants. For instance, it is often noted that athletes will tag a particularly fast session as a “recovery run,” while poorer performances will be explained away with a litany of excuses, including but not limited to “slowed down for [insert unfortunate training partner here],” “the weather was too [insert appropriate adjective here],” “forgot to pause watch for [insert obvious excuse here],” “GPS gone wild,” “legs felt really sore,” and the classic “lots of hills.” Honesty is not exactly at a premium here on Strava.
But dishonesty has reached new heights as of late with the phenomenon of “Strava jockeying”. Are you a local businessman or professional that just doesn’t have the time to get in your weekly miles, but you still want to look in shape to all of your friends? Well, boy do I have the solution for you: Simply hire somebody else to run for you! As explained by one teenage runner entrepreneur from Indonesia, clients simply pay a per kilometer rate, with a more expensive rate for a faster pace, and it will appear to all of their friends as though they are superb athletes.
News of this practice soon reached the Winchester Thurston (WT) Varsity Boys Cross Country Team, of which I am a member. The story was little more than a joke, until, on the way home from winning the 18th Annual PIAA Foundation XC Invitational in Hershey, PA, the Cross Country Team stopped at the Firepit Wood Fired Grill. All those who know Coach Bruce Frey are doubtless aware of his affinity for the Firepit Grill, and indeed, meals at the Firepit Grill are one of only a couple times during the season when WT actually pays for our food.
Well, they would’ve paid for our food, if Pete hadn’t ordered two whole racks of ribs and a plate of pulled pork nachos to boot. And if Eli hadn’t ordered three whole fireside burgers — with an added fried egg on each, no less. And Baba, well Baba ordered not one, not two, but four different salads (“I just had to try them all!” he later told me). For his part, Charlie downed a triple order of smoked wings with fried brussels sprouts on the side (“I mean, I gotta stay healthy, right?” he explained). Jack, who is rather notorious for ordering a cheesecake on the eve of the Foundation race last year, apparently didn’t learn his lesson and chose to order three slices of Sweet and Salty Cheesecake for his main meal, as well as a double order of mozzarella sticks as an appetizer (they weren’t even on the menu so I’m not exactly sure how he landed those). Josh crammed in two fried chicken sandwiches, each with extra fries and extra ranch, topping it off with a double scoop of the Firepit’s own Premium Ice Cream (“The ranch and the ice cream together, it’s just so good!”) Otis was found passed out at home after eating five orders of Thai food from Thai Cottage, which he somehow charged to the school’s credit card. And me? Well, suffice it to say that Firepit Grill actually ran out of grilled vegetables. And I had the salmon.
The bill was, in the words of our former (hopefully onetime) POTUS, “huuuge!”, and the school refused to pay, leaving the Boys XC team with a rather expensive problem. What to do? How to come up with such a large sum of money before it is our feet that are roasting over the firepit, so to speak. That’s when it occurred to the team that some local Pittsburghers richly endowed but poorly motivated might be interested in soliciting the services of some teenagers with little better to do than run dozens of miles a week.
The enterprise was simple to set up and clients were easily found, some of whom may or may not be employed at dear old WT. (Scott Fech has really been racking up miles… a bit suspicious, no?) Most of the jockeying occurs during easy runs, as workout days tend to be a bit too complicated. Team members begin at different locations to avoid arousing suspicions, then meet up in Schenley for the bulk of the run. On their own Strava profiles, team members simply manually add the summarizing details of their hired run. Riverview doesn’t need to know the details of our expertly crafted routes, after all. Within two weeks, the debt was fully paid off.
But what began as merely an expedient way to pay off a debt soon grew into a full-fledged business. “At this point, I’m wearing three, four watches at a time. All I gotta do is make sure none of my clients are following each other,” said one unnamed team member. A team treasurer had to be hired to deal with the shear influx of cash, and while the team briefly consulted with Investment Club for guidance with managing a growing asset portfolio, the team quickly realized how horrible of an idea this was. Now, with a newly expanded budget, the Boys Cross Country Team can actually afford to have its own gear. We might even get AC on our van ride to Hershey for the PIAA meet this Friday!
Does this whole questionably legal enterprise brilliant business idea violate some of the rules specified in Strava’s terms of service? Not if we don’t get caught, it doesn’t. Once again, WT students are showing their exceptional entrepreneurial spirit. The incredible power of a WT education, eh?
