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Strava reports that run-commuting is up by 70 per cent globally over last year

Run-commuting's popularity is soaring globally. Unfortunately, Canada isn't even in the top 7 countries for run-commuting

Strava’s year-end report was released yesterday, and run-commuting globally has seen a whopping 70 per cent increase in popularity over last year. Run-commuters made an astonishing 21,781,323 trips in 2018, vs. 12,813,125 trips last year. In the US alone, run-commuting was up 56.8 per cent, with a median distance of 6.4K (the global median is 6.6K), for a total of 3.6 million trips vs. 2.3 million trips last year.

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By contrast, the increase in cycle commuting was 42.8 per cent (30.8 per cent in the US), though more people cycle to work than run (5.5 million cycle-commuters globally compared to 3.5 million run-commuters).

Strava also claims this global run-commuting activity represents a global carbon offset of 104.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

Unfortunately, Canada is not among the top seven countries for run-commuting. The UK and Ireland take top billing, averaging 3.29 weekly trips per commuter. Germany is next, with 2.88 weekly trips.

Brian Dickson on his run-commute in New Westminister, B.C.

 

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In the US, Washington, D.C. had the highest average weekly trips per run-commuter, at 3.78, followed by Nevada, at 3.16. North Dakota had the highest increase year-over-year in the number of run-commuters (78.5 per cent), closely followed by Mississippi (78.3 per cent). Utah had the longest average run-commute, at 4.7 miles (7.5K). Hawaii, Nevada and New York state were tied with an average 4.3 miles (6.9K) per commute.

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