Strava Moving Time: Understanding, Optimizing, and Ensuring Accuracy

How to change Strava to Moving Time?

While Strava primarily uses "Moving Time" for most performance metrics by default, ensuring your activities are accurately processed to reflect true moving time involves understanding Strava's calculation methods and optimizing auto-pause settings on your recording device or within the Strava application.

Understanding Strava's Time Metrics

To effectively analyze your training and performance, it's crucial to differentiate between the two primary time metrics Strava utilizes:

• Elapsed Time: This is the total duration from when you start recording an activity until you stop it. It includes all stops, breaks, and periods of inactivity. For example, if you go for a 60-minute run but stop for 5 minutes to tie your shoe and 10 minutes to chat with a friend, your Elapsed Time would be 60 minutes.
• Moving Time: This metric represents the actual time you were in motion during an activity, excluding periods of inactivity. Strava automatically pauses the clock when it detects you've stopped and resumes when you start moving again. In the example above, your Moving Time would be 45 minutes (60 - 5 - 10).

Why Moving Time Matters for Performance Analysis: For most endurance activities like running, cycling, or hiking, Moving Time provides a more accurate representation of your actual effort and the true pace or speed you sustained. It's the metric that truly reflects the physiological work performed, making it invaluable for tracking progress, comparing efforts, and calculating accurate training loads. Elapsed Time is useful for understanding the total duration of your outing, but less so for pure performance metrics.

How Strava Calculates Moving Time

Strava employs sophisticated algorithms to determine Moving Time. When you upload an activity, Strava analyzes your GPS data and speed readings. If your speed drops below a certain threshold (e.g., near zero for a few seconds), Strava automatically pauses the Moving Time clock. When your speed increases again, it resumes. This post-processing by Strava occurs regardless of whether your recording device has its own auto-pause feature enabled. However, enabling auto-pause on your device can improve the accuracy of the raw data Strava receives.

Ensuring Accurate Moving Time: The Role of Auto-Pause

While Strava will always attempt to calculate Moving Time post-upload, the most effective way to ensure accuracy is to manage auto-pause settings at the source of your data.

1. Configuring Auto-Pause on Your GPS Device

Most dedicated GPS devices (Garmin, Wahoo, Coros, Apple Watch, etc.) offer an auto-pause feature. Enabling this ensures that your device itself stops recording time and sometimes distance when you are stationary. This results in cleaner data being sent to Strava, leading to more accurate Moving Time calculations from the outset.

• Consult Your Device Manual: The exact steps vary by manufacturer and model. Typically, you'll find this setting within the activity profile settings (e.g., "Run Settings," "Bike Settings") under options like "Auto Pause," "Pause Mode," or "Smart Pause."
• Set Thresholds (If Available): Some devices allow you to set a speed threshold for auto-pause (e.g., pause when speed drops below 1 mph).
• Benefits: This method often leads to the most precise Moving Time, as the device is making real-time decisions based on its own sensors.

2. Using Strava's Auto-Pause Feature (Recording via Strava App)

If you record your activities directly using the Strava mobile app on your smartphone, you can enable its built-in auto-pause feature:

1. Open the Strava App: Navigate to the "Record" screen (the central icon at the bottom).
2. Access Settings: Tap the gear icon (⚙️) in the upper right corner.
3. Enable Auto-Pause: Look for the "Auto-Pause" option and toggle it "On."
   • For Running: Auto-pause will typically activate when your pace drops significantly or you stop.
   • For Cycling: Auto-pause will activate when your speed drops to zero.

Reviewing and Correcting Activity Time (Post-Upload)

Strava's default display for most performance metrics (average pace, average speed, power, etc.) is based on Moving Time. If you've uploaded an activity and suspect the Moving Time is incorrect, or if you simply want to verify it, here's how to review and potentially adjust it:

On the Strava Website (Desktop)

1. Log in to Strava: Go to strava.com and log into your account.
2. Navigate to the Activity: Click on the specific activity you wish to review from your dashboard or profile.
3. View Activity Details: On the activity page, you'll see a summary of metrics. "Moving Time" will be prominently displayed alongside "Elapsed Time."
4. Correct Distance/Time (If Needed): If you believe the Moving Time is significantly off due to a GPS error or a miscalculation, you can try to correct it.
   • On the activity page, click the ellipses (...) menu (More Options) next to the activity title.
   • Select "Correct Distance." This tool primarily addresses distance inaccuracies but can sometimes recalculate time based on the corrected path. Strava will re-process the activity's GPS data, which often recalibrates the Moving Time as well.
   • Note: You cannot manually set Moving Time. Strava's algorithms determine it. The "Correct Distance" function is the primary way to prompt a re-evaluation of the GPS data and subsequent time calculations.

On the Strava Mobile App

1. Open the Strava App: Navigate to your "You" tab (profile icon).
2. Select the Activity: Tap on the activity you want to review.
3. View Details: On the activity screen, you'll see "Moving Time" and "Elapsed Time" displayed.
4. Edit Activity (Limited Correction):
   • Tap the ellipses (...) menu in the top right corner.
   • Select "Edit Activity." Here, you can adjust the activity type, name, etc., but not directly modify the Moving Time.
   • "Correct Distance" (for GPS issues): Similar to the website, if you suspect GPS errors, you can sometimes find a "Correct Distance" option within the edit menu or by contacting Strava support for severe discrepancies.

Why Discrepancies Occur

Even with auto-pause enabled, you might notice minor differences between your device's recorded Moving Time and Strava's calculated Moving Time. This is normal and typically due to:

• Different Auto-Pause Thresholds: Your device and Strava may use slightly different speed thresholds or algorithms for pausing and resuming.
• GPS Signal Fluctuation: Poor GPS signal can lead to erroneous speed readings, causing premature pauses or missed resumptions.
• Post-Processing: Strava's algorithms are always working to clean up and standardize data, which can result in slight adjustments to the raw data from your device.

Conclusion

Strava's design prioritizes "Moving Time" as the key metric for performance analysis, automatically calculating it for virtually all uploaded activities. The concept of "changing Strava to Moving Time" is less about a manual toggle and more about ensuring the accuracy of this default calculation. By enabling auto-pause on your GPS device or within the Strava app, you provide cleaner data, allowing Strava's algorithms to more precisely reflect your true active effort. Regularly reviewing your activity details ensures that your training insights are based on the most relevant and accurate time metric.