Miles into Masterpieces: the FCRC Summer Strava Art Challenge
This summer, the Fort Collins Running Club invited runners to swap finish lines for outlines in their Strava Art Challenge—a playful, GPS-powered twist on the usual mileage grind. Each month from June through August came with its own theme: “FCRC” in June, a running shoe in July, and a medal in August. The club even mapped out official routes to match, turning Fort Collins streets into a canvas for creative cardio.
Although I wasn’t in Fort Collins for much of the summer, I couldn’t resist the challenge. Running daily in Pontevedra, Spain, I took the themes as inspiration and created my own Strava art pieces—some abstract, some surprisingly recognizable. My favorite? A goose. It started as a tadpole (according to a skeptical friend), but after a few tweaks and reruns, the goose emerged in full feathery glory.
Below, I’ve shared a few of my favorite GPS doodles from the summer. Each one was a small act of creative problem-solving, a way to turn routine runs into something a little more joyful—and occasionally ridiculous.
My Strava Art
The “Official” FCRC Strava Art Route
To kick off the challenge while I was still in Fort Collins, I ran the Fort Collins Running Club’s official “FCRC” route through Old Town. Since the club hadn’t made the routes downloadable, I recreated it manually in Garmin Connect and synced it to my Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) watch. After a short drive to the starting point, I was ready to trace those four letters across the city grid. Or so I thought.
About a mile in, I hit an unexpected snag: a construction fence blocking Grant and Oak. I paused my watch, detoured three blocks east on Oak to loop around the zone, then doubled back to Grant and restarted the Garmin. Later, I realized I could’ve just gone a half-block west on Oak to bypass the fence entirely—classic case of overthinking the workaround.
The rest of the route was full of Fort Collins flavor: the Saturday Farmer’s Market was in full swing at Mountain and Howes, and a small protest at Mulberry and College was calling to “stop the craziness” and “save Medicare.” It added a bit of unexpected energy to the run.
Most of the route followed sidewalks made of square concrete slabs, which meant watching my footing to avoid catching a toe on the seams. That slowed me down a bit, but the shade along the way was a welcome relief. I’d started at 9:20 a.m., and the sun was already flexing—UV index creeping into the moderate zone. All in all, it was a quirky, satisfying run that turned the streets of Old Town into a giant sketchpad.
My Own Take on FCRC
I was pretty excited after finishing my first piece of Strava art—until I showed it to a few friends. Their unanimous reaction? “Cool… but what’s ECRC?” Not quite the triumphant debut I’d hoped for.
A few days later, I went back out to run a revised version. This time, I tweaked the route to sharpen the letter shapes and clean up the alignment. The result? A much clearer “FCRC”—finally worthy of the club it was meant to represent.
A Shoe
This was actually the art theme for July—when I would be in Spain and not Colorado. But as I already had a “shoe route” in Fort Collins, I ran this while there in June.
A Kite
This is actually a route I used to run quite a bit in Fort Collins. I always thought it looked like a kite.
However, someone suggested this looked like a stingray:
A High-Heel
Ok, this was a variation of the shoe route. But it works:
A Chicken
During one late evening in Pontevedra, I went for a short and easy bike ride. I didn’t think much of it—aside that it felt very pleasant—until I received the following comment on Strava from my friend Raquel the next day.
“It looks like a chicken!” she wrote.
You got to love it when you do Strava art completely by accident!
Another Shoe
July’s Strava Art Challenge from the Fort Collins Running Club featured a 1.6-mile route designed to sketch out a running shoe across the streets of Fort Collins.
But in July, I was already back in Spain—so running the official route wasn’t an option. Instead, I improvised with a 0.7-mile route through Pontevedra, crafting my own version of the theme with the streets I had on hand.
A Tadpole
I first ran this route with the intention of creating Strava art in the form of a goose. But upon seeing it, a friend said it looked like a tadpole.
At first I thought she was trolling, but after comparing it to Bing images of tadpoles, I see the resemblance!
A Goose
After running the tadpole route above, I figured out a way to make it look more like a goose. Below is the result.
A Medal
As I was back in Fort Collins by the end of August, I had a chance to run its “official” Strava art route that traced the shape of a medal.
This was one of the easier routes to navigate. And it was exactly 5K.
Conclusion
Taking part in the FCRC Summer Strava Art Challenge was a refreshing change of pace—literally. I tend to fall into the habit of running the same familiar routes day after day, so having a creative prompt each month gave me a reason to explore new paths and think about my runs in a completely different way. It turned routine miles into mini design projects, and even the detours and misfires added to the fun.
I have no idea if I’ll win anything from the challenge, but that was never really the point. The official contest wraps up on August 31st, but I’m pretty sure I’ll keep experimenting with Strava art beyond that. There’s something oddly satisfying about turning a GPS track into a sketch—especially when it actually resembles what you intended. Goose included.
Results
Despite there being well over 1000 Fort Collins Running Club members nowadays, only nine participated in the FCRC Summer Strava Art Challenge. Nine! In my opinion, not enough people appreciate this different type of art form.
Still, despite the low number of entries, I did not win anything in the random drawings. Oh well.
