How challenges are scored

A challenge has two parts: which of your activities count, and what is measured across the ones that do.

Which activities count

A challenge runs on whole days, the first and the last both included. An activity has to have started on one of them, by the date on your own clock where you were (a 3 am ride on the first day counts, wherever in the world it was), and match the sports the challenge accepts. Beyond that, a challenge may require anything the organiser chose, such as a minimum distance, a minimum climb or a word in the activity name.

What a challenge can require

A requirement is always about one of these:

• How big it was — distance, elevation gained, moving time, elapsed time
• How fast — average speed, maximum speed, and average speed over moving or elapsed time
• Its shape — climbing relative to distance, and time spent stopped
• When — the time of day it started, and the time of day it finished
• What kind — the sport, the title, whether it was on an indoor trainer, a commute, entered by hand, or done with others

Nothing else about an activity is used: not who gave it kudos, not what you recorded it with. Your heart rate, calories and how hard you rated an activity are not kept at all.

Times are the activity's own local time — the clock where you were. The finish is the start plus the elapsed time, including stops. A ride that runs past midnight finishes the next day, so it does not count as finishing "by 11:59 PM".

Sports and sport groups

A challenge names the sports it accepts, one at a time or as a group. Its page says which, and a group opens to show what it includes.

E-bike rides are their own group: a challenge for "all rides" does not count them unless it says so. A challenge may also leave out manually entered activities and indoor activities — anything recorded on a trainer, and every virtual sport. Where it does, that is stated beside its sports.

What is measured

• A total — distance, elevation, or time added up across everything counted
• A count — how many activities, optionally at most one per day
• A streak — the longest run of consecutive days with a counted activity
• Per period — how many weeks, or fortnights, reached a target
• Several at once — how many of a set of requirements you have met

Why something might not have counted

First check that it arrived: the log on your Progress page lists everything synced from your Strava account. An activity missing from that list has not reached SportChallenge, whatever the challenge requires.

An activity can be on one of the challenge's days and still not contribute: it may not match what the challenge requires, or it may qualify after a counting limit was reached. For example, a second ride adds no score if only one ride counts per day.

When your progress updates

Scores update when activities sync, when the organiser changes the rules and at regular intervals. You can also request a recount. Your score may take a moment to update.