Virtual running competitions with friends
Five formats come up when people want to compete with friends who live somewhere else: distance challenges, time challenges, effort-scored leagues, segment duels and streak challenges. Distance and time formats measure raw output, so whichever runner logs the most distance or holds the fastest pace wins the format, regardless of who trained harder that week. Segment duels work the same way on one shared stretch of road. Effort-scored leagues, such as Runked's, score training load adjusted for each runner's own fitness, so a beginner's hard week can beat a faster friend's easy one. The table below shows which apps offer each format today.
"Compete with friends running in different cities" usually means one of two very different things: a leaderboard anyone can win with enough miles, or a leaderboard only the fastest person in the group was ever going to win. The five formats below cover both, verified against each app's own current feature pages.
The five formats, compared
| Format | How it's scored | Who it favors | Apps that offer it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance challenge | Total distance (or steps) logged over a set window | The runner with the most time to run and the fewest missed days, since it rewards total volume | Strava Group Challenges (Most Activity goal), Nike Run Club custom Challenges, Garmin Connect Challenges (farthest distance) |
| Time challenge | Fastest pace over a fixed distance | Whoever is already the faster runner | Strava Group Challenges (Fastest Effort goal) |
| Effort-based league | Effort: training load adjusted for personal fitness | Whoever works hardest relative to their own fitness | Runked weekly leagues (free) |
| Segment duel | Fastest time on one shared stretch of road or trail | The fastest runner on that stretch, however hard or easy it was for them | Strava Segments (top 10 free; full leaderboard on Premium) |
| Streak challenge | Most consecutive days active | Whoever can run every day; a single missed day resets the count | Runked's running streak and its reward chests, which run solo rather than head-to-head. Neither Strava's four Group Challenge goal types nor Garmin's Challenges page lists a friend-versus-friend streak format. |
Why distance and time formats favor the fitter runner
Strava's Group Challenges score four goal types: "Most Activity" (time, distance or elevation), "Fastest Effort" (average pace over a set distance), "Longest Single Activity" and "Group Goal," according to Strava's Group Challenges support article, verified August 25, 2026. None of the four adjusts for who's running: a runner finishing a 5K in 20 minutes and someone finishing their first 5K in 35 minutes are scored on the same raw numbers. Garmin Connect's Followers Challenges work the same way: they "allow you to invite one or more of your friends or followers to compete head-to-head," with available challenge types that "include the most steps or the farthest distance for running, cycling, or swimming," and a challenge length capped at 31 days, per Garmin's own Challenges support page. Nike Run Club's custom Challenges follow the same pattern: set a distance, a start and end time, and "invite friends to battle it out," with the top three finishers earning gold, silver or bronze, per Nike's own NRC Challenges help page.
Strava's Group Challenges have also gotten harder to reach for free. Strava announced a cutoff after which free athletes "will lose their group challenge tokens and will not be able to create or join a new challenge," leaving creation to subscribers and athletes on a free subscription trial, per Strava's Group Challenges support article. The same article says challenges started before then keep running: "If you are a part of a group challenge or created one before your tokens were removed, you can continue with those challenges." Strava's separate Clubs feature, covered in Strava's Clubs on Strava article, stays free for anyone: joining or creating a club for any sport costs nothing, but a club on its own isn't a scored competition.
Runked's weekly leagues score something different from all of the above: effort, meaning training load adjusted for each runner's own fitness, so the same session is worth more to a runner it stretches than to one who barely notices it. The idea behind that is to compare to yourself, not to others: in Runked, the rank starts everyone at Bronze and only moves on your own runs. See how the rank works.
Setting up a challenge that's fair to your group
- Match the format to the fitness spread. If everyone in the group runs within a similar range, a distance or time challenge works fine. If the group spans a beginner and someone with years of training behind them, a distance or time challenge settles the winner before the week starts; an effort-scored league is the format built for that gap.
- Set a fixed window. Garmin's own instructions cap a Followers Challenge at 31 days, while a Group Challenge inside a Garmin Connect group can run for any amount of time, per Garmin's support page. Strava caps a Group Challenge invite list at 199 athletes who follow the creator.
- Pick the app everyone already has. A challenge only works if the whole group can join it. Use the table above to check which apps carry which format before setting one up.
- Choose the goal type before inviting anyone. Strava's Group Challenges require picking Most Activity, Fastest Effort, Longest Single Activity or Group Goal at creation, and none of these apps supports changing the goal type once people have joined.
Common mistakes
- Running a distance or time challenge across a mixed-ability group. The same runner wins nearly every time, since the format scores raw output rather than who trained harder that week.
- Skipping the end date. An open-ended challenge loses urgency fast; every format above is built around a fixed window.
- Treating a streak challenge as low-pressure. A single missed day resets the count in the streak formats above, which can push a tired or injured runner to skip a rest day they actually need.
- Picking a format before checking who has the app. A challenge with one participant isn't a competition.
What to do next
If a beginner and a faster friend want a format that's fair to both, Runked's weekly leagues are the effort-scored option from the table above, and joining one is free. For more on how Runked's rank-based approach compares to segment leaderboards, step games and story-driven apps, see the gamified running apps comparison. And if the actual goal is building a running habit rather than winning any single week, how to make running a habit covers that separately.
Find out where you stand
Runked is free on the App Store. Connect your watch or track 3 runs, and meet your Runk.
Download on App StoreFrequently asked questions
How do I compete with a friend who's faster?
Pick a format that scores effort rather than raw pace or distance. Runked's weekly leagues score training load adjusted for each runner's own fitness. A distance or time challenge in Strava, Nike Run Club or Garmin Connect scores raw pace or distance rather than fitness-adjusted effort, so the format keeps rewarding the same runner regardless of how hard the week was for anyone else.
Which app for a group challenge?
It depends on the format. Strava's Group Challenges (Most Activity, Fastest Effort, Longest Single Activity or Group Goal) require a subscription to create or join, after a cutoff Strava announced in its own support article; challenges created before that cutoff carry on for the athletes already in them. Strava's free Clubs feature can still group people together, but the challenge scoring itself sits behind Premium. Nike Run Club's custom Challenges are free: set a distance and a window and invite friends. Garmin Connect's Followers Challenges and Group Challenges are free inside the Garmin Connect app. Runked's weekly league is free and effort-scored rather than distance or time based.
How do Runked leagues work?
Runked's weekly league scores effort: training load adjusted for your personal fitness rather than raw pace or distance, so a beginner's honest week can outscore a faster friend's easy one. The league resets every Monday at 00:00 UTC, so a rough week never carries into the next one. Joining a league and earning trophies is free. PRO adds personalized training plans and race-time predictions on top, for runners who want to train toward a specific goal as well as compete week to week.
Do virtual challenges keep people running?
The evidence is thin. A 2020 opinion article by Wattanapisit and colleagues in Frontiers in Public Health states that research on virtual run programmes is sparse, and it stops short of reporting adherence outcomes for any virtual running platform. Distance, time and streak challenges are built around a visible goal and a deadline, but no source on this page measures whether that motivation holds up once a specific challenge ends.