Latest news with #FakeMyRun
Fast Company
5 days ago
- Health
- Fast Company
This viral app lets users upload fake workouts to Strava
'Believe nothing. not even people's runs,' a viral post on X reads. The accompanying video shows a program that maps running or cycling routes, which users can then upload to online exercise-tracking platforms like Strava and Maprunner—all without ever lacing up their shoes. 'Insane, I hate it and I love it. great work,' the X user added. The website, called Fake My Run, is described by its developer Arthur Bouffard, 26, in a recent interview with The New York Times, as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation.' On the site, users can draw or choose a route on a map, set a pace, date, and start time, and even input heart rate data. They then add a name and description before downloading a fake workout summary—for just $0.42 per file. If this sounds insane, that's exactly the point. 'It's like cheating at solitaire,' one X user put it. But Bouffard, a runner himself, created Fake My Run after growing disillusioned with the evolving culture of the sport. 'Running used to be a very personal sport that was mainly practised to challenge yourself, to improve your physical and mental health, to stay in shape, to compete with others, to discover new parts of the world, etc,' he explained in a post on X. 'In the last couple of years, I've seen running increasingly shift towards becoming a social status and way of signalling a lifestyle.' Running is booming. The number of people in running clubs has risen by 25% in the U.S. over the past five years, according to Running USA. Some now list marathon times on their résumés. These days, if you didn't post your 5km PB on Instagram or Strava, did it even happen? Would you still run a marathon if the catch was that you could never mention it or post about it? Even more extreme, Bouffard says, are the so-called Strava mules—people paid $10–20 to log fake runs for others seeking virtual praise without any of the sweat. ''Like social media though, running posts can be faked. Which is in part why I made Fake My Run. As a way to challenge the culture shift around running,' Bouffard continued. Although Bouffard insists the app is intended purely for entertainment and educational purposes, the fitness platforms it satirizes aren't amused. A spokesperson for Strava told the Times the company has 'already taken steps to delete activities and ban accounts that have used Fake My Run.' Since launching, the site has attracted more than 200,000 visitors, and around 500 have purchased tokens to generate fake runs. So, next time your Strava rival shaves 10 minutes off their personal best—maybe take it with a pinch of salt.
AU Financial Review
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
‘Fake My Run' is exactly what it sounds like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation'. And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava.
The Star
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Fake My Run is exactly what it sounds like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation'. And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava. When Pedro Duarte, the head of marketing for a software company, reposted a 42-second video by Bouffard on the social platform X that demonstrated the program's ease of use – and its apparent deviousness – Duarte spoke for the masses when he wrote: 'believe nothing. not even people's runs.' He added, 'insane, i hate it and i love it.' Which was exactly the point. Bouffard, who lives in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he works as an augmented-reality developer, wanted people to feel conflicted. 'It's all very tongue-in-cheek,' he said. As an avid jogger, Bouffard had become familiar with certain trends in the running community – some more pernicious than others. He had noticed, for example, how often people would run marathons and immediately grab their phones so that they could upload their results to platforms like Strava. Because if a run does not exist on Strava or on social media, it might as well not exist at all. Even worse, Bouffard felt, was the trend in which people hire so-called Strava mules to do their runs for them as a way of gaining online clout without putting in any actual effort. (Yes, this is a real thing.) 'It made me think of how this whole hobby has become more and more performative,' Bouffard said. What, he wondered, had happened to jogging for the pleasure of it, without the need for outside validation? And in its own deeply subversive way, his website hints at some of the larger challenges that have taken root amid the rapid spread of technology like artificial intelligence: If people are willing to fake something as benign as a weekend run, what can any of us believe to be true anymore? Not much, apparently. 'I don't want people to think I'm just trying to cause trouble,' Bouffard said. 'I feel like I'm poking at a very real problem. But I can also see why people are interpreting it poorly.' Strava is not a fan of Bouffard's work. Brian Bell, a spokesperson for the company, said in a statement that Strava had 'already taken steps to delete activities and ban accounts that have used Fake My Run'. Though Bell declined to specify how Strava is able to detect those accounts, Bouffard has a theory. 'I think they're using AI to analyse suspicious activities,' he said. Bouffard, who grew up in Paris, has a day job building 'digital immersive experiences' for clients, he said – filters for games, marketing stunts, virtual treasure hunts. But he also has pet projects. After identifying a vulnerability in a bike-sharing service based in France, he built a website that allowed users to monitor the locations of bikes throughout the service's network. 'They left it open without realising that people could use this to track other people's movements, which could be problematic,' he said. 'I think they might've done some patches since then.' Fake My Run was created in the same vein, as a social good – sort of, kind of – in irreverent packaging. Think of it, perhaps, as Banksy-style performance art. Earlier this year, when Bouffard imported his running activity from Runkeeper, another GPS fitness-tracking tool, to Strava, he realised that he could edit the individual files – files that included pieces of information like GPS data, heart rate and average pace. It also occurred to him that people were paying for Strava mules when those activities could more easily be fabricated. 'Maybe I can produce something that makes fun of that whole industry,' he recalled thinking. Bouffard soon had a working website, where users could design a route, generate a GPX file with detailed data, and download it 'in just one click'. When Bouffard tested out the program's efficacy for himself, he heard from friends almost immediately. 'They were like, 'Why are you running in Antarctica?'' he recalled. Bouffard said that more than 200,000 people had visited his website since its inception and that about 500 had bought 'tokens' to generate fake runs. 'Way more than I expected,' he said, laughing. He charges a small fee, starting at US$0.42 (RM 1.70) per file download. Still, he said, he does not consider it a 'business venture'. Platforms like Strava are a popular way for many people to track their exercise routines. Some also say that the platforms help keep them accountable. But problems can arise when people become too competitive as a result – when they flirt with injury by exercising too hard in ill-advised attempts to outperform friends or rise to the top of platform-based leader boards. Predictably, some have resorted to taking shortcuts, like hiring mules or riding electric bikes to complete their journeys in record time. Extreme? Sure. But it happens. Cliff Simpkins, 50, of Redmond, Washington, said that Bouffard's website resonated with him because of his family's experiences with Duolingo, the language-learning program. His three children, he said, resorted to taking English lessons on Duolingo to boost their rankings before it dawned on them that it was silly and counterproductive. 'It was a solid teachable moment with the kids when they realised the extent that they were going to 'compete' for the wake of gamification, completely leaving the learning experience behind,' Simpkins, who works in developer marketing, said. 'I love the original spirit of connection and helping support others, but it seems that it can turn ugly quick.' Duncan McCabe, an accountant based in Ontario, Canada, and a self-described 'Strava art' enthusiast, said it saddened him that people would post fake workouts on Strava. Last year, McCabe, 32, turned about 120 jogs over 10 months into a 27-second animation of a stick man running through the streets of Toronto. 'The impractical effort that goes into generating the art is what makes it interesting,' he said. 'Without the physical effort, it's just a digital Etch-A-Sketch.' For his own part, Bouffard has kept his own Strava account free of fraudulent activity, he said. (He has a burner account for creative purposes.) He offered a disclaimer that his website was solely for 'entertainment purposes' and that he did not want people to upload deceptive activities. 'You never know if they'll bring out an algorithm tomorrow and catch everyone,' he said. 'I can't be responsible for that.' – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
New York Times
29-05-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Fake My Run Is Exactly What It Sounds Like
By his own admission, Arthur Bouffard has always enjoyed dabbling in a healthy bit of mischief that blurs the lines between technology and reality. He found his sweet spot when he unveiled his latest project this month. Mr. Bouffard, 26, built a website called Fake My Run, which he described as 'truly a milestone in lazy technology innovation.' And it is exactly as advertised: a site that houses a program that produces, in exacting detail, complete with mapped routes, fraudulent runs that users can upload to online exercise-tracking services like Strava. When Pedro Duarte, the head of marketing for a software company, reposted a 42-second video by Mr. Bouffard on X that demonstrated the program's ease of use — and its apparent deviousness — Mr. Duarte spoke for the masses when he wrote: 'believe nothing. not even people's runs.' He added, 'insane, i hate it and i love it.' Which was exactly the point. Mr. Bouffard, who lives in The Hague, where he works as an augmented-reality developer, wanted people to feel conflicted. 'It's all very tongue-in-cheek,' he said. As an avid jogger, Mr. Bouffard had become familiar with certain trends in the running community — some more pernicious than others. He had noticed, for example, how often people would run marathons and immediately grab their phones so that they could upload their results to platforms like Strava. Because if a run does not exist on Strava or on social media, it might as well not exist at all. Even worse, Mr. Bouffard felt, was the trend in which people hire so-called Strava mules to do their runs for them as a way of gaining online clout without putting in any actual effort. (Yes, this is a real thing.) 'It made me think of how this whole hobby has become more and more performative,' Mr. Bouffard said. What, he wondered, had happened to jogging for the pleasure of it, without the need for outside validation? And in its own deeply subversive way, his website hints at some of the larger challenges that have taken root amid the rapid spread of technology like artificial intelligence: If people are willing to fake something as benign as a weekend run, what can any of us believe to be true anymore? Not much, apparently. 'I don't want people to think I'm just trying to cause trouble,' Mr. Bouffard said. 'I feel like I'm poking at a very real problem. But I can also see why people are interpreting it poorly.' Strava is not a fan of Mr. Bouffard's work. Brian Bell, a spokesman for the company, said in a statement that Strava had 'already taken steps to delete activities and ban accounts that have used Fake My Run.' Though Mr. Bell declined to specify how Strava is able to detect those accounts, Mr. Bouffard has a theory. 'I think they're using A.I. to analyze suspicious activities,' he said. Mr. Bouffard, who grew up in Paris, has a day job building 'digital immersive experiences' for clients, he said — filters for games, marketing stunts, virtual treasure hunts. But he also has pet projects. After identifying a vulnerability in a bike-sharing service based in France, he built a website that allowed users to monitor the locations of bikes throughout the service's network. 'They left it open without realizing that people could use this to track other people's movements, which could be problematic,' he said. 'I think they might've done some patches since then.' Fake My Run was created in the same vein, as a social good — sort of, kind of — in irreverent packaging. Think of it, perhaps, as Banksy-style performance art. Earlier this year, when Mr. Bouffard imported his running activity from Runkeeper, another GPS fitness-tracking tool, to Strava, he realized that he could edit the individual files — files that included pieces of information like GPS data, heart rate and average pace. It also occurred to him that people were paying for Strava mules when those activities could more easily be fabricated. 'Maybe I can produce something that makes fun of that whole industry,' he recalled thinking. Mr. Bouffard soon had a working website, where users could design a route, generate a GPX file with detailed data, and download it 'in just one click.' When Mr. Bouffard tested out the program's efficacy for himself, he heard from friends almost immediately. 'They were like, 'Why are you running in Antarctica?' ' he recalled. Mr. Bouffard said that more than 200,000 people had visited his website since its inception and that about 500 had bought 'tokens' to generate fake runs. 'Way more than I expected,' he said, laughing. He charges a small fee, starting at 42 cents per file download. Still, he said, he does not consider it a 'business venture.' Platforms like Strava are a popular way for many people to track their exercise routines. Some also say that the platforms help keep them accountable. But problems can arise when people become too competitive as a result — when they flirt with injury by exercising too hard in ill-advised attempts to outperform friends or rise to the top of platform-based leader boards. Predictably, some have resorted to taking shortcuts, like hiring mules or riding electric bikes to complete their journeys in record time. Extreme? Sure. But it happens. Cliff Simpkins, 50, of Redmond, Wash., said that Mr. Bouffard's website resonated with him because of his family's experiences with Duolingo, the language-learning program. His three children, he said, resorted to taking English lessons on Duolingo to boost their rankings before it dawned on them that it was silly and counterproductive. 'It was a solid teachable moment with the kids when they realized the extent that they were going to 'compete' for the wake of gamification, completely leaving the learning experience behind,' Mr. Simpkins, who works in developer marketing, said. 'I love the original spirit of connection and helping support others, but it seems that it can turn ugly quick.' Duncan McCabe, an Ontario-based accountant and self-described 'Strava art' enthusiast, said it saddened him that people would post fake workouts on Strava. Last year, Mr. McCabe, 32, turned about 120 jogs over 10 months into a 27-second animation of a stick man running through the streets of Toronto. 'The impractical effort that goes into generating the art is what makes it interesting,' he said. 'Without the physical effort, it's just a digital Etch-A-Sketch.' For his own part, Mr. Bouffard has kept his own Strava account free of fraudulent activity, he said. (He has a burner account for creative purposes.) He offered a disclaimer that his website was solely for 'entertainment purposes' and that he did not want people to upload deceptive activities. 'You never know if they'll bring out an algorithm tomorrow and catch everyone,' he said. 'I can't be responsible for that.'
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Jog on! Lazy Strava users are using a secret app to FAKE their runs - as furious joggers compare it to 'cheating at Solitaire'
It's the go-to running app for millions of people around the world. But if you spot one of your friends posting impressive runs on Strava, all may not be as it seems. Some lazy users are using a secret app to fake their runs. The app, aptly named 'Fake My Run', lets users create custom running routes that look realistic on fitness tracking platforms like Strava. Across social media, the app has received mixed reviews, with some users delighted at the ability to con their friends. 'insane, i hate it and i love it. great work,' one user tweeted, while another said: 'I hate this so much….but I also love that this is possible.' However, others were less accepting - with one furious user comparing the con to 'cheating on Solitaire'. 'Who would care, really? It's like cheating at solitaire. You run/bike/workout for yourself, in the first place, right? To feel good, to stay healthy and to enjoy your rides/run,' they vented. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Arthur Bouffard (@arthurbfrd) Some lazy users are using a secret app to fake their runs. The app, aptly named 'Fake My Run', lets users create custom running routes that look realistic on fitness tracking platforms like Strava Fake My Run is the brainchild of Amsterdam-based developer, Arthur Bouffard, who was inspired after seeing a surge in Strava users paying 'mules' to run for them. 'Strava mules have gone viral recently for charging 10-20$ to run for other people and improve their stats, which made me think there has to be an easier way,' he explained on X. 'There is. And after a bit of clever engineering, I built Fake My Run.' To create a fake run, users can visit and draw a custom route anywhere in the world. To make the runs more believable, Mr Bouffard has even included the option to align the path to the roads. 'Your perfectly drawn path is going to follow curvature of the streets and make it look as realistic as possible,' he explained in a video. You can also adjust the run details - with the option to select your own pace, date, start time, and a description. 'You can create really realistic runs or really insane and impossible runs. You want to go run in Mongolia? No problem,' the developer said. Once you're happy with your fake run, you can download the file and upload it directly to your chosen fitness app. 'And boom, the activity has been added to your Strava account,' Mr Bouffard added. Mr Bouffard is a runner himself, but became frustrated with the way the 'culture around running has shifted.' 'Running used to be a very personal sport that was mainly practised to challenge yourself, to improve your physical and mental health, to stay in shape, to compete with others, to discover new parts of the world, etc,' he explained. 'In the last couple of years, I've seen running increasingly shift towards becoming a social status and way of signalling a lifestyle. 'Every activity can be turned into an Instagram story, every marathon can become a TikTok video. And social running apps are the spine, the solid, irrefutable proof of those very achievements. 'Like social media though, running posts can be faked. Which is in part why I made Fake My Run. As a way to challenge the culture shift around running. 'To also prove the good old saying that you shouldn't trust what you see on the internet. But also because it was technically doable and entertaining.' 'Who would care, really? It's like cheating at solitaire. You run/bike/workout for yourself, in the first place, right? To feel good, to stay healthy and to enjoy your rides/run,' one user vented 'The digital world is a mess can't trust anything or anyone. In a few years or decades, most of the people will leave the internet and go back to the real world where real things happen,' one user tweeted The app has garnered huge attention across social media, with a very mixed response. 'The digital world is a mess can't trust anything or anyone. In a few years or decades, most of the people will leave the internet and go back to the real world where real things happen,' one user tweeted. Another added: 'Why would anyone be jealous how much somebody ran? This workout culture is getting out of hand.' And one wrote: 'Surely people aren't using this, you're only cheating yourself.'
