Strava artist-athletes are painting San Francisco streets with their legs

When Russian Hill resident Frank Chan has an idea for a new piece of art, he pulls up a map of San Francisco and starts sketching. His drawings zigzag through the city’s streets, often covering dozens of miles. 

To complete each piece, he actually has to sweat his way through, tracing his journey via GPS to make the outline come to life on run tracking app Strava. 

Chan’s a run artist, part of a group of self-described nerds who turn SF into a canvas for their “cardio cartography.” Chan’s recent 46.6-mile run depicting Chappell Roan’s latest album cover went viral on Reddit, sparking new appreciation for a novel art form that’s gained steam since the pandemic. 

“It was my dorky, middle-aged guy form of fan art,” Chan said laughing at his Chappell drawing. Music icons regularly cycle through his run art repertoire: He’s run the album covers for Green Day, False Flag, and the Pet Shops Boys. Whitney Houston even reposted his drawing of her, an experience he describes as surreal and exciting.

While run art is popular around the country and world (“There’s probably someone in Phoenix, Arizona, drawing Sabrina Carpenter right now,” Chan quips), the behavior is particularly prevalent in SF, where Strava is headquartered. That’s due in part to the city’s health-obsessed culture and its dense network of streets allowing for detailed work like Whitney Houston’s curly ends. 

Strava itself is a fan of the creative use of the app, not to mention the free marketing. 

“The creativity of our athletes is quite remarkable, and when you consider the amount of time, distance, and effort these Strava art activities require, they deserve massive kudos,” said Brian Bell, VP of communications and social impact. 

When the company published a “how-to” post about run art earlier this year, it featured SF-based artist Lenny Maughan, who’s earned the moniker Human Etch A Sketch. 

For roughly nine years, Maughan has created at least one piece of run art a month, notching more than 150 drawings in all, including incredibly detailed animals, intricately drawn items or characters, and pop culture references. His longest piece of art — a spider on a web — spanned 119 miles, 11,800 feet of elevation gain, and nearly 30 hours over multiple days. 

Maughan does a lot of competitive running (like the upcoming New York City Marathon on Nov. 3), but he enjoys the freedom and self-expression of run art. “I love that there are no rules, no guidelines, no championships,” Maughan said. “It’s just people doing their own thing.” 

While run art is often a “lone wolf” activity, he has collaborated with Chan in the past. Together, they’ve created drawings that wouldn’t be possible without two people, like a rendition of a Banksy piece or the hands from Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” which don’t contain just one unbroken line. 

The hobby has even proven to be an occasional moneymaker for Maughan: He’s completed sponsored runs for Red Bull, tech products like a grocery app, and even Strava itself. Meanwhile, his most popular drawing, a rendering of artist Frida Kahlo, sparked dozens of interviews with news outlets and running publications, earning him worldwide recognition.  

That viral piece inspired another SF-based runner, Wenqi Shao, to attempt her own run art. She tries to tie her artwork to holidays or cultural moments, like Baby Yoda for May 4, a pot leaf on 4/20, or a gavel for Trump’s felony convictions. 

Unlike Maughan and Chan, who often rack up dozens of miles per creation, she keeps most of her drawings shorter so they’re completed in a single run versus multiple sessions. 

“You’re creating something out of nothing,” she said of her attraction to the practice. “You’re capturing a moment, but you’re superimposing an aesthetic onto this experience.” 

All three run artists say they’ve embraced the craft in part because it provides an outlet for creativity while helping them switch up their running routines and routes. Still, trying to sketch out Wile E. Coyote or Mickey Mouse doesn’t always translate into the best workout. 

“It’s a lot of looking at your phone to make sure you’re on the route that you drew,” leading to slowdowns, Shao said. “It’s not the best exercise.”

It can also be quite a pain to plan: “The biggest challenge is thinking of what to draw and then fitting that concept into the streets,” Maughan said. “Something that takes as long or longer than the actual run itself.” 

Plus, the risk of a GPS glitch or forgetting to restart your tracker after a bathroom break can screw up the artwork, according to Chan. 

“If you forget to resume, maybe you’ve lost a hand,” he said. He actually wears two workout watches to track his run as a fail-safe. 

At its best, though, run art combines the joy of creating with the ability to construct a message.  

“You make a choice of what you highlight,” Chan said. He’s done drawings in tribute to Stacey Abrams, Ahmaud Arbery, and trans rights, for example. “Most of my drawings are whimsical, but sometimes I also like to make a point.”