If you've relied on Strava to funnel your runs into other apps, you may have noticed access to that data now sits behind a paid tier. The good news: your training data was never really Strava's to gate — it lives in your watch ecosystem, and there are clean, free ways to keep using it.
Every run your watch records is already stored in that brand's own platform (Garmin Connect, Suunto, Polar Flow, COROS) and can be shared to the operating system's health store. That means an app like Rurilab can read your workouts directly, without Strava sitting in the middle.
On Android, your watch's companion app can write workouts, heart rate and wellness data into Health Connect — a shared, permission-based store. Rurilab reads from it with your consent, including the GPS route where the source app provides it.
On iPhone, the same idea applies through Apple Health. Apple Watch writes to it natively; Garmin, Suunto, COROS and Polar can write to it from their companion apps once you enable the permission. Be aware that some detail (power, cadence, full-resolution streams) does not always survive the trip through Apple Health.
Every platform lets you export an activity as a file. Rurilab imports GPX, TCX and FIT directly — the FIT file in particular carries the richest data (GPS, heart rate, cadence, power), so this is the most complete manual option.
Relying on a third-party middleman means your analysis breaks whenever that company changes its terms. Reading your data at the source keeps you in control — and keeps it free. That's the approach Rurilab is built on: your data, your account, no third-party subscription required to use it.