Spotted on Strava: Running Africa, Paris Marathon and Wout's Walk

From the shores of Tunisia (by way of an epic run) to the boulevards of Paris and frozen seas off Finland, there's been plenty to look out for on Strava this week.

To you and I, Russ Cook's Morning Run may look like a pleasant 'trot' to the Northern tip of Tunisia, but for Russ it was the culmination of a year of running. On Sunday April 7, Russ completed an epic 352-day challenge, covering 9,940 miles / 16,000km as he ran from Cape Agulhas in South Africa to Ras Angela in Tunisia. Along the way, Russ not only took on the Sahara desert and dense rainforests, but the Brit was also held at gunpoint in Angola and briefly kidnapped in the Republic of Congo. During the year he was running, Russ raised over $1m for homeless young people and clean water in Africa. Kudos Russ!

While Russ was sipping a well-earned Daiquiri in Tunisia, some of the world's top cyclists were battling it out in the 'Hell of the North'. One of the defining events on the cycling calendar, Paris-Roubaix served up plenty of drama - and impressive performances. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the men's race in 05:25.58, ahead of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek). In the women's race, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) took the victory in 03:47:13, ahead of Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Pfeiffer Georgi (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL).

Staying with cycling, anyone who witnessed Wout van Aert's massive crash in the Dwars door Vlaanderen two weeks ago will be glad to see the Belgian rider back on his feet again. Wout underwent surgery after breaking a collarbone, sternum and seven ribs in the high-speed accident. In his first post on Strava since the crash, Wout shared a walk with the caption 'Stilstaan is achteruitgaan' (To stand still is to go backwards).

Wout wasn't the only one recovering over the weekend. There will have been plenty of achy legs on Sunday evening strolling up and down the Champs Elysee following the conclusion of the Paris Marathon. Perhaps the most picturesque city marathon on the planet, 54,000 people took part in the race over the weekend, and over 31,000 of them uploaded their activities to Strava. Incroyable! It was an Ethiopian double in the men's and women's elite races, with Mulugeta Uma winning the men's race (02:05:33) and Mestawut Fikir winning the women's race (02:20:48).

We always like to finish with a little Strava Art, and couldn't help ourselves when we saw this gem from Pekka Tahkola. There are a few things about this that made us double-take, namely: one, it's Strava sea Art; two, it was on a bike. Digging a little deeper (and scrolling out on the map) we saw that Pekka is from Finland and at this time of the year the sea is covered in ice. And while a frozen sea might seem like a blank canvas, Pekka explained the complexity of drawing on it in his post: 'You've got 360° freedom all the time so it's freaking easy to steer off the line and you've got pretty much no places nor points visible to ride towards.'