No - Strava does not have marathon lottery alerts. It will not tell you when the London Marathon ballot opens, when NYC Marathon registration goes live, or when a first-come-first-served race like Paris is about to sell out. That is not what Strava does.
If you came here looking for a checkbox in Strava settings, you can stop searching - it does not exist. The good news is the workaround is genuinely simple, costs almost nothing, and works alongside Strava without replacing anything.
What Strava Actually Does
Strava is a tracking and community platform. It records runs from your phone or watch, lets your friends see and react to them, ranks you on segments, and stores your training history forever. It is excellent at all of that. The notifications it sends are about activity - kudos, comments, segment achievements, monthly summaries.
What Strava does not do is monitor race organiser websites. It has no concept of upcoming registration windows, ballot openings, or charity entry deadlines. The product is built around runs that have already happened, not races you might enter in the future.
Why People Look for This in Strava
It is a reasonable assumption. Strava is the default app for serious runners, so it feels like it should know everything about racing. And major marathons are stressful to enter - the NYC Marathon has hundreds of thousands of applicants for a 2-3 percent acceptance rate, the London ballot opens once a year and closes fast, and races like Paris can sell out in hours.
Missing a registration window when you have been training for months is genuinely painful. So runners go looking for an alert in the app they use most - and come away frustrated when they cannot find one.
What to Use Instead
The fix is to add one small, focused tool to your stack. BibsAlert does the one thing Strava does not: it monitors the official websites of major marathons and sends you an email the moment registration opens. That is the entire product. It does not track your runs, build a training plan, or compete with Strava in any way - they sit side by side.
BibsAlert covers all six World Marathon Majors (Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York) plus other major international races like Paris and Sydney. The full list is on the tracked races page.
It costs ten dollars a year, no account is required, and there is nothing to install. You pick the races you want to watch, and emails arrive when something happens. For most runners, that is the entire interaction.
Strava will not warn you when the next ballot opens. BibsAlert will. Set it up once and stop refreshing race websites in your spare time.
The Stack Most Runners End Up With
Strava is not going anywhere - it is the right tool for tracking and community. But it works best as part of a small toolkit:
- Strava - tracking, social, long-term history.
- A training app (Runna, Garmin Connect, Nike Run Club) - for the actual plan.
- BibsAlert - the alert layer that gets you a bib in the first place.
For more on how these fit together, the marathon runner toolkit guide breaks down each app in detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Strava notify you when marathon registrations open?
No. Strava does not monitor race websites or send notifications when registrations or lotteries open. It is a tracking and community platform focused on activities you have already completed, not upcoming race entries.
Can you get marathon lottery alerts on Strava?
No, Strava does not offer this feature. Runners who want lottery and registration alerts typically use a dedicated tool like BibsAlert, which monitors official race websites and emails you the moment a ballot or signup window opens.
What is the best way to track when marathon lotteries open?
The most reliable approach is a dedicated alert service that watches official race pages directly. BibsAlert covers all six World Marathon Majors plus other major international races and sends an email the moment registration opens. The full marathon calendar is also a good place to plan your season.