Motion is just time unfolding' Strava artist whose running routes became a hit online

Paused on a busy Toronto street, eyes glued to a map on his phone, Duncan McCabe could easily be mistaken for a lost tourist. Within moments, however, he's on the move. "I think, at this point, we're along the belly of the whale," he says. "The fin is coming up soon."

- Leyland Cecco

McCabe is midway through his latest work, using the outline of his running route as shown on the fitness app Strava to create a cartoonish whale. The cetacean, spout and all, comes as he enjoys online fame from his previous work of running art, a dancing stick figure that has clocked up nearly 100m views.

It all started for the 32-year-old accountant after he posted a 27-second video to TikTok. Virtually all art on Strava, the popular app used by athletes to record the details of their workouts, comprises a single, at times immensely detailed, frame.

McCabe's contribution to the genre was in making something that moved - or in this case, danced. The video, set to the beat of Purple Hat by Sofi Tukker, has the stick figure dancing and shuffling along the streets of Toronto's West End - a feat that involved 1,100km of running. Every second of the video is a marathon and a half. The idea, which plays out like a flip book, came from his wife, Andrea Morales.