The first training runs I ever did were bare-wristed.

I was in sixth grade, at my middle school鈥檚 cross-country practice. Our coach told us to run a lap around the school, maybe three-quarters of a mile. I sauntered around with my friends, unencumbered by any pressure to perform, as our coach smoked a cigarette in the parking lot. Eventually, we tacked on laps, running two, three, four times around the school grounds. I began to feel the drive to improve: I wanted to run more, to run faster, to keep up with the older kids.

My high school coach was the first to introduce the concept of timing our runs. He told us to go to Target and buy a simple stopwatch鈥攏o bells and whistles, no GPS, no heart-rate variability tracker鈥攋ust time. We used the Timex watches to track our training as we ran fartleks and interval workouts on local gravel trails. I was hooked by the improvement I saw in my race results, so I dedicated myself to running, tracking my progress, and aiming for a continuous upward trajectory.

A Runner鈥檚 Life, By the Watch

As I grew up, tracking progress became a more and more integral part of running culture. Watches became more advanced, and apps like Strava made data social. But still, the advice of my high school coach stuck with me: Don鈥檛 overcomplicate it. I continued to log my training in notebooks, writing out the routes, paces, and mileages manually. And despite having bought a Coros smartwatch in 2021, I often still ran with my blue 鈥渄umb鈥� Timex stopwatch.

My Timex battery finally died late last year. I had just set a big PR with a 2:26:42 marathon in Indianapolis, and I wasn鈥檛 too pressed about continuing an intense training block through the bitter cold of winter. So, when I got home after spending the holidays with my family, I decided to forgo the watch鈥攁ny watch鈥攅ntirely. It was time to get back to my roots.

Running Without a Watch

The first watchless run was an adjustment. Stepping out my door, I instinctively reached for my wrist, only to realize there was no button to push. So, I walked down the front steps, turned to my route, and got going. At stoplights, I looked down for a nonexistent activity to pause. Without it, I just kind of鈥� stood there.

As the days went by, I began to realize what a simple, even childlike, activity running is. Take away the ritualistic data collecting, the expensive gear, the constant tracking, and all you鈥檙e doing is moving your body through the world. It became a freeing feeling to walk outside and just go, no need to wait for the beep of satellite acquisition to tell me when to start. I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted, simply listening to my body to determine my pace on any given run. When I was done, the only things I had to show for it were some sweaty clothes and the rush of endorphins.

On my local bike path, running hard on a familiar stretch of road became a chance to release emotions I鈥檇 been holding. I channeled my frustration, my stress, and my pain into speed, pushing my body and savoring the challenge. I have no idea how fast I went, but I know I felt powerful.

Falling in Love With Running Again

Running is full of extrapolated life lessons: Consistency is key; everything in balance and moderation; pain is a part of growth. At the end of the month, I found all of these lessons reinforced, but a new one shone through: Trust your intuition.

The delicate balance between listening to and ignoring your body is a skill honed over years of running, but intuition goes beyond that. Intuition tells us why and how we run. It tells us to speed up when the world is overwhelming and infuriating and to slow down when the sunset turns the sky into a vibrant pastel painting. It reminds us that running is a natural part of who we are that connects us to ourselves and something greater.

Ditching the data and simplifying my runs for a month allowed me to tap back into the reasons I love running in the first place: The feelings of strength, of gratitude, of awe, the connection with my body and the world around me, the ability to challenge myself and push my limits.

As the seasons change and I begin training in earnest for races, I鈥檒l once again rely on a watch to inform my work. I鈥檒l keep track of my pace on my long runs, I鈥檒l time out my intervals, I鈥檒l aim to hit my splits. But regardless of the stats, I know my intuition will always be there to guide me.

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The post I Ran Without a Watch for a Month. It Completely Changed My Running. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

When we started tallying up how many miles our group covered while testing watches, we ended somewhere around 4,000 miles. That鈥檚 like running and cycling from New York to San Francisco, then turning around and making it back to Nebraska. Throughout all those miles, a diverse group of testers鈥攆rom everyday moms and dads to former Olympic Trials athletes鈥攐bsessed over the features of a big batch of watches to find the very best.

At a Glance

• Best Overall:
• Best for Runners:
• Best for Weekend Warriors:
• Best for Small Wrists:
• Best for Everyday Use:
• Best for a Budget:
• How to Choose a Sports Watch
• How We Test
• Meet Our Lead Testers

If you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. This supports our mission to get more people active and outside. Learn more.

Best Overall

Garmin Enduro 3

Weight: 2.2 oz with elastic nylon strap
Face Diameter: 51 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� Big but light
鈯� Phenomenal battery life
鈯� Feature rich
鈯� Strap is the most comfortable on the market
鈯� Pricey

After months of running and skiing, the Garmin Enduro 3 rose to the top of the test group and is possibly the best sports watch we鈥檝e ever tested, thanks to the feature-rich setup and a huge 51-millimeter screen.

The screen isn鈥檛 AMOLED, but while bright AMOLED screens beam workout info at you in ultra high-def, over years of testing we鈥檝e come to love non-AMOLED screens both for their less-glaring brightness and because they have a much smaller energy draw and allow for mind-boggling battery life.

Case in point: The Enduro 3 allows for up to 36 days of smartwatch use (where you鈥檙e just using the watch for notifications and other non-workout features) and up to 120 hours of GPS use. Throw in some solar charging and the watch will keep ticking for a reported 90 days of general smartwatch use (up from 46 days for the Enduro 2), and a staggering 320 hours (that鈥檚 13+ days) of GPS tracking. One tester said he went over a month between charges (longer during the abundant summer sun) with 24/7 daily use and about an hour of activity tracking per day.

In addition to tracking nearly every sport or exercise imaginable (as diverse as wakesurfing and rugby), the Enduro 3 also comes with plenty of space for downloaded maps plus turn-by-turn directions so backcountry skiers or trail runners will never get lost. I have several hundred songs downloaded, which has helped me stay motivated on long, grueling road runs. Plus, the elastic nylon strap is the most comfortable we鈥檝e ever used; not once did testers get a rash and they raved that the adjustability created the perfect fit.

A 10 percent reduction in weight between the Enduro 2 and Enduro 3鈥攐r about seven grams鈥攄oes not seem like a lot. But damn if I didn鈥檛 notice that it was the lightest 51-millimeter watch I鈥檝e ever worn, which made a big difference, even if just mentally, when covering a lot of miles.

Like other top-end Garmin watches, the Enduro 3 comes with an ultra-bright flashlight that was equally helpful when peeing at night as it was one evening when I had to navigate a dark section of trail and didn鈥檛 have a headlamp.

Garmin鈥檚 software interface is not as good as Apple鈥檚鈥攁nd likely never will be鈥攂ut it鈥檚 way better than what we鈥檝e seen from other competitors. Tester Jonathan Beverly found the mobile app鈥檚 daily dashboard that tracked both fitness progress and training readiness to be intuitive, accurate, and valuable. 鈥淲henever I ignored its recommendations to rest, I鈥檇 pay for it on subsequent days,鈥� he said.

Best for Runners

Coros Pace Pro

Weight: 1.7 oz with silicone band, 1.3 oz with nylon band
Face Diameter: 33 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� Small but mighty
鈯� The screen is beautiful
鈯� Fairly priced
鈯� Ultra-quick GPS location
鈯� Wake time isn鈥檛 immediate with arm rise

Back in college, Jesse Armijo ran the USA Olympic Marathon Trials. More recently he had a streak of winning the Duke City Half Marathon four times in a row. He鈥檚 currently training for the Black Canyon 100k Ultra in Arizona, and he organizes a youth running club for kids in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In other words, he鈥檚 a talented and dedicated runner and was the perfect tester for the Pace Pro, which bills itself as the smart choice for serious athletes (especially those who pound the pavement or trails).

Jesse put hundreds of running miles on the watch and found that it was an excellent training partner during every one of them. It picked up a GPS signal almost as soon as he stepped out of his house so that he could get up and go, and he liked the small 1.3-inch face that gave him all the info he needed鈥攊n a bright, beautiful AMOLED display鈥� without looking ostentatious (he鈥檚 a humble guy).

In high-quality GPS mode, the watch lasts up to 38 hours, which Jesse said was more than plenty, even for an athlete of his caliber who鈥檚 often out training 10 or 20 hours per week. He found the software reasonably easy to navigate and liked built-in features like the effort-pace screen. This feature allowed him to see an adjusted pace that factored in hills and compared how hard he was working to his historical performances with similar conditions and terrain.

Jesse is a new dad, so affordability is important, and at just half the price of the Enduro 3, the Pace Pro is something he鈥檚 happy to invest in. Our only niggle: Jesse wished the watch lit up its screen more quickly when he raised his wrist.

Best for Weekend Warriors

Apple Watch Ultra 2

Weight: 2.2 oz
Face Diameter: 49 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� The best interface on the market
鈯� Intuitive lifestyle functions
鈯� Lousy battery life

Category manager Jakob Schiller is not as hardcore an athlete as the other testers in this year鈥檚 group and found that the Ultra 2 was perfect for a weekend warrior like him. He loved how the watch integrated into his everyday life, allowing him to quickly answer texts with Siri, easily control his AirPods, and answer a call on the watch just by double-tapping his pointer finger and thumb. But he was also impressed with the bright screen, detailed stats for every activity from skiing to swimming, and the well-designed watch faces that presented data and info in smart, easy-to-read displays. 鈥淭he watch faces that launched with the Ultra 2 are not only a pleasure to look at but are also damn good at presenting both everyday and workout information鈥攑lus they鈥檙e easily customizable,鈥� he said.

This version of the Ultra is also carbon-neutral, and Apple is sharing the environmentally-friendly manufacturing technology it developed to help other companies build better products. Jakob, like everyone else, was disappointed, however, with the 36-hour battery life (with regular use, up to 72 hours in low power mode) but says he鈥檚 rarely away from a charger for that long, so it isn鈥檛 a deal-breaker.

PAID ADVERTISEMENT BY AMAZFIT
Amazfit T-Rex 3 ($279.99)

With 170+ built-in workout modes and AI-generated personalized training plans, the T-Rex 3 smartwatch from Amazfit is the perfect partner for the gym, pool, road, or trail. Track reps, sets, and rest time in strength training mode, and easily see all your workout data and sleep recovery information on the big, bright face. Plus, stay focused on your workout by fully controlling your watch with your voice and sending speech-to-text messages. With more than 3 weeks of battery life and a rugged body, the T-Rex 3 is always ready to go.

Best for Small Wrists

Suunto Race S Titanium Courtney

Weight: 1.87 oz with silicone band
Face Diameter: 33.5 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� Versatile functionality
鈯� Tough as nails
鈯� Perfect for small wrists
鈯� Heart rate takes time to settle in

We鈥檒l be honest: Wearing a pro-model watch from Courtney Dauwalter is its own form of motivation. Just like wearing a pair of Jordans and being inspired by the GOAT himself, wearing Dauwalter鈥檚 watch always gave us a little extra motivation, channeling the strength that she used to become the first person, man or woman, to win the Western States 100, Hardrock 100, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc trail running races all in the same year.

Meg Healy was the principal tester, and as an ultra-fit woman who鈥檚 just about five-feet tall, she said the 45 millimeter form factor was perfect for her smaller wrists but never once lacked info thanks to the 1.32-inch screen that broadcast all the info she needed, no matter the workout. Healy, who loves to pack in multiple sports every day, said she also appreciated the wide variety of activity trackers built into the software that allowed her to keep track of everything from running to martial arts to horseback riding.

Healy鈥檚 favorite part, however, was that the watch restarted her workout when she resumed after a pause, even if she didn鈥檛 remember to manually do it herself. 鈥淭his saved me from not tracking large chunks of many bike rides, hikes, and runs after I’d stopped for traffic or to pick up after the dog,鈥� she said. The battery on the Race S is respectable, lasting up to 30 hours when talking to multiple satellites. You can get a less expensive steel Race S, but we loved the feathery weight of the nearly indestructible titanium.

One potential ding: Healy noticed that the heart rate monitor wasn鈥檛 accurate at times and had trouble settling in, especially at the beginning of a workout. I didn鈥檛 put as many miles in with the Race S as Healy, but had much better luck and found the heart rate to be as accurate as those of other watches.

See our extended review of the full-size Suunto Race.

Best for Everyday Use

Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra

Weight: 2.1 oz for just the watch
Face Diameter: 37.3 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� Battery lasts multiple days
鈯� Delivers tons of information
鈯� Pretty on the eye
鈯� Just for Android users
鈯� Watch strap is sub-par

Ever since Apple and Samsung launched beefed up sports watches we鈥檝e been waiting for these companies to put other sports watch manufacturers out of business. It hasn鈥檛 happened because both Apple and Samsung have focused more on ultra bright screens, phone connectivity, and information delivery and less on battery life. That means everyone who鈥檚 running ultras or exploring for multiple days at a time is still very loyal to the likes of Garmin, Suunto, and Coros.

The Galaxy Watch Ultra, however, gives us a glimpse of what could be coming because it鈥檚 a big, flashy, daily watch that lets you track your workouts (from running and cycling to table tennis and orienteering), play music, control your thermostat鈥攁nd its battery actually lasts a couple days. Tester Andy Dean, who used the watch for over 1,000 miles, said he could track his bike commute to work in the morning, his run at lunch, and his bike commute home for two days without running out of battery. Samsung鈥檚 Galaxy Watch 7 couldn鈥檛 do that, nor could the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (which didn鈥檛 get an update this year).

Those of you who can handle information displayed in your face all day will love the Ultra鈥檚 sharp 37.3-millimeter AMOLED screen with 480 x 480 resolution that beams your calendar appointments, bank info, and a wide array of workouts at you in high-def.

We recommend buyinga third-party watch band for the Ultra because the one that comes with the watch is, frankly, junk. Dean found it to be highly uncomfortable when it was synched down, even just slightly to get accurate heart-rate readings. The band鈥檚 silicone material also irritated his skin so much it forced him to leave the watch off for hours at a time, sometimes a full day.

Best for a Budget

Garmin Forerunner 165 Music

Weight: 1.4 oz with the silicone band
Face Diameter: 30.4 mm

Pros and Cons
鈯� Feature-rich for the price
鈯� Large music storage capacity
鈯� Bright, easy-to-read screen
鈯� Small and light
鈯� Battery life limited

For those of us who need a playlist to keep ourselves going when things stretch past 30 minutes, and can attest that Run the Jewels and Avicii sound great at the 45-minute mark, the Forerunner 165 Music stands out as a top training companion. Lower on the price spectrum at $300, it still comes with 4GB of music storage so we can jam for an entire workout. For that price you also get a bright AMOLED screen, accurate GPS and multi-band connection, great phone connectivity, and a comfy strap that didn鈥檛 chafe.

Meg Healy used the watch for multiple sports every day, putting in well over 1,000 miles. For her, the running metrics and coaching suggestions that Garmin provided were especially useful. Information about vertical ratio, stride length, and ground contact time helped her monitor her running form, and as a busybody she liked that the watch was not shy about recommending recovery days. 鈥淭his watch is like having an opinionated but indulgent nanny who thinks you are very talented and dedicated but always working too hard. Honestly, it feels kind of nice to have that support and feedback as an adult.鈥�

Garmin says the watch should give users 19 hours of GPS use, and Healy said she was able to get several days of use at a time before charging. But on one multi-day backpacking trip, she said the watch died, leaving her without metrics, and firming up her opinion that the watch is designed for everyday runners and cyclists and not multi-day adventurers. She also wished the activity menu included recreational sports like soccer.

How to Choose a Sports Watch

When buying a sports watch you need to decide who you really are. That sounds like some kind of spiritual question you鈥檇 ponder at a retreat, but it鈥檚 absolutely the best way to sort out what you need. Can you admit to yourself that you鈥檙e a weekend warrior because you have a job and family? Or are you totally in and going to the top as an athlete? Maybe you disappear into the backcountry for a week whenever you get the chance.

It鈥檚 necessary to categorize yourself because this will help you pick the watch that meets your goals. If your workouts are squeezed into lunch-hour work breaks, you don鈥檛 need a watch that lasts for weeks on end without charging. If you鈥檙e dedicated to really improving in your chosen sport, a higher-end watch with complex training options can be a real aid in achieving your goal. If you dabble in a variety of sports, you鈥檒l need a watch with a robust workout menu. And if you鈥檙e an adventurer who regularly returns from trips with torn apparel and broken equipment, you need to prioritize a bullet-proof build.

Next, make sure you play with the watch you think you want鈥攁t a local retailer, if possible, or borrow one from a friend鈥攂efore making a purchase. Spend time pressing buttons, and see how much effort it takes to find features and customize the watch to your preferences. All the top-end sports watches have menus that are fairly well organized, but each one is different. Little tweaks in how a watch allows you to access a workout or track data can be big motivators鈥攐r frustrations鈥攚hen you鈥檙e using the thing all day every day. Note: The menus used across a specific watch brand鈥檚 line tend to be similar, so even if you don鈥檛 find the exact model you want at your local retailer, you can still get a sense of how a brand organizes its software by playing with a different watch.

How We Test

• Number of Testers: 9
• Number of Products Tested: 12
• Number of Miles: 4,000+

Over the years we鈥檝e discovered that the best sports watch testers are adventurers who are absolutely obsessed with being outside, but come at their chosen sport without much of an ego. They love sport for sport and aren鈥檛 trying to prove anything. This balance is important because mild-mannered testers are great at digging into the features of a watch and providing in-depth feedback, but also know how to keep an everyday user in mind. There鈥檚 no mansplaining, or sportsplaining, in our tester group.

In terms of breadth, the watches we tested for this round traveled the country and saw the tops of peaks, spent hot days in the desert, and were with us during the day as our testers did everything from training troops and teaching kids to counting fish and coaching sports.

Meet Our Lead Testers

Category manager Jakob Schiller was a gear editor at 国产吃瓜黑料 and is now a columnist. The father of four kids and two dogs, he鈥檚 a bit pinned down but still manages to run, ski, or bike every day and loves a good weekend-long adventure in the woods chasing elk, peak tops, or fresh turns.

One of the routes Jakob used when testing sports watches:

Jesse Armijo is a PE coach and also founded the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Dukes Track Club, an all-ages organization that coaches kids and organizes a variety of races. He鈥檚 the most unassuming runner you鈥檒l ever meet and is more than happy to sit in the group but can put everyone in the ground if he turns on the burners.

Meghan Healy does data management for the publishing industry and is also one of New Mexico鈥檚 most high-energy athletes. She runs races, is passionate about martial arts, rides horses, cycles around town with her kids, helps coach soccer, and is the true definition of someone who benefits from a trusted, function-rich sports watch.

The post The Best Sports Watches (2025) appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

DJI Mavic 3 Classic Drone (Starting at $1,599)

Do you have a drone hobbyist on your list that鈥檚 looking to take their flight game to the next level? Check out the Mavic 3 Classic from DJI. Its film quality is good enough for all but Hollywood shooters, but it鈥檚 user friendly enough 鈥渇or those of us who are still mastering the art of drone flight,鈥� says our lead camera tester Jakob Schiller.

Read the Full Review.

Apple Fitness+ ($10/month or $80/annually)

Testers loved the inclusivity of the roughly 4,000 different workouts you can choose from on this app: not only do workout lengths vary, but each session includes three instructors catering to different ability levels. Of course, you need at least one Apple device to enjoy them鈥攚e suggest the new Apple Watch.

Read the Full Review.

Sony a7RV Camera ($3,900)

The Sony a7RV gets you 鈥渟ome of the best digital imaging on the market,鈥� says Schiller. The autofocus is amazing at capturing action sports (10 shots per second in compressed raw mode) and you can capture 8K, image-stabilized footage, too. If you want your gift recipient to potentially shoot some wall-hangers for you in the future, this Sony will do the trick: the 61 megapixel, full-frame sensor will provide plenty of detail for printing.

Read the Full Review.

Sponsor Content
Siren 3 Pro ($797)

Make every boating experience better and more secure with the Siren 3 Pro. Siren Marine’s smart boat monitoring system allows boaters to remotely track their boats鈥� location, engine, temperature, bilge pump activity, battery levels, water levels, shore power status, and more. Your boat is at your fingertips. With the touch of a button, you can control the lights, A/C, and access digital switching. When coupled with the easy-to-use Siren Marine Mobile App, the Siren 3 Pro connects you to your boat anywhere, anytime.

Marshall Emberton II Outdoor Speaker ($170)

If you鈥檙e buying a gift for an audiophile that takes a speaker wherever they go, get them the Marshall Emberton II. Not only is the sound 鈥減otent and and clear from every direction,鈥� according to our lead audio tester Will Palmer, but it鈥檚 tough too, thanks to a steel, silicone, and recycled plastic build.

Read the Full Review.

Garmin Enduro 2 Fitness Watch ($1,100)

Yes, this was the most expensive fitness watch we tested this year, but it鈥檚 also the most capable. It would be especially valuable for serious endurance athletes who need features like 150 hours of battery life (GPS mode, with solar charging), topographic maps, and an easy-to-read screen.

Read the Full Review.

Suunto 9 Peak Pro Titanium Fitness Watch ($699)

This watch from Suunto has the best GPS acquisitions of all the devices we tested this season and is tough as nails. Our testers also loved the on-screen navigation features and the 40-hour battery life in GPS mode鈥攐h, and it charges lightning fast, too.

Read the Full Review.

Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones ($400)

Who doesn鈥檛 want to put on headphones and forget the world exists from time to time? These have some of the best sound quality thanks to its futuristic tech, like a new carbon-fiber driver and eight microphones that detect your surroundings and adjust the noise canceling levels with AI. As our lead tester said: 鈥渢he outside world can wait.鈥�

Read the Full Review.

The post Gift One of These Seven Curated Picks of the Latest Tech appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

A month ago, one of the runners I coach contacted me in a panic. We鈥檒l call him 鈥淎dam.鈥� He鈥檚 training for a sub-three-hour marathon and is, consequently, pouring himself into his training.

So far, everything in his preparation has been going to plan. He鈥檚 healthy. His workout times are solid. He鈥檚 hitting overall mileage levels that are challenging but manageable. Adam has also been feeling good for most of his training, so he鈥檚 right where I鈥檇 like him to be.

But Adam was panicking over his cadence. Last week, he ran two of his easy runs with an average cadence of 169 steps per minute. Usually, his cadence lands at around 170 to 171 steps per minute.

Was Adam right to panic over his cadence slipping ever so slightly? Was this a sign of excessive fatigue? Would this trend keep progressing over time?

Having this immediate, ongoing access to so many metrics about your running is both a blessing and a curse. In this case, Adam had nothing to worry about, but let鈥檚 discover why.

Drawbacks to Data

Now that runners have such unprecedented access to robust training and bodily data, it can be tempting to pore over every detail to determine what can be optimized to ensure great performances, fewer injuries, and longevity in the sport. But therein lies the risk. Humans are not robots, and our data is often messy, which can cause us to interpret temporary changes as permanent.

Adam鈥檚 cadence, for example, might have been affected by his sleep, overall fatigue, shoe choice, the terrain he was running on, or a number of other variables. Let鈥檚 also consider that, at such a low variability from his 鈥渘ormal鈥� cadence, there could have also simply been a measurement error. GPS cadence accuracy isn鈥檛 100 percent accurate, anyway.

Alas, his cadence improved the following week, and we stopped paying attention to this metric. But that didn鈥檛 stop him from anxiously stressing out over it, likely spiking his cortisol levels unnecessarily and compromising recovery.

RELATED: The Best Sports Watches 2023

In this case, access to data led to perfectionism, which has no place in running. Because we鈥檙e not robots, our progress is rarely linear. We experience setbacks, plateaus, and minor blips in our training as our ability to recover varies over time and life stressors come and go.

If we attempted to increase our mileage with unwavering linearity, run perfect workout splits, have the correct cadence at every moment during a run, or negative split every long run, we would usually fail.

Measuring the performance of our bodies serves as a constant reminder that our biological systems do not behave as neatly as we鈥檇 like them to.

Data Makes us Perform (for Others)

The other major problem with the data our smartwatches provide is that they often cause us to train performatively. Instead of training appropriately and strategically, many will train in a way that will look impressive on platforms like Strava.

This happened to me just yesterday. Instead of running an easy five miles, I relied more on pace so that I would have a nice round number to show off on Strava. While my body wanted to run five miles at an easy effort, in about 38:45, I sped up over the last two miles so that the clock was an even 38:00 when I finished.

Almost any runner with a smartwatch has dabbled in this data overload, pouring over charts and graphs to find the signal in the Eras Tour-level noise. But ultimately, that result is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Besides the physical disadvantage of running easy runs too fast, there鈥檚 also a psychological component to this problem: it makes us feel like we鈥檙e not training well. Our runs feel inadequate, especially when we fall into the comparison trap on social platforms.

Do Smartwatches Impede Long-Term Development?

There鈥檚 also another major problem with relying too heavily on your smartwatch: it may hamper your long-term development of interpreting your body鈥檚 communication signals.

This plays out in two different scenarios. The first and most common is pacing ability. GPS watches are now more accurate than ever at displaying your current running pace. That helps us fine-tune our effort during workouts, races, and long efforts. The problem is that we now must rely on a watch to fine-tune our paces. It鈥檚 becoming more and more difficult to intuitively understand how fast you鈥檙e running and how to adjust your pace in real-time.

RELATED: One Runner Followed His Watch鈥檚 AI Training Plans for a Month. Here鈥檚 What Happened.听

Certain GPS watches also provide runners with fitness and recovery scores, alongside specific suggestions on what workouts to run and how much recovery to take. This sounds great in theory, but over time it can erode a runner鈥檚 subjective judgment on their fatigue level and injury risk. Instead of listening to their body, they listen to their watch鈥攊nformed by proprietary algorithms鈥攁nd, therefore, are less able to learn what their body is trying to tell them.

This may keep you healthier in the short-term, but at the expense of better knowing your body over the long-term.

Three Smart Tips for Smartwatches

Despite this encroaching overreliance on our GPS gadget鈥檚 feedback, smartwatches can, of course, be incredible training tools. We now have the power to peer into the minute details of our physiology and performance to better guide our training. While misinterpreting or overanalyzing metrics is common, we can use these tools more effectively if we better understand them and our bodies.

1. Focus more on objective metrics than subjective metrics. The distance, pace, and overall time of your run is more important than an algorithmic 鈥渟core鈥� that tells you how many hours are needed until you鈥檙e ready for your next training session. It鈥檚 much more difficult to get those objective metrics wrong (and watch technology means these values are more accurate than ever).
2. Focus on trends over time rather than specific moments in time. Training is rarely linear, so don鈥檛 be upset if your cadence decreases temporarily, your heart rate variability is low one day, or your pace isn鈥檛 鈥渘ormal鈥� on a random Tuesday. Like Adam鈥檚 cadence discussed earlier, some 鈥減roblems鈥� are not actually problems at all; they鈥檙e simply reflections of the fact that you are a biological system, and variability is always going to exist.
3. Remember that subjective markers are estimates. Things like recovery scores, training readiness, or estimated finish times are simply guides and best guesses, rather than firm realities. Your watch does not know you better than you know you.

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There are two parallel agendas in a new paper from the science team at Supersapiens, the company promoting continuous glucose monitors for endurance athletes. The obvious one is to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding rebound hypoglycemia, a plunge in blood sugar that afflicts some people when they eat too close to a workout. The underlying one is to show that sticking CGMs, which were initially developed as medical devices for managing diabetes, on thousands of perfectly healthy athletes yields some useful insights that we wouldn鈥檛 be able to obtain otherwise. Both goals are interesting鈥攁t least to me, given that I鈥檝e experienced occasional bouts of rebound hypoglycemia for as long as I can remember.

The initial pitch from Supersapiens was that a CGM could function as a 鈥渞eal-time fuel gauge鈥� to track levels of glucose (i.e. sugar) in the bloodstream. I dug into the details of this claim in this 2021 article, but the key point is that glucose levels are way more complicated than the gas dial in your car. Exercise burns glucose, but triggers the liver to dump more into circulation. Eating carbs raises glucose levels, but triggers insulin that moves glucose back out of the bloodstream and into muscle and fat cells for storage. There are a whole bunch of signals and countersignals attempting to keep roughly a teaspoon of glucose in circulation at all times.

Sometimes those signals get crossed. If you eat a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, . In response, you鈥檒l secrete insulin to get the levels back to normal. But the insulin spike doesn鈥檛 take effect immediately; it won鈥檛 peak for 45 to 60 minutes. Meanwhile, if you head out for a run, your muscles will start burning through glucose as much as 100 times faster than they do at rest. If you time it badly, the insulin will kick in just as your muscles start demanding more glucose, and the two effects together will cause your levels to overshoot and produce a blood-sugar low. That rebound hypoglycemia (or reactive hypoglycemia, as it鈥檚 also known) can make you feel dizzy, light-headed, and weak.

The typical advice for dealing with rebound hypoglycemia is to avoid eating between about 30 and 90 minutes before exercise, and particularly to avoid high-carb and high-glycemic-index foods. Supersapiens makes the app used with Abbott鈥檚 Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, so it has access to a big database of anonymized data collected by its users. This is a pretty rare trove, because scientists in the pre-CGM era didn鈥檛 spend a lot of time measuring glucose levels in people without diabetes. When I spoke to some of Supersapiens鈥� scientists back in 2021, they were struggling to define what sorts of glucose readings should be considered red flags, because no one was entirely sure what was normal for endurance athletes. The new study, by a team led by Andrea Zignoli of Supersapiens and the University of Trento in Italy, is basically a proof of principle showing that this massive database has some worthwhile lessons to teach us.

The study itself is fairly straightforward. They analyzed almost 49,000 events from 6,700 users in which someone ate something and then exercised. The key variables were how long before exercise they ate, and whether their glucose levels dipped below 70 mg/dL during the first 30 minutes of exercise. This is an arbitrary threshold for rebound hypoglycemia, and in fact there doesn鈥檛 seem to be a consistent threshold that produces negative symptoms in different people. Scientists aren鈥檛 even sure whether it鈥檚 the absolute level of glucose that matters, or the rate at which it鈥檚 dropping, or some other combination. But 70 mg/dL is a reasonable benchmark that indicates that your blood sugar levels dropped significantly more than you鈥檇 expect.

The first question they considered is how prevalent rebound hypoglycemia is. This is a tricky one to quantify, because almost everyone gets low blood sugar during workouts occasionally (even if they don鈥檛 experience symptoms), and no one gets it every time they work out. If you experience it in more than 20 percent of your workouts, it鈥檚 probably fair to say that you鈥檙e susceptible to it. About 15 percent of the Supersapiens users met this threshold.

As for meal timing, here鈥檚 a graph that shows what proportion of workouts produced a blood-sugar low (on the vertical axis), as a function of time since the last meal (on the horizontal axis):

There鈥檚 a pretty obvious bump there, peaking at about 50 minutes before the workout. That鈥檚 when you鈥檙e most likely to give yourself rebound hypoglycemia, and the risk is higher for the entire period between about 30 and 90 minutes prior.

So there it is! Big data from a whole bunch of CGM users shows us what we already kind of knew. To be fair, they do some further data-crunching. By their calculations, around 86 percent of people aren鈥檛 susceptible to rebound hypoglycemia at all. Eight percent are susceptible, but can minimize their risk by adjusting the timing of their pre-workout meal. And the last six percent are susceptible, but meal timing doesn鈥檛 seem to make a difference for them. That鈥檚 a useful, if depressing, new insight for those who happen to fall into the last group.

As for the bigger picture鈥攖he idea that we鈥檒l learn useful things by having endurance athletes wear CGMs鈥攊t鈥檚 far from a slam dunk, but I think this is a good start. There鈥檚 a long, long list of sports science gadgets that can plausibly claim that they might give us useful information. But very few of them follow through with the hard slogging required to validate those claims. Confirming that there鈥檚 a pre-workout meal-timing window for rebound hypoglycemia doesn鈥檛 really move the needle, and to get deeper insights Supersapiens is going to have to convince a subset of its users to keep really accurate meal and workout records. It won鈥檛 be easy, but I鈥檓 already curious to see what they鈥檒l come up with next.

For more Sweat Science, join me on and , sign up for the , and check out my book .

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A few months ago, I noticed an odd thing about my Garmin Enduro 2 watch. At the start of my Saturday run, instead of immediately searching for satellites, it displayed a new screen, an customized just for me. I was planning to do a long run, but my watch said I should do intervals instead.

Initially, I scoffed. How could this wrist device know what my body needs, better than me? The longer I sat with it, the more curious I got.

In the last few years, running watches have made substantial leaps forward. They are now able to collect and analyze a wealth of information, stuff like heart rate variability, blood oxygen levels, respiration rates, sleep cycles, stress, acclimatization, stride mechanics, and other metrics. Even midpack models offer a robust feature set that would鈥檝e been hard to imagine a decade ago. Most major watch brands like Suunto, Coros, and Polar now offer a suite of recovery recommendations, load tracking, and basic workout suggestions.

RELATED: The Best Sports Watches 2023

Could my Garmin watch actually know something I don鈥檛 about my training progress? Could it, heaven forbid, replace a coach? I have had a handful of coaches over my running career, usually whenever I had a clear race or goal in mind, so needless to say, I was skeptical. Currently I have no coach, and no specific race I’m preparing for, so I decided to be a guinea pig, making a resolution to wear my Garmin for a full month, 24 hours a day, and do everything it recommended.

Who Is This AI Coaching Watch Function Made For?

In 2020, Garmin bought , a Finnish company, and started to release suggested workouts a few months later, crunching numbers on your recovery, sleep, and body strain to recommend what you should do on any given day. The goal? To use machine learning to help improve users鈥� VO2 max and lactate thresholds, or in other words, your short- and long-term fitness capacity.

It鈥檚 easy to be skeptical鈥攅ven this publication is dubious of Garmin鈥檚 recovery algorithm鈥攂ut the more I asked around, the more I realized how few people had actually given these suggested workouts, or even the Garmin Coach feature, a fair shot.

So who, exactly, are these suggested workouts for? Joe Heikes, Forerunner Product Manager, says that Garmin developed these recommendations for 鈥渢he middle of running鈥檚 society.鈥� The top quarter of the sport鈥攈ighly competitive, elite, pro runners鈥攍ikely have a coach already, while most new runners aren鈥檛 ready for a structured training plan as they ease into the sport.

鈥淭his feature is for committed runners who need a little help,鈥� says Heikes. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 need a ton of hand-holding, but do want a plan and to see progress.鈥�

Herman Bonner, who works for Firstbeat Analytics, says the biggest challenge is trust. 鈥淎nytime you鈥檙e giving advice, you first have to prove you are trustworthy. This takes a lot of time and effort.鈥� But Booner is confident in the algorithm. 鈥淎s an analytics company, we sifted through all kinds of data, applied accepted training philosophies, and tested for years, but our customers don鈥檛 see that,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey have to use the feature to see the benefits, but it鈥檚 hard to commit before you trust it. So there is a loop.鈥�

Heikes says they first identified the need almost ten years ago. Garmin was getting feedback from users who wanted guidance on workouts, something to push them in the right direction. 鈥淚 was skeptical when I started testing it; so was Herman,鈥� Heikes says. 鈥淭he watch will never be perfect. It鈥檚 built on a specific coaching philosophy that鈥檚 not right for every runner, but it鈥檚 far better than nothing.鈥�

Automated Training Plans: First-Hand Experience

Because suggested workouts are informed by the aggregate of all the data your watch is able to collect, I committed to wearing it nonstop. This isn鈥檛 normal for me鈥擨 typically wear watches only for runs鈥攂ut I knew it would be more accurate (and presumably beneficial) if I was fully committed.

From there, Garmin took over. I didn鈥檛 have to log my workouts or figure out my baseline fitness, like you would with a new coach. All of this hums along in the background and only gets more accurate the more you use the watch鈥攖he strange beauty of AI tracking everything you do.

As I learned, there are seven different types of recommended workouts: a mix of recovery runs, base endurance, high-intensity aerobic workouts, and anaerobic training efforts. I found this to be diverse enough to stay interested for a month, but I wonder if it would get repetitive in the long run. I would later learn it鈥檚 designed as a step in the process of establishing a running routine, not necessarily something you would rely on for years.

The workouts scale as you get more fit, in terms of duration and intensity. My ramp-up started slow, but as the weeks flew by, I did notice an acceleration, especially in the duration of my harder workouts. My biggest pain points were in the first week when the watch served up some questionable recommendations. For example, on my second day, Garmin suggested a tempo workout, but I was feeling terrible after sleeping poorly, so I did an easy run instead.

Garmin acknowledges its own imperfection on their website: 鈥�,鈥� implying that you can skip workouts as needed. Blips like this are part of the process鈥攖he watch is trying to learn your long-term patterns, and errors are much more likely early on.

On the plus side, right away I noticed how well the algorithm incorporates data from other devices, like my Garmin Edge bike computer. This is critical, as someone who keeps a relatively even balance between running and riding. It also incorporates big efforts in the gym, telling me to back off my next day of running after a hard kettlebell workout. I liked this multi-sport integration, which applies to many other weekend dabblers like me.

The Final Verdict

Overall, I found the AI behind the watch to be mostly accurate, suggesting base efforts in line with my expectations, threshold workouts consistent with past workouts, and anaerobic sprint workouts to be hard, as they should be. While it took time to build trust, I feel confident that the logic is sound, although not for everyone. If you already have specific workouts you like that focus on key running metrics like VO2 max or lactate threshold, you鈥檙e probably not the intended user of the feature anyway.

RELATED: Two Golden Rules When Setting Up Any Weekly Running Schedule

While I enjoyed my month using the feature, I鈥檝e already returned to my old habits of training by feel, an approach that offers more flexibility. But maybe this experiment says more about my personal preferences than it does about the watch and its algorithms.

Heikes says the suggested workouts feature was not developed to replace coaching, though he thinks they could certainly complement each other. 鈥淭here is a lot of data for a coach to look at for high-level advice, while letting the watch operate as an AI training plan for day-to-day workouts,鈥� he says.

Corrine Malcolm, who has been coaching since 2016 and founder of , sees an opportunity for coaches to work in tandem with AI coaching platforms.

鈥淭he biggest challenge of coaching is how to scale. If you鈥檙e doing it right, you can only support a few dozen people at a time,鈥� says Malcolm, who believes a hybrid model could provide value to a runner who doesn鈥檛 want to pay a large monthly fee.

鈥淭hink of it like a low-cost, low-touch model. A weekly office hours to ask questions to a human, while mostly relying on the AI to give workouts.鈥� Leveraging the algorithms ability to collect and analyze data, Malcolm says a hybrid model could help her coaching business scale while giving runners a new style of coaching to consider, and from which to benefit. 鈥淚 could probably coach a few hundred people this way, which is a win-win for everybody.鈥�

After my personal experiment, I can see the value of the data and suggested workouts to inform and simplify coaching. And for someone just a couple years into the sport without a coach, I鈥檓 confident that the suggested workouts will help improve fitness and variation, provided you stay consistent and (gasp!) trust the algorithm.

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Strava sure knows how to throw a party. Since 2009, the San Francisco-based tech company has grown from a cycling-centered ride sharing app to 1.8 billion activity uploads across over 30 different types of activities in 195 countries around the world. Strava has become not only an app to track your activities outside, but now a social network, a place where people are meeting, learning about new routes, sharing helpful information, and finding community.

On May 17, Strava hosted an intimate gathering in North Hollywood, California, inviting 300 athletes, media personalities, brands, and others for a full day of and panel discussions. Notable people on panels included the cofounder Michael Horvath, popular podcaster Rich Roll, Charlie Dark (Run Dem Crew), Sabrina Pace-Humphreys (author and cofounder, Black Trail Runners), Guarina Lopez (founder, Native Women Ride), Caroline Gleich (ski mountaineer, endurance athlete, and environmental activist), Adrian Ballinger (Big Mountain Climbers), and many others.

Tucked into the panels that centered on inclusion, environmental stewardship, and how the digital can connect us IRL, were some significant announcements. Here were the major takeaways:

1. Strava Is Partnering with Nike

For the first time, athletes will now be able to share activities seamlessly across both platforms. Later this summer, Nike鈥檚 Run Club and Nike Training Club apps will have the ability to share activities on Strava. Nike will soon be hosting 鈥淐hallenges,鈥� too. This is part of a larger effort we picked up on of Strava really investing more in developing the subscription-based Club features, to connect more like-minded folks on their platform.

2. You Can Play Spotify Through Strava Now

Strava users now have the opportunity to link their Spotify accounts with Strava to play, pause, and skip tracks right from the Strava record screen. This partnership is an attempt to make the experience of using these two popular platforms more seamless and integrated.

鈥淥ne of our biggest goals at Spotify is to be everywhere our listeners are,鈥� said Ian Geller, Vice President of Business Development at Spotify. 鈥淭his integration with Strava is another way we鈥檙e moving with our listeners and allowing them to seamlessly connect to the music and audio they love.鈥�

Expect to see more Strava user-generated playlists that are hyper-curated for specific workouts. Drake, Rihanna, and Lil Nas X are already featured playlist curators on Strava.

3. FATMAP Is Coming in Hot

Strava acquired the mapping giant FATMAP in January, and at Camp Strava they announced that their mapping technologies will be fully integrated by the end of the year. What does that mean? That means leaps of sophistication in 3D route creation. It means more accurate heatmaps, real-time updates on snow and trail conditions. It means that Strava maps will offer avalanche danger layers, etc.

鈥淲e have a shared vision with FATMAP to inspire more people to move by empowering them to discover and experience the joy of the outdoors,鈥� Horvath said. 鈥淔or us, the opportunity to reimagine the purpose of maps and how they inspire exploration is an outsized advantage for a differentiated outdoor experience.”

4. Groups and Clubs Are a Top Priority

Community and connection. If we had a dime for every time someone at Strava reinforced this priority of getting people connected around the shared purpose of being healthy and active, we鈥檇 be a bazillionaire. In the coming years at Strava, we鈥檒l be seeing a lot more innovation and tech bells and whistles around Strava Groups, Clubs, and Challenges.

A panel at Camp Strava was dedicated fully to the questions and challenges raised with new technology, and how distant so many of us feel with our communities. Strava will be fully revamping their Groups, prioritizing less the KOMs and segment-chasing, and more the fulfilling connections that sustain us.

5. Metro Is a Cool Way Strava Is Working with Local City Planning

This feature has actually been in the works at Strava for some time, but we found during a panel discussion that Metro is a really compelling part of Strava鈥檚 work that has been less visible, but that will grow in the months and years to come.

According to the Strava website, 鈥淢etro aggregates, de-identifies, and contextualizes [their] dataset to help make communities better for anyone on foot or on a bike. We work with urban planners, trail networks, city governments, and safe-infrastructure advocates to understand mobility patterns, identify opportunities for investment and evaluate the impact of infrastructure changes鈥攁ll completely free of charge.鈥�

What鈥檚 the Takeaway for Recreational Athletes?聽

Strava is continuing to grow. Expect to see more sophisticated 3D mapping visuals being introduced later this summer and year. Anticipate being able to connect with other runners, climbers, cyclists, and recreationalists in your regions while finding new creative routes when traveling. It鈥檚 an exciting time at the intersection of mapping, endurance, and community, and Strava isn鈥檛 slowing down in its pursuit to be the preferred tool for cultivating these experiences of getting people outside.

RELATED: Be sure to check out our monthly column, in partnership with Strava, we take a deep dive into interesting data points that reveal the more human side of sport.听

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What if you could receive email updates from 国产吃瓜黑料 Run that were tailored specifically for you, using inputs from your GPS watch, using your daily workouts and training runs? If you record runs with a Garmin, Suunto, Coros, or Polar GPS watch, look no further.Imagine you are a 32-year-old runner, eat mainly plant-based, and are training for your first marathon this fall. Last week you logged 35 miles, 90% on roads in Seattle, Washington. Receiving email newsletters about running your best 100K or making steak fajitas might not be very useful to you, right?

What if, instead, your emails included the perfect recovery recipe of seared garlic tofu on a bed of coconut basmati rice. Or fifteen must-do training tips to clobber your first marathon. These all sound far more specific to your personal goals, location, and lifestyle.

Look, no one has time for irrelevant email updates. So leave Spam City and join Run Intel, an exclusive new pilot initiative by 国产吃瓜黑料 Run, and our sister brands Trail Runner and Women鈥檚 Running. Help us develop a nuanced understanding of your interests so that we can cut to the chase and design email updates specifically for you.

Getting started is simple: You share training data from your GPS watch. We take it from there.

Run Intel is the future.
.听

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More Details:

• Who is this Intel for? Dedicated runners who are data-driven and who use their GPS watches (Suunto, Garmin, Coros, Polar) to regularly track training and progress-to-goal.
• If you have an Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura Ring, or other wearables, hang tight! After this beta round, we plan to make these compatible, too. Let us know if you have a specific device you鈥檇 like us to make sure and include in future development.
• Run Intel beta testers will join our Data Exchange Program through DashLX, our technology partner who processes all your wearables data. DashLX allows you to connect your devices and import data that helps us understand your lived experience. .
• After signing up for Run Intel with 国产吃瓜黑料 Run, within a few weeks you will start receiving a custom-built newsletter, rather than our normal weekly newsletter. The content fed into your update will be specifically matched to you based on the GPS watch data you鈥檙e sharing with us.
• These email updates will look distinct from regular 国产吃瓜黑料 emails. You鈥檒l know the difference right away when you open the email.
• You鈥檒l only receive Run Intel if your data offers a confident match to appropriate content. This may not happen every single week. Less is more!
• Feedback is encouraged. This is a pilot project for us to be more specific in our email updates, informed by data from you, and taking out guesswork on who you are and what you need. Look for a survey at the footer of each Intel and let us know how well these emails match your profile. This is an exciting new technology, and we鈥檙e committed to making it better and better.

Ready to join Run Intel?
.

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I鈥檝e switched between my Apple Watch and a Garmin Fenix watch for several years, depending on the day. The Apple Watch has been my go-to for daily life because it鈥檚 great at motivating me to get out for a run, keeps me up to date on notifications, stores a ton of music, and works seamlessly with my iPhone and AirPods.

Out in the backcountry, I needed the Fenix because the battery lasts for weeks, it comes with a genuinely robust GPS and great tracking features, and you鈥檇 need a hammer to break the thing. On days when I was adventuring鈥攂ackpacking, skiing, out on a bikepacking trip鈥擨 would always swap the Apple Watch for my Garmin because we all know that the regular Apple Watch isn鈥檛 very robust. The battery lasts a day at most, and the face tends to shatter if you bang the watch around.

This announcement from Apple, however, changes everything. I was in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California, today to hear that the brand will be launching the ($800) for those of us who need more than just a daily driver.

The Ultra is a significant upgrade because it goes a long way toward solving all three problems I mentioned above. The battery now lasts up to 36 hours, so you鈥檒l be able to take it on multi-day adventures and not worry about dying. The outside is made of lightweight and robust titanium, and the watch face is made from sapphire (similar to what you鈥檇 find on some other high-end adventure watches), so if you go over the handlebars on your bike or yard sale on your skis, the watch should be fine. The Ultra now has an enhanced GPS feature where you can use the Compass app to leave waypoints while you鈥檙e out, and the watch can guide you back along them if you get lost鈥攕omething that鈥檚 extremely useful while exploring any new backcountry area. Apple says their GPS is also optimized to connect even when next to tall trees and high-rise buildings.

Other adventure features I鈥檓 excited to test include:

• 86-decibel siren for emergency rescue situations
• A digital crown that is bigger and easier to operate with gloves on
• A three-microphone array that helps you make calls in windy conditions,
• Temperature rating that allows the watch to operate from -4 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit
• If you鈥檙e also a scuba diver, you should scroll through the features because Apple claims the Ultra is a full-featured dive computer

Based on these stats, the Apple Watch Ultra is still not as robust as a top-end adventure watch like the Garmin Fenix 7X Solar (which I鈥檝e been testing for the past year), so there will still be core users out there that prefer their Garmin, Suunto, or Coros watch. But for those who adventure and love the usability of the Apple Watch and other Apple Products, the Ultra finds an excellent middle ground. Watch this space for further testing of the Apple Watch Ultra, available to order now and arrives on Sept. 23.

The post The New Apple Watch Ultra Might Replace Your Garmin, Sleep Tracker, and Dive Computer All at Once appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

On a typical training ride in Spain鈥檚 Sierra Nevada, Tokyo Olympics triathlon champion Kristian Blummenfelt might start near Granada, at around 3,000 feet above sea level, and finish as high as 10,000 feet. A key mantra for Norway鈥檚 world-beating triathlon squad is intensity control鈥攅ach workout is neither easier nor harder than what the coach prescribes. But the elevation change makes it difficult to dial in the pace. As the air becomes thinner, steadily decreasing oxygen levels mean that heart rate and power output no longer consistently indicate how hard the body is working. Lactate, which requires a small drop of blood, is too unwieldy a measure to keep them on target. So Blummenfelt and his training partners rely on a relatively obscure and unheralded piece of wearable tech, one that the team鈥檚 sports scientist and Olympic coach, Olav Aleksander Bu, says has become a crucial tool in their training regimen: a muscle-oxygen sensor.

It鈥檚 no secret that endurance demands 颅oxygen. The standard laboratory measure is the VO2聽max test, which quantifies how much oxygen you can inhale, diffuse from your lungs into your bloodstream, and then pump to the muscles throughout your body. But the devil is in the details. When a rock climber hanging by her fingers reaches the end of her endurance, she may not even be breathing hard. It鈥檚 the muscles in her forearms that can鈥檛 get oxygen quickly enough, even though there鈥檚 plenty circulating elsewhere in the body. If you stick a 颅muscle-oxygen sensor slightly larger than a matchbook on that climber鈥檚 forearm鈥攕omething sports scientist Andri Feldmann and his colleagues at the University of Bern, in Switzerland, 鈥攜ou can predict when she鈥檒l fall. Feldmann has also used them with skiers and soccer players. 鈥淚 think muscle oxygen should replace heart rate as the primary biomarker for athletes,鈥� he says.

The technology used to measure muscle oxygen is called near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS. By shining light through your skin and measuring what鈥檚 reflected, NIRS can assess what percentage of hemoglobin and myoglobin molecules in the muscle and tissue underneath are carrying oxygen. If that number is increasing toward 100 percent, it means the oxygen supply exceeds the muscle鈥檚 demands; if it鈥檚 drifting down toward zero, demand is outstripping supply. Pedaling as hard as you can for five minutes might get your quads down , and elite athletes can push even lower. (The basic idea is similar to pulse oximeters, but those measure oxygen in your bloodstream rather than in a specific muscle.) 鈥淣IRS has been used in exercise 颅physiology for decades,鈥� says Brad Wilkins, a physiologist at Gonzaga University and a former director at Nike鈥檚 Sport Research Laboratory. But the NIRS devices were cumbersome and expensive, starting at $15,000, so they seldom left the lab.

That began to change in 2012, when a mechanical engineer in Minnesota named Roger Schmitz started developing a simpler, cheaper NIRS sensor. At first Schmitz figured he could incorporate the technology into a medical device, for conditions like heart failure, but a cardiologist from the University of Minnesota warned him that getting approval from the FDA would be a huge hurdle. 鈥淗e said, 鈥榃hy don鈥檛 you make it for athletes? Then you can get it on the market right away,鈥欌�夆�� Schmitz recalls. His debuted in 2013, with an initial price that hovered around $1,000. In the years that followed, a couple of cheaper rivals, made by BSX and Humon, emerged, but both companies have stopped selling muscle-oxygen sensors. The current cost of a Moxy sensor is $800. Whether it鈥檚 worth the price depends on the answer to a question that Schmitz and others have been debating for almost a decade now: Can muscle-oxygen data really help athletes train and compete better?

The Moxy device quickly attracted a 颅community of tinkerers, most notably a physiologist and trainer named Juerg Feldmann鈥擜ndri鈥檚 father鈥攚ho developed some of the first evaluation protocols for athletes using muscle-oxygen sensors. Red Bull tested the sensor on cyclists as early as 2014, and members of the Canadian national kayak team attached them ; Schmitz says several Tour de France riders have tried them, too. When Nike launched the Breaking2 project, which culminated in a sub-two-hour marathon attempt in 2017, it used Moxy sensors with athletes, including Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge.

The Breaking2 team wanted to use muscle oxygen to signal whether the pace necessary to overcome the two-hour-marathon barrier could be maintained. by Wilkins and his former Nike colleagues confirmed that the trend line鈥攚hether muscle oxygen is rising, stable, or dropping鈥攔eveals a 鈥渃ritical metabolic rate鈥� that separates sustainable from unsustainable efforts, and in the latter case predicts how long you have left before you hit the wall. It鈥檚 the kind of information you might like displayed on a smartwatch, but interpreting the data in real time is tricky, because other factors such as the length and intensity of a warm-up can influence muscle-oxygen levels. That鈥檚 a challenge the Moxy team is currently working on, Schmitz says.

Bu and his Norwegian triathletes use lactate and VO2聽max lab tests to identify key training intensities, then benchmark them to a given level of muscle oxygen. For example, Blummenfelt鈥檚 lactate threshold occurs at a muscle-oxygen level of 18 to 19 percent, measured on his quadriceps. Leading up to the Olympics, he was able to sustain that for 70 to 80 minutes; before his Ironman debut in November, where he posted the fastest time ever recorded, he pushed it to around 90 minutes. The muscle-oxygen reading kept his training efforts at the desired level regardless of the effects of altitude, heat, and other environmental factors. 鈥淚 use it primarily for prescribing intensity,鈥� Bu says, 鈥渆specially when traversing into new climates.鈥�

Given the results that Bu鈥檚 triathletes have posted, it鈥檚 inevitable that more athletes will experiment with muscle oxygen, perhaps at one of the across the country. But even Schmitz warns that users shouldn鈥檛 expect easy answers from the device. 鈥淭he human body is complex,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f you convert that to red light, green light, you lose something.鈥� Wilkins, too, is bullish but cautious. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been measuring heart rate for 100 years, but we鈥檝e done a horrible job of teaching people to use it,鈥� he points out. The challenge, then, isn鈥檛 about technology; it鈥檚 about communication. 鈥淚 absolutely think that the muscle-oxygen signal is a useful data point that people can apply to their training and performance,鈥� Wilkins says. 鈥淣ow how do we translate that?鈥�

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