The Running Thread - 2026

[Dopey 2020]

Not Ultra, series 8. Ultra seems a bit too bulky for me.

I’ve had a 10 since shortly after it came out because yeah my 7 died during a marathon. That is frustrating since you know apple has the same ability to make a good battery as Garmin or coros. I just can’t give up the integration with my phone/airpods/cell plan. Same as @marty3d I have cell plan and can opt to leave the phone at home. My 10 can do a full no problem for now and will go two days if I’m doing short runs or strength workouts. I may look to the ultra next time. If it ever becomes a problem again I’d probably go with the cheapest coros I could find just for races and keep apple as my everything else watch.

 

[Erika10021]

I’ve had a 10 since shortly after it came out because yeah my 7 died during a marathon. That is frustrating since you know apple has the same ability to make a good battery as Garmin or coros. I just can’t give up the integration with my phone/airpods/cell plan. Same as @marty3d I have cell plan and can opt to leave the phone at home. My 10 can do a full no problem for now and will go two days if I’m doing short runs or strength workouts. I may look to the ultra next time. If it ever becomes a problem again I’d probably go with the cheapest coros I could find just for races and keep apple as my everything else watch.

The best part of Coros is the battery life. While it has a lot of functions, I really only pay attention to distance and pace and, if I am using it, intervals, which can be set indefinitely. During the marathon in January, I had 221 run intervals! I go roughly two weeks between charges so 50 ish miles of walks and runs between charges.

 

[The Expert]

I started running 10 years ago with a fitbit and quickly traded it for a very simple Garmin 55. I went all the way to a fenix5s, which was gorgeous but heavy. Swapped that for a 245s and beat the hell out of it but it did everything and the battery lasted for days. I just upgraded to a 570 for the touchscreen and better GPS functionality and I love it. I wear my Garmin 24/7 and it does everything I need. To me the Garmin/Coros vs Apple decision comes down to whether you want a smart watch that does some run tracking or if you want a running watch with daily lifestyle functionality.

 

[The Expert]

April Recap

Running: 40.35 miles
Dog walking: 25.2 miles
Pilates/strength: 3:45 hours

 

[Mr_Incr3dible]

I had a Garmin 945 for a couple of years until it had an unfortunate encounter with a tile floor that broke its environmental seal, which I later found out at the beach....
I replaced it with a Forerunner 255, which is a bit smaller and slimmer, but still has the music feature (which I almost never use due to having my phone with me). I recharge the battery maybe once per week, and it lasts that long because I have text message notifications turned off on my phone. I became tired of all the buzzing and vibrating from spam calls and spam texts.
I also leave the RWR feature turned off most of the time, which greatly increases battery life. On my weekday runs I know by now where the walk intervals are on the course, and on the greenway there are 1/10 mile markers, so it is easy to have a good idea of where to walk. When I have used the feature for rD races, battery life wasn't an issue.
The DW wears hers 24/7 and uses it to track sleep; I take mine off at night. I'm going to sleep poorly either way.
I gave my DS a Garmin for Christmas since he's back to running, and DD1 just bought herself a Garmin, so we are a mostly Garmin family.
I really want my next Garmin watch to be one of the aviation watches with built in altimeter, moving maps, etc., but those are a bit $pendy for now.
Bottom line: I really like my Garmin watches and the data available such as steps, heartrate, run pace, etc.
YMMV

 

[KCO5988]

I have a garmin forerunner 165 and love it. I can preprogram workouts into if I want. I like that I have the option of setting multiple activity screens with different parameters showing. My main screen that I use for most of my training runs shows total time, total distance, current pace and heart rate. My second screen that I toggle between during a race shows the total time, the lap distance, lap pace and heart rate because I like to double check my average lap pace sometimes since current pace can be off. I don't like to leave it on lap pace the whole race though because if pace starts to slip off target, I may over correct and speed up too much - so I like current pace for that. I have another screen that I pull up during interval workouts that just shows current lap distance, lap pace and lap time.

 

[PrincessV]

The best part of Coros is the battery life. While it has a lot of functions, I really only pay attention to distance and pace and, if I am using it, intervals, which can be set indefinitely. During the marathon in January, I had 221 run intervals! I go roughly two weeks between charges so 50 ish miles of walks and runs between charges.

Yep, I’ll second the Coros battery life. I only wear mine while running and charge it maybe 1.5 times a MONTH!

 

[jrsharp21]

For watches, I have gone through three Garmin. I bought had the Forerunner 55 when I converted from an Apple watch. About 18 months ago I bought a Forerunner 165. I really liked this watch as it did everything I needed. But then I got into triathlons now and there is not a triathlon mode on the 165. So about a month ago I upgraded to the Fenix 7x for the triathlon mode and also for the battery life. The battery life is awesome on this thing. I charged it the night before my full IM race on April 18th, and I still haven't had to charge it since then. The Fenix 7x has more bells and whistles than I will ever use, or care to even learn about. The only downfall of the watch is that the screen is not too bright. So if you have bad eyes or are using it in the dark, it may not be the best display that Garmin has to offer. Also, if you are coming off one of their smaller watches, this watch feels humongous. It take a little bit to get used to, but now it's just normal to me.

 

[FFigawi]

April Stats:
Swim - 500 meters
Bike - 0 miles
Run - 1.3 miles

Not a great training month, but I did spend 63 hours underwater during my ongoing dive trip.

 

[rick1zoo2]

Watches:
My wife and I have had the COROS Pace 3 since December 2024 and I like it a lot.
It's very lightweight.
Holds a charge for a long time - 10 days or more for me, tracking runs and walks each day. Did the entire Dopey Challenge without recharging (about 12 hours active tracking).
The screens (multiples that can be scrolled) can be modified to show what you want - a lot of options.
Alarms can be set to keep on pace, within heart rate ranges, distances, time.
Workouts can be programmed which is helpful for workouts that have various pace changes.
The phone app is decent and you can also access everything through a web browser.
A lot of features that I probably will not use.

 

[avondale]

I have a Garmin Epix gen 2, which is one of their super high-end activity watches. It's got an AMOLED screen, which is beautiful and bright. It has touch screen but also some buttons. It also has dual-band GPS, which is super precise compared to regular GPS. You know how you look at your GPS track when you're walking, and it kinds of stumbles around like you were dizzy? None of that sort of thing with dual-band. It's really great for trail running (all the twists and turns) and hiking. I mostly got the watch for these two things (AMOLED and dual-band GPS).

The battery life is ok....I got through a slow 50k with plenty of battery to spare. Honestly, I charge it every night when I'm in the shower as a habit, so I never have to worry about it.

When trail running, I have a screen for time elapsed, lap pace, distance, HR. I have another screen that shows a graph of the elevation profile, the current elevation, and elevation gain/loss. I have another screen that has a map of my location.

Another feature of the watch is that you can download maps to the watch so that you can navigate on maps by GPS even when your phone doesn't have a cell signal. You can download a GPX route to the watch and have it give you turn-by-turn directions, which I have used while hiking. It will tell you when you get off course if you're not paying attention.

The downside to the maps is that they are displayed on the watch screen, and now that I really need reading glasses (which I don't bring while I'm running/hiking), the value of the maps to me are somewhat questionable. I can usually manage to make out the info I need.

It's probably over-powered for most people, but I have really, really liked it. I got it in Christmas 2022 (I think), and it's still doing great.