Pace Hare

Pick a watch by what you train for

Sports watches, trackers and straps chosen by your goal, on GPS, heart-rate and battery figures with named sources.

Sleep and recoverySomething you forget you wear at nightPick for thisWeight lossA habit first, and honest calorie numbersPick for thisGym and cyclingWhere wrist sensors struggle mostPick for thisFirst marathonA 16-week plan and one long race dayShowing belowTriathlonOpen water, bike sensors, transitionsPick for this
What you do
Built-in GPS
Heart rate from
Battery in a long session
Budget

Picks for a first marathon

Bars show GPS battery in hours, on one scale, as a manufacturer claim.

  1. Coros Pace 4

    £229 on coros.com

    41 hmanufacturer claim
    • The lowest price of these three.
    • The longest claimed GPS battery of these three.
    • The lightest of these three, at 40 g.
    • Best for: Runners after a light AMOLED.
    • It has modes for running.

  2. Polar Vantage M3

    £279.20 on polar.com

    30 hmanufacturer claim
    • Best for: Compact triathlon watch with maps.
    • It has modes for running.
    • It has built-in multi-band GPS.
    • The maker claims 30 h with GPS on, against the 12 h you asked for.

  3. Suunto Run 2

    £299 on suunto.com

    30 hmanufacturer claim
    • Best for: Road runners after a light watch.
    • It has modes for running.
    • It has built-in multi-band GPS.
    • The maker claims 30 h with GPS on, against the 12 h you asked for.
What this assumes
  • Products must be listed for your goal by their maker's features. That's my judgement from their published specs, not a test.
  • GPS battery is the maker's standard GPS figure, not a measured one. Real use usually falls short, and it depends on settings, music and maps.
  • A battery minimum rules out any product with no published figure.
  • With a budget set, a product with no verified price can't count as fitting. It appears on its own line under the picks.
  • Prices are UK prices read on the store named, on the date on each product page. They change.
  • Among equal matches the lower price goes first. No store pays for a place, and a commission doesn't change the order.

How long the battery lasts with GPS on

Your race day decides how much you need. A five-hour marathon and a twelve-hour Ironman ask different things of the same watch.

Match the mode to your race

GPS battery, in hours: same scale, maker's own figures

What independent tests say, in plain words

Heart rate

Wrist sensors do well at rest and at a steady effort. Fast intervals and weight training are their weak spots, so a chest strap remains the better choice when accuracy matters.

Why wrist heart rate slips

Calories

Calorie figures are the weakest number on your wrist. They are rough estimates, so don't plan food around them.

What the studies measured

VO2max

Watch estimates can be reasonable for groups and well off for one person. Read yours as a trend, not a lab result.

What the number means

Sleep

Trackers are good at spotting that you're asleep and worse at spotting when you're lying awake. Stage charts are estimates.

Against a sleep lab

A tracker is not a medical device. Its readings are estimates for general fitness and wellness, and it doesn't diagnose or treat anything. A few features are cleared for one specific use in specific regions, and a page says so where that applies. If you have symptoms or concerns, talk to a clinician.

New on the site

Drawing for the article: Why wrist heart rate fails in hard sessionsWhy wrist heart rate fails in hard sessionsPooled studies show wrist sensors reading several beats low in weight training and cycling. I found no large independent test of current flagship watches in real intervals.

I'm Pavel Ryzhikh. I don't test these on my own wrist. Every accuracy claim here points to someone who measured it, with their name and a link, and anything I couldn't verify says so.

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