I lastly did it: I ran my first marathon, and it went a lot better than I anticipated. Nonetheless, within the closing quarter of the race, it was additionally extra painful than I’d have wished, and I solely have myself accountable for that. I skipped energy coaching periods whereas coaching over the winter, and I paid the value.
This isn’t about that story although, at the very least not solely. What I’ll let you know, nevertheless, is that I used an Apple Watch SE and AirPods as a part of my tech setup to get me by the race. The excellent news is that you simply don’t want the costliest wearables from Apple that can assist you with a marathon race whereas monitoring your well being and listening to your favourite music or podcasts.
The dangerous information is that there’s a fairly huge downside with utilizing these devices for a marathon, and it includes battery life. The AirPods will most likely die when you’re working, and the Apple Watch SE may not final too lengthy after you’re executed along with your race.
My working setup
I’ve lengthy mentioned you don’t want Apple’s most costly devices to get an ideal expertise. And I imply it. I’ve been coaching utilizing this actual setup for months. It’s how I ran my half-marathons in preparation for my first race working a full marathon.
The Apple Watch SE is small and light-weight, and it presents me all the pieces I would like. It tracks the well being parameters I need it to trace, whether or not my coronary heart fee or working efficiency. Like most Apple Watches, you must recharge it daily. However, in contrast to the dearer fashions, it doesn’t include quick charging assist. I’ll add that I’ve a Wi-Fi model, and music streams from my iPhone 14 Professional.
The AirPods are additionally your fundamental AirPods mannequin at this level. I don’t want AirPods Professional 2 after I practice. Energetic noise cancelation is nice, in fact. However I need to take note of my environment. For music or podcasts, the AirPods are nice when working, even in the event you don’t get assist for spatial audio. Put in a different way, I can verify that AirPods are a greater choice than the AirPods Professional for this specific situation.
Apple’s AirPods ought to final 5 hours earlier than you must put them again within the charging case. A 15-minute recharge session ought to offer you one other 3 hours of battery life for music playback.
I’ll level out that the majority marathon races will take as much as 6 hours to complete the race.
The AirPods have been first to go
Earlier than the marathon, I charged all my units. However they clearly began consuming battery life as quickly as I unplugged them. That is the place I’ll offer you one of many downsides of selecting Apple’s cheaper units: they don’t have parts which might be as environment friendly because the newer, higher-end fashions. Meaning they use extra vitality than dearer variations of the Apple Watch and AirPods.
The second draw back, which I hadn’t thought of till working the race, was the age of those units. Battery well being is a facet it is best to consider if you wish to run marathons and guarantee your devices don’t run out of juice.
My Apple Watch SE is about 18 months outdated, and battery well being is 83%. The Airpods are barely youthful, at about 13 months outdated, however they have been the primary to die whereas I used to be working.
Across the 21-mile mark (34 km), the appropriate earpod gave out. It performed the unhappy chime that Apple customers know all too effectively, warning me that battery life was depleted. So now, I used to be listening to Taylor Swift’s 1989 on my left bud solely. I used to be aggravated at this level that the music was going to expire earlier than I’d end the race.
The rationale I used to be upset was my left knee, which was immediately performing up. This may train me to stay to the coaching plan, particularly relating to energy periods. I wasn’t drained, however the knee ache slowed me down and compromised my focus.
I finished the music playback proper there and put the AirPods again of their Lightning case. After a couple of minutes of charging, they might be good for a number of extra hours of music, however I used to be coping with ache and determined to run the remainder of the race with none music.
Would I do it once more?
Transferring on to the Apple Watch SE, I used to be checking it routinely to see my tempo and the elapsed time. I by no means thought the battery would run out, and it really didn’t. However the Apple Watch pinged me round mile 25 (41 km) to say it had 10% battery life left. Did I need to go into low-power mode? After all not.
In contrast to the AirPods, the Apple Watch didn’t run out of juice. It recorded all the info I wished to have saved. Not solely that, it lasted greater than 6 hours required to complete the marathon. Nonetheless, it will have died if it had taken for much longer to run the race.
Would I do it once more? Would I run a marathon utilizing the most cost effective Apple wearables? Completely, however with some caveats.
I must take note of the age of the wearables I’m utilizing when working lengthy races. I may need to exchange the Apple Watch battery because it has misplaced a lot capability. For the AirPods, I’d must get a unique pair. Additionally, I must be certain that I run pain-free in future races. This may forestall me from slowing down and lengthening my run. That manner, neither gadget will run out of battery life.
