When Beau Miles became 42, he ran 42 kilometers. Not the full length of a marathon though. So he waited 71 days longer, until he became 42.195 years old — and ran 42.195 kilometers. «To celebrate being alive». The film he has made about this run is a wonderful small masterpiece.
While it’s true you don’t need any tech or gadgets to run, there are a lot of them out there that are fun to use or can provide you with data, motivating insights or that can enrich your workout. I’ve come across three gadgets and new technologies lately that caught my attention — and that I’d like to briefly introduce to you.
Description: the Whoop 4.0 is a fitness tracker that collects data about recovery, strain and sleep performance. «From these figures, it offers advice on how you should balance your training and rest to achieve peak athletic performance,» Harry Bullmore writes on LiveScience. What sounds like any other fitness tracker on the market, has its USPs: the band itself is screenless, IP68 dustproof and water-resistant at depths of up to 10 meters for two hours. The lack of GPS might be another con for some of us, but on the data sight the Whoop is showing off, as «it is the multi-dimensional approach to calculating recovery that is the jewel in the Whoop 4.0’s crown. By considering heart rate and heart rate variability, as well as sleep quantity and quality, it gives a more rounded view of your readiness for exercise.» Read the whole review at livescience.com.
Description: We all would love to own individually fitted equipment, may it be the perfect running shoe, or the right bike. Motesque, a startup from Berlin, wants to find exactly the right equipment with a combination of motion analysis and artificial intelligence. With «MQ Pro Running» the company has an «advanced motion analysis technology,» that provides a «state-of-the art solution to analyze a customer’s running behavior and recommend the optimal sport shoe.» Motesque’s system containing the sensors, body-wear brackets and a compute station with software and remote update functionality is designed for retailers who want to give recommendations based on scientific results. The running style for example is determined «by pronation excursion, pronation velocity, impact forces, and the smoothness factors are calculated through braking and acceleration forces. This complex data set is then transferred into a clear and easy to understand overview that helps consumers make an informed decision.» If you want to dig deeper, there’s this video about how motion data could change the sports industry in the next years.
Description: «Loading your body with small amounts of distributed weight can help you build strength, power and endurance.» That’s the theory behind Omorpho’s «Gravity Sportswear». The sportswear collection by the company from Portland strategically places small amounts of weight across the garments. Per Omorpho’s website, these weighted clothes help athletes move like they normally would while increasing intensity. «We’ve always been told that what we wear for sports and fitness should be as lightweight as possible, but the first thing we do to get stronger and fitter is add resistance. So why not build it into what we wear?» says Stefan Olander, Co- founder of Omorpho, in a press relase. If you want to know more there is a fun to read experience report by Allana Akthar for Business Insider.
You probably have experienced it yourself, or you may have read headlines like this one: «Running is enjoying a boom because of the coronavirus pandemic». And yes, it’s true. Gyms were closed. Spin classes and boot camps had been canceled. People were stuck at home for most of the day for a long time. So running has seen a boom during the coronavirus pandemic. But what about the overall statistics? Did people run more during the pandemic?
A lot of sports and outdoor companies have built up teamlike communities—like Asics’ FrontRunners or On’s Running Crew. Most of them support their members with events or gear and excpect them to be brand ambassadors in return. The North Face now has set up such a programm too, which, however, has a slightly different focus.
Eliud Kipchoge recently won the Tokyo Marathon in 2:02:40, not much slower than his current world record for the fastest marathon ever, set during the Berlin Marathon in 2018 with a time of 2:01:39. But what does that time mean? Mark Lewis, who describes himself as an average runner who is «not too bad» at any distance, thought about this question a little longer. «It’s a 2 minute 54 per km pace for 42 km; stupidly quick,» he says. But: «I can’t comprehend what he’s doing, not properly.»