COROS PACE 2, first impressions

The COROS PACE 2 was released in August 2020, and there have been many extensive reviews of it already (e.g., review 1 and review 2). So, the following are more my first impressions so far (rather than a review), what I’ve noticed the most, especially compared with my previous watch, a TomTom Spark 3 Cardio. I’ve had the Spark 3 for about three years, before switching to the PACE 2 at the end of last year.

Now I probably would have stayed with TomTom and upgraded with its newest version and not looked for alternatives, had it not decided to move away from wearables. The Spark 3 has some nice features (e.g., “fitness age”), enough for my needs. TomTom is still providing user support but apparently just until all the extant devices have aged out. The other obvious caveat, in what follows, is that I’m comparing a current PACE 2 with a 3-year-old Spark 3.

Here are my first impressions of the COROS PACE 2:

-        Top on the list is the impressively long-lasting battery!

o   My long runs so far (18-22 miles) have averaged about 10% (+/-) of battery usage for the PACE 2.

o   In comparison, the Spark 3, even when new, would not last much past a marathon, for me (~4 hrs). During its third year, the Spark 3 barely could make it past 15 miles or so. I was routinely charging it after every run, just to be sure.

o   Now, with the PACE 2, I charge it only every 2-3 weeks, depending on how much I leave it on or wear it when not running.

o   Charging is fast, just one to two hours to complete.

-        On my first run with the PACE 2, I also wore on the other arm the Spark 3 for comparison.

o   Pace and distance tracking is comparable between the two. But, the PACE 2 has more details. Also, analyses of treadmill runs are better with PACE 2.

o   Heart rate is apparently more accurate (more consistent) with the PACE 2, whereas the Spark 3 heart rate fluctuates more.

-        The PACE 2 is noticeably lighter and has a more flexible strap, compared with the Spark 3.

-        GPS acquisition is much faster than that of the Spark 3.

-        A nice, battery-saving feature: When it’s dark enough, turning one’s wrist (either side) to read the PACE 2 will prompt the watch to light up. In setup, one can specify right- or left-handed.

-        The audio at each mile is louder and the vibrate at each mile is stronger. Still, it’d be nice to be able to adjust both the tone volume and the vibrate strength. Currently, though, according to the COROS Helpdesk, neither allows for adjustment. I did provide my feedback on this to the Helpdesk, so we’ll see.

-        There’s much more analysis provided by the PACE 2 (see example below for a tempo run).

-        But, I prefer to plot against distance, not time. How to do that?

o   Clicking (obviously!) on “Distance” (lower right) does result in a plot against distance, but it showed only the average pace for each mile.

o   Not so obvious (at least to me) is the pull-down arrow (lower left), i.e., “Lap” has three options. Default is one mile. The other two are 5 miles and “Entire.” The latter should more accurately be termed “Continuous,” which is what I was looking for (see example below).

o   A nice feature of “Entire” (or “Continuous”) is that the pace for any arbitrary segment of a run (e.g., a 5K time trial from mile 2 to mile 5.1) can be easily gotten by dragging the cursor across the desired start and end distances.

o   I found out about the “Lap” pull-down arrow by contacting the COROS helpdesk, which has been super friendly and responsive!

Though the PACE 2 is at the low end of the COROS line of watches, for my needs, it has more than enough functionality. It’s easy to use. It’s incredibly affordable. And, I’m still amazed at how long the PACE 2 battery lasts!

Multilingual warm-up

There are a couple sets of warm-up routines that I do before every run. Both of them end with front and side leg swings (15x per leg). For counting reps, sometimes I’d use English, other times Chinese. Last September, I re-started my study of Spanish that I’d begun many years ago, except now with Duolingo. So, in recent months, I’ve also used Spanish for counting reps (uno to quince and quince to uno). More recently, just for fun, I’ve tried counting in all three languages in rotating order. For example, using English->Chinese->Spanish, for right side leg kick: one, èr, tres, four, wǔ, seis, seven, bā, nueve, ten, shíyī, doce, thirteen, shísì, quince; and for left side leg kick: fifteen, shísì, trece, twelve, shíyī, diez, nine, bā, siete, six, wǔ, cuatro, three, èr, uno. (The Chinese here is pinyin, not the characters.) Different orders are more or less fluid in switching between languages. It seems, for example, Spanish->English->Chinese doesn’t flow as easily as English->Chinese->Spanish, which perhaps makes sense, i.e., the latter order is also that of my proficiency in the three languages.

Adding this fun counting to my warm-ups is great for brain training, as is language learning in general, especially as one ages. But, what does it do for running training or racing?

Perhaps it could be put to use during the latter miles of a marathon? Nah, probably not. Brain usage is too energy-intensive, and a tiring body during those last miles is already in an energy deficit. Plus, if one is already likely talking to God, is the mind going to want to count multilingually?

But, maybe in those middle miles, say 15-20 (before the real race begins), which often feel interminable, doing some mind-focused counting could help distract oneself from those complaining legs and make the miles seem to go by faster? I already do various counting routines during races and runs. This multilingual counting would be another addition to my racing mental toolkit. In recent Sunday long runs, I’ve tried it out and found it to be indeed useful-and fun!

Threshold mileage for running well ... and age is just a number

I had previously noted a 30-to-40-mile a week threshold during a post-injury recovery period. In the beginning of that period, as I was slowly increasing my weekly mileage, the body just felt rusty. However, once I got back above 30-40 miles a week, running felt familiar again, like seeing an old friend. But, that was just one data point.

Now I’ve a new data point for this threshold of familiarity, arising from the COVID-19 hiatus in racing. During this two-year period, I didn’t participate in any races (other than a few virtual ones, which were basically time trials), my average weekly mileage was in the 20s, and my Sunday long runs were capped at around 16 miles, with many far shorter. Overall, the body just felt sluggish and struggled over the back half of those long runs, and I’ve been thinking that perhaps the aging curve has finally caught up with the adaptation (to training) curve (!).

But, then, over the past couple months, as my 7-day moving average mileage increased to 35 and more, my long runs began to feel differently, with faster, negative-split paces. Getting to this threshold, which probably varies with the individual, is apparently what’s needed for all the loose rusty parts of my body to become lubricated and snap together to run well.

So, it is still mostly a matter of training, even at my age. 😊

And, on the subject of running and aging, an interesting story recently came from Adharanand Finn, an author, journalist, and podcaster from the U.K. (I’ve read the first two of Finn’s books: Running with the Kenyans and The Way of the Runner, both terrific reads! On my list is his third and latest book, The Rise of the Ultra Runners.) I’ve a Patreon subscription to Finn’s writings, which include a “Monday musings” article.

A “musings” article from a couple weeks ago is a story from a recent parkrun. (Here’s more information on parkruns in the U.S., still catching up in participation relative to other countries.) One of the runners who had finished ahead of Finn basically said to him afterward, wow, you’re fast … for your age. And that set Finn off on a brief thought experiment on whether thinking younger makes one feel and act younger and be perceived as such by others. So, for example, do Kenyan runners in general and Eliud Kipchoge in particular not “run their age,” because they think of themselves as younger and, thus, are not constrained by their actual chronological age?

Here's my comment on Finn’s article: ‘I’m glad that you ended not with “must accept that I’m [old]” but with “better to embrace it.” I’d say even “to celebrate it”! I don’t think the Kenyans think of themselves as younger; rather, they just don’t think much about age, as least the chronological kind, which is just a number, literally.’

And, thinking more about this, what does chronological age mean anyway, other than a counting convention for how long a mass of cells has existed relative to the number of its revolutions around the sun? Of course, there is a secular trend to aging; nothing can be done about that, though sometimes we benefit from it, e.g., aging into a BQ (😊). But, eventually, we all, well, “age out.” What’s important is how we age, and about that we can do quite a bit, to slow down aging and perhaps even reverse it to some extent (see, e.g., Arsenis et al. 2017). Biological age is far more meaningful than that chronological number. For a given chronological age, a plot of its corresponding population’s biological age would show some spread or skewness that varies with the chronological age. Most runners would probably fall on the tail somewhere of a negative skew.

Finn has also written a couple “musings” articles about Kipchoge’s chronological age, that it could very likely be well over 40 (though no one seems to know for sure)! Again, I don’t think Kipchoge simply thinks of himself as being younger, i.e., as a mental technique for training and racing; he just doesn’t think much about age. So, if Kipchoge is running as if he’s in his 30s, it’s probably because he actually is in his 30s, biologically. He’s an outlier, obviously, perhaps with good “staying young” genes. But, there is also a host of other contributing factors, as Finn has described in Running with the Kenyans and as others have as well (e.g., David Epstein’s The Sports Gene and Alex Hutchinson’s Endure).

Age really is just a number. And it is still mostly a matter of training!

Reference

Arsenis, N.C., T. You, E.F. Ogawa, G.M. Tinsley, and L. Zuo, 2017. Physical activity and telomere length: Impact of aging and potential mechanisms of action, Oncotarget, 8, 45008-45019, doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.16726.

Another mental aspect of running

On long runs (for me, ~11 to 22 miles), how I fuel and hydrate has evolved over the years. Earlier, when my legs were younger, I would take a gel and water on the run, every 5 miles or so. Later, I would do that but while walking (0.05 to 0.15 mile), until the gel is consumed. Still later, every 5 miles became every 2.5 miles, with only water during the additional breaks (i.e., water at 2.5 mile; gel and water at 5 mile; water at 7.5 mile; etc.). More recently, I’ve been experimenting with varying distances between breaks, i.e., not every 2.5 miles. The following is my current fueling and hydrating schedule, with 0.1-mile walks while consuming the gel and water or just water. The distances run between breaks are shown in parentheses.

So, after the initial 2.8 miles, the distance run after each 0.1-mile walk decreases with each break, i.e., 2.6, 2.4, 2.3, 2.2, 2.1, 2.0, 1.9. The slightly shorter distance run after each succeeding break makes some difference, physically, but not a lot. Mentally, however, knowing that the initial 2.8-mile segment is the longest run between breaks makes the entire run seem easier. Does it result in a faster pace? Not always. Not today anyway. My 19-miler this morning was at an average pace for me nowadays. (It was unseasonably warm for early March, with the run finishing in the low 70s.)

But, the long run last Sunday (17.5 miles), with the temperature just about right, in the low 40s, was at a faster pace. It was a good run, and some of the miles were like “running on water.” 😊 Also, once I had run a faster-than-usual, easy mile, what felt easy though fast, for subsequent miles, persisted. Several times, I was pleasantly surprised when I checked the watch.

The mental aspects of running are so fascinating.

 

Marathon courses, fast and slow

What makes a marathon course fast or slow? Profile or grade is one factor, for sure. The Pocono Mountains Run for the Red Marathon has one of the most runner-friendly profiles.

At the other end of the profile spectrum, the Grandfather Mountain Marathon is, as its website states, “One of America’s Toughest Marathons.”

There are many compilations of fastest marathon courses. The following table of marathons I have run is a subset of those in the original table in one such compilation, FindMyMarathon (accessed 1/17/2022), that ranked 495 marathons from fastest to slowest (so far, all in the U.S. and Canada). It was purely a coincidence that the races I’ve run covered the entire range of the original table. 

The rankings are periodically updated. When I’d checked it in early fall of 2021, the Pocono Mountains Run for the Red Marathon was still on the list. But then in October, the race organizers decided to discontinue the race, in part because of the pandemic. I kept it in the table below, because Pocono was where I ran my marathon PR (3:55) in 2016 and qualified for the Boston Marathon for the first time. It was ranked the 26^th fastest course before being discontinued.

The marathons are ranked using each race's Personal Record (PR) Score. The PR Score is derived from an algorithm based on the effects of three factors on running performance: grade (G), elevation (E), and temperature (T). There’s also a related ranking using each race’s Course Score (G+E, no T). Column 1 of the table below shows the ranking based on all three factors (and the most recent year I’d run it), whereas column 2 shows the ranking based on the Course Score. The BQ % is the percentage of runners who qualified for the Boston Marathon according to the latest race results. As can be seen, the BQ % does not directly indicate a fast or slow course.

Grade (G), Elevation (E), Temperature (T); NA - Not available

Rank (G+E+T)	Rank (G+E)	Month, location (elevation in ft)	Race name	PR score	BQ %	Grade
1 (Did not run)	1	April, Las Vegas, NV (2030)	REVEL Mt. Charleston	107.03	NA	Downhill
(2019)	26	May, Stroudsburg PA, (2215)	Pocono Mountains Run for the Red	101.36	8.52%	Downhill
48 (2018)	57	October, Corning, NY (932)	Wineglass	99.76	17.71%	Downhill
54 (2014)	73	March, Virginia Beach, VA (13)	Shamrock	99.68	3.24%	Very flat
156 (2019)	206	November, Harrisburg, PA (351)	Harrisburg	99.07	18.26%	Mostly flat
247 (2013)	310	October, Wash., DC (72)	Marine Corps	98.47	NA	Mostly flat
324 (2012)	379	October, Baltimore, MD (240)	Baltimore	97.72	4.04%	Hilly
344 (2017)	397	April, Gettysburg, PA (538)	Gettysburg North-South	97.53	14.39%	Rolling
430 (2018)	101	September, Wash., DC (72)	Abebe Bikila Day International Peace	95.58	15.63%	Mostly flat
494 (2013)	491	July, Boone, NC (5946)	Grandfather Mountain	84.80	NA	Very hilly
495 (Did not run)	495	October, Breckenridge, CO (9600)	Breckenridge Road	83.98	0.10%	Hilly

Notes:
- An assumption of the rankings is that pre-race training has been optimal.
- I did not run #1 and #495; these two fastest and slowest courses, respectively, are included for reference.
- For most courses, G+E+T and G+E rankings don’t differ by enough to change the relative rankings.
- One noticeable exception is the Abebe Bikila Day International Peace Marathon along the Potomac River in Washington, DC. It ranks 101 if only grade and elevation are considered, but 430 if temperature is also included (!). This Potomac race is scheduled in early September to enable any Boston Qualifying results to be submitted within the qualifying window for the following year’s Boston Marathon. But that means the race is typically run with a mean temperature in the 70s (F)--plus the swampy humidity!
- Only for the Grandfather Mountain Marathon is the elevation (at 5946 ft.) possibly a factor. As elevation increases, of course, it becomes more and more a factor. Of all the races I’ve run, not just marathons, the one at the highest elevation was Copper Mountain Half Marathon at 9600 ft. That definitely was a factor!

Beyond grade, elevation, and temperature, there are other factors that could speed up or slow down a course, e.g.,

- Time of year/weather (other than temperature): rain, humidity, wind speed/direction.
- Number of turns in the course.
- Race field size: some optimal size between not too crowded to impede (e.g., Marine Corps Marathon in 2013) and not too sparse to become uncompetitive (i.e., more like a time trial).
- Availability and quality of pacers.
- Spectator size and distribution.

While the latter factors, which are mental rather than physical, help make the running easier and thus the course faster, other mental factors can make the running easier though not necessarily faster. For example, last summer, on a warm August morning, I did the following 15-mile "intestinal" run.

One "lap" is ~13.8 miles, so a marathon would be shorter than two laps. Which is interesting, because, mentally, that seems easier than a typical marathon route. Now I did run it slowly, because it was a hilly route, I was pacing by target heart rate, and it was a warm August morning. But I think it's more than just the slow pace. At the farthest, the route is less than two miles from home. So, I know well every street, cul-de-sac, many of the houses, signs on their fences, dogs to wave at (and those to avoid), churches, schools, etc. That familiarity, along with the more visual chunking (e.g., cul-de-sac) allowing the route to be run and focused on one chunk at a time, I think is what made the mental effort easier--though the course was a slow one.