I scored an ultramarathon with my Garmin clock; This is how it went

I am a funny type of guy friends know this, and most of my colleagues do at this time as well. That means I always look for an activity that feels like a challenge. Whether it means cycling on a one-stage bike 100 miles to Washington, DC, or trying to stuff another side assignment on a trip to go to run, I’m almost always on the adventure.

So when two of my friends decided they would skate a whole day to see how far they could go, I jumped on the chance – and I wanted to see what mine Garmin Fenix ​​8 amoled Thinking of the idea. With rental skates in tow and free snacks to keep me going, here’s how my long day of making (almost exclusively) left turns went.

Before I get into the details of skating with Garmin Fenix ​​8 amoled, I should probably explain the challenge better. Last year, one of my friends decided that she wanted to skate a marathon, trying to cover 26.2 miles around a small skating rink on Johns Hopkins University Campus through eight 90 minutes of sessions. She not only succeeded, but crushed her goal and decided to squeeze into the Ultramarathon territory, and finally logged 31.8 miles for the day. I joined a few sessions, mostly planned to offer moral support, but never expected that I would take a similar challenge myself.

Fast forward to this year, and I almost immediately had to eat my words. Not only did she want to run it back for a second marathon, but another of my closest friends wanted to join. So I did what every condition -possessed journalist wanted to do and became competitive. I decided that I didn’t just want to join the challenge, but I wanted to cope with marathon faster than she had last year, which meant a little more specific skates and a little less social time on the ice.

So I stuck on the Fenix ​​8 amoled and knocked down to shooting mode because of course it has one of these. Honestly, I don’t think I’m surprised at that Garmin Supports skates as one of the many activities – after all, it has dozens of dozens. However, I am surprised at how good skating is, and support both indoor and outdoor mode and offer the same level of adaptation as if you were running. I’m not quite sure what the difference between indoors and outdoor tracking is (I have just shot outdoors), but the adaptation was a lifeguard.

When you jump into a skating, Garmin does not offer your general distance as standard. I get it done – most are not out there to log mile as much as spending time with friends or going for a very cold first date. However, I needed both my total time and distance if I had any hope of completing a marathon at reasonable speed. So I jumped into Garmin’s massive menus and shopped heart rate Graph for my total time and swap calories burned for my general distance. Then it was time to hit the ice.

Fortunately, I have almost nothing to share about my actual skating time – it was just fine. Sure, I fell once or twice (it was twice), but my body didn’t fail me, nor my Fenix ​​8 amoled. It continued to impress me during our compulsory 30-minute breaks while the skating rink took its zamboni for laps to clean up the skating surface. Every time we jumped off the ice, I could give my clock a break with Garmin CV later function, stop GPS tracking and save precious battery life. With the activity on hold, I could also use other features like Garmin Pay to buy badly needed snacks and breakfast sandwiches to keep me going.

Before I knew it – ok, after about six and a half hours on the ice – I had chopped 50,000. I had skated to the marathon distance and then crushed it, and checked almost 630 turns on a tiny ice skating rink on the way to 31 miles And changed. Best of all, I did it before the start of today’s last session, which started at 22:00 and wanted to keep me on the ice until 23:30, which meant I had to go home early. But first I had to upload my activity to Strava Because if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen.

Perhaps the most surprising thing that happened throughout the day with skating after the trapped around the world’s smallest, most temporary skating rink was when I finished my activity: Fenix ​​8 amoled stumbled – my first time ever A Garmin has a problem of any kind. It did not fail me or lost my activity, but it took longer to process the amount of data than I had ever seen before. I was watching Garmin’s Blue Rings Loopet around the “Saving …” message, and practically held its breath on the possibility that it would not be able to treat the entire effort.

But then, after about 30 seconds thought about it, kicked my clock in gear, saved my activity and sent it to the big Garmin Connect Database in the sky. I was finally able to check my general heart rate, which stayed around 110-120 strokes per minute, and my speed, which was a nice, comfortable 5-6 miles per hour. Surprisingly, Garmin reported back to me that this was my longest skate – I mean of course it was; No one in their right mind spends so much time on the ice more than once – but it wasn’t my favorite part of the summary.

No, the best thing was without any questions to look at the map of my activity. My Fenix ​​8 amoled held me perfectly on opposite sides of the ice with each lap that I was done, which meant that when I was loaded to Strava, I had the thickest orange ribbon on a map I have ever seen. And then I dropped the video playing my bet. It is not just three minutes long when played at 1x speed, but it gives the same impression as a small atom flying around CERN’s famous particle accelerator. Then I hit it at 3x speed and watched the GPS lighthouse fly around the map at a speed that would make the hangover after the super bowl to feel even worse.

The only surprise that remained was how I would feel the next day.

If you have ever logged an activity on a Garmin clock – or any training guard, for that matter – you know that the recovery time is just as important as the training itself. Sometimes your watch will tell you that you need a good while before you are ready for another hard workout, while other times you will feel that you are ready to get back there after just a few hours. This time, however, I was prepared to call Garmin a liar.

When I finished the skating Ultramarathon and saved my activity, Garmin told me I needed about nine hours of rest. For me, nine hours are the same recommendation that I get after an easy to moderate the running level I check every day. So in order for it to be my recommendation after almost seven hours on my feet when the lower back and right leg felt ready to fall off, I thought Fenix ​​8 amoled must have forgotten what we had just done together.

Then I woke up the next day and was immediately proven wrong. As much as I thought everything would hurt, I felt pretty good. Sure, right legs were tired of pushing into turns almost all day, but I didn’t feel as curly as I had after some of my road marathons or even a hard speed workout. Surprisingly, Garmins recommended nine hours to be spot-on. Was I about to put my skates back on and go back to the ice rink? Absolutely not; That’s what they call Stockholm syndrome – well, kind – but I felt like I was in good enough shape to go a race or a climb later in the day. I didn’t, but I could.

And that idea, “but I could have,” keep me to love Garmin Fenix ​​8 amoled. It is a watch that listens to my strangest ideas and worst thoughtful plans and is perfectly willing to track them as accurately as possible. I have called that Best ultra-class clock I have ever used before, and it continues to surprise me by proving its value again and again.