Dave: 00:01

Okay. Hey. We're back. We're doing it again. Episode 61.

Dave: 00:05

This is the Trail Talk Podcast. I'm your host, Dave. Thanks for joining me. I know it's been a minute. I I like to say that this is a a weekly podcast.

Dave: 00:15

And for a while there, it was a weekly podcast, but I found that it's a lot of work to keep this podcast going. So, we're gonna call it a biweekly to semi monthly podcast, if that makes any sense. So the last episode I did was about a month ago with my good friend, Matt LeGrand, where we talked all about the Apple situation, the lawsuit between Massimo and Apple preventing Apple from selling the Apple Watches. We're gonna talk about that again in this episode today because there's been some interesting changes that have happened in the past month and, the watches are available again, but there is a big asterisk asterisk? I can't say that word, around purchasing an Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Series 9 right now because you will be miss missing one key feature, and you probably know it is already, but I'm not gonna spoil it yet.

Dave: 01:07

Anyways, on top of that, we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of stuff in this episode including an upcoming race I have in February. That's right. I am racing in February and it's not local. I'm gonna be traveling to the West Coast for this one. Pretty excited about it.

Dave: 01:22

Pretty nervous, but I'll be there nonetheless. We're also gonna talk about my trip to c e s this year. Back in early January, I went out to Las Vegas, went to the consumer electronics show, which was kind of bizarre. I didn't really know what to expect going there. I didn't even I didn't think I'd be going, and then I talked to some friends who were going in and I just I ended up biting the bullet and giving it a shot, experiencing it for the first time.

Dave: 01:50

I kinda wanna just give you a low down of what I found there, what was interesting about it, kinda give you my experience with the whole show, and talk about some of the people I met along the way which was really cool. And on top of that, we're also gonna talk about the Boston running show. Locally to me here in Massachusetts, there's also a running event, in downtown Boston at the Heinz Convention Center. And my wife, Jen, and I, we managed to find a babysitter for the 4 kids. They hung out at the grandparents' house, and we both went into Boston because there was a very specific reason we went in to the show because Wahoo, the company Wahoo unveiled their brand new treadmill, a new product from them called the Wahoo KICKR RUN.

Dave: 02:36

This is the first treadmill that Wahoo has ever made. So, pretty interesting stuff. We got to run on it and test it out. I'll talk about that in this episode as well. And if you wanna learn all about that, I also have a review or a first impression style video over on the main channel on YouTube as well.

Dave: 02:54

So go check that out, but not until you finish this podcast episode. We're also gonna talk about, new product from Sennheiser that I found kind of interesting. And finally, finally, but not last fully or least, a new chorus update, which I have a video about on the main channel as well, but I'll I'll talk about it here. And then we'll wrap this episode up with listener q and a at the end. Whew.

Dave: 03:16

There's a lot of stuff, so buckle up. Before we get there, couple of shout outs. Shout out to you, the Patreon people out there, Patreon and YouTube members. I really appreciate your continued support and I was really shocked. I posted a video, I don't know a couple weeks ago about, it was a weird video for me because it wasn't like fitness techie.

Dave: 03:39

It was about how much money I actually made in, 2023. You know, this time of year we're all doing our taxes and stuff. And I just made a video about like how many views I got, what that converted to in terms of money, and how how much YouTube actually paid me. Of course, it's only one piece of the pie being YouTube AdSense and like how much money they directly pay me and then there's other revenue streams. But the really interesting thing about that video was there was this really outpour like I did not expect this at all.

Dave: 04:11

An outpour of support in the comments. I got a whole bunch of like super thanks and if you don't know what that is, it's like a, donation. Basically people just sending money through the comment system of YouTube. You can super thanks like 5 or $10. Someone even gave me $25 and it wasn't just 1 or 2.

Dave: 04:31

There was there were a bunch of people that donated money to that specific video. I don't know if they felt bad for me because they thought I made more money than I do or, if, you know, just people genuinely want to support. And it was, it made me feel really good. I mean, I was I was shocked by the support that I saw, in the comments section. Everyone really positive and supportive.

Dave: 04:54

That's all to say. If you did donate to that video, I really appreciate it. Thank you. And if you joined Patreon recently, I really appreciate it as well. It me it means a lot.

Dave: 05:05

Okay. Let's move on to the first topic. I guess we'll dive right into the race I have coming up. I'm going out of order from how I open this podcast, but whatever. This is it's my show, so I'll do what I want.

Dave: 05:17

The first topic here, the big Ulta 50 k. This is in California. So this is Marin County, California, which is just outside of San Francisco, and it's gonna be on February 24th. There's 2 different versions of this race. There's a 50 k and then there's a 28 k.

Dave: 05:38

And I gotta tell you, the course looks spectacular. Like, the I'm I'm an East Coast guy. You know, we have East Coast trails where there's a lot of rocks and roots and, it's slippery and muddy and rainy and cold. And it's just so much fun around here. But, the trails, the pictures I saw of this area look absolutely beautiful, and I am looking forward to getting my, New England butt kicked on some West Coast buffed out trails.

Dave: 06:10

I'm very excited about it. Now the way this worked out, if you follow the main channel, a couple of months ago, I think it was October, I wanna say, I was invited out to Washington state to the Mount Rainier area to do some trail running and hang out with a brand called Goldwyn who makes really high end apparel for like rain jackets and they make running clothes now and they've also partnered with Dylan Bowman from free trail pro athlete, also a podcaster, also has his own, shoe from speed land. Goldwyn is a big sponsor of this race, the big Alta 50 k as well as free trail. They've partnered together and they've invited some people from YouTube including myself and a few others out to run at the big Alta 50 k. So I will be flying out at the end of February.

Dave: 07:02

We're gonna run the race, hang out with some other creators around this race, hopefully get some time with Dylan and and the team from Goldwyn, learn more about their new products, and, I'll probably post a video about it about the whole experience. So pretty stoked. Now this 50 k, like I said, it's on, like, buffed out beautiful California terrain, but there's quite a bit avert quite a bit avert. Did I say vit vit avert? There's a lot of vertical, a lot of elevation gain.

Dave: 07:31

We're looking at 73 100 feet of elevation gain over 50 k which, yeah, it's not record breaking or anything but it's quite a bit and, I'm not in the best shape of my life right now. I'm a little bit out of shape. I've got that sweet seasonal depression where I'd say I'm not in the worst shape in the dad bod has seen in a long time, but I'm certainly not in the in peak physical condition. So when I signed up for this race, they're actually doing waves, so they're gonna stagger people from faster to slower, and there were, like, 4 selections from back of the pack to front of the front of the pack. So I I selected, like, mid back of the pack, and this race has a 9 hour cutoff, which is actually kind of intimidating because my last 50 k took me nearly 8 hours, and that one had about 5,000 feet of gain.

Dave: 08:22

Granted, it was in New England where it's very rocky. The trails are way less runnable, even though there was less elevation gain. So hopefully things work out at this race. Either way, we'll be out there, and we're gonna see what I got in the tanks. The the sad part is, you know, I just I just found out found out about this race, like, a couple of weeks ago that I was definitely gonna be doing it.

Dave: 08:48

And by then, the hay's already in the barn. Like, I can't really up my training when I've only got 4 weeks before the race. So really, I have, like, 2 weeks to cram in some training, and then we're gonna be tapering, for for the event. So it is what it is. Stay tuned to the main channel and to the podcast, I'm sure.

Dave: 09:06

There will be other creators out there. I'm not gonna say their names just in case they don't wanna be public about it but it would be cool if I could maybe do a podcast there with some of the other trail running creators that I know will be there because they're pretty cool. So I'll try to set something up and bring some gear and maybe we can do that. So stay tuned for a future episode. With that, let's dive right into the CES trip highlights.

Dave: 09:33

This was a wild trip, so I flew out to c s. The c s was I believe January 9th through 12th was the the event window and I didn't really wanna stay for the whole thing mainly because I'm paying out of pocket I mean to to get a hotel room and flights and stuff and the hotel rooms during CES are astronomically expensive because they know people are there for CES. Like, to give you an example, I stayed at the Flamingo, classy place, and, the days before CES, the rooms were like $40 a day. Yes. $40 a day.

Dave: 10:10

And during CES, they were $440 a day. So I could not afford I didn't want well, I could afford to, but I didn't really want to pay to be there the whole time. So my plan was I'd fly in one day early, do some media only stuff, meet up with some friends that I knew would be out there, and then, attend on the 9th and 10th, fly home on a red eye from the 10th to the 11th, be home the morning of 11th, hopefully, in time to catch my kid's bus, and we'll get there. But so, basically, I flew in the day before because there was an event called PEPCOM. This is like a smaller version of CES for just a few brands, but Garmin was there, Shokz Headphones was there.

Dave: 10:55

There are a few other really interesting brands like, Goal 0 and Yoshino. There's some headphone brands there and some other oh, EcoFlow was there and some other strange and peculiar brands I didn't really know about. But it was a good opportunity to sort of get a vibe for CES, and it was a much smaller event. It was only a couple 100 people compared to the 130,000 people that attended, the the full blown CS. I actually think it was, like, 140, a 140,000 people.

Dave: 11:27

It was, like, 4,000 brands, a 140,000 people. By the way, the convention center in Las Vegas is out of control. It is so big. I had no idea. What is it, like, 9,000,000 square feet?

Dave: 11:39

Someone said it was like the size of 30 football fields. And to walk from one end to the other, it takes half an hour. It's unbelievably large. They even have a loop underneath the convention center like a a a tunnel that's a loop shape that goes from one end to the other, and they have Teslas where you can take a ride from one end to the other underground, and it's crazy. It's absolutely wild.

Dave: 12:02

I'll put some clips of it on the screen because I did try that out. So the first day, I landed, checked into my hotel, and I actually caught up with, Shervin from Shervin Shares. He was a recent podcast guest, and he's also another YouTuber, talks a lot about wellness tech and fitness tech and stuff like that. So we actually hung out for a few hours. We tried the Tesla thing underground, and then we actually got lunch together.

Dave: 12:27

And I think at some point later on, we walked around the convention center, and then we kinda split paths to do our own thing before attending PEPCOM, which happened later in the day. He also attended that as well. After hours and hours of walking through, you kinda get numb, like, desensitized to how cool some of this tech can be because you're just overwhelmed with all this cool stuff everywhere around you. But I will say, I'll shout out some of the impressive booths I saw. LG, this is unrelated to fitness tech, but they had a booth that was mind blowing display they they're showing off their new transparent OLED TVs that you could see through like a window unless there was an image on it.

Dave: 13:09

They had a room set up where you could go in and have a really immersive three d experience. And they're showing off a new electric vehicle concept that wasn't actually a car. It was more about the tech that would be in the car with all of these screens everywhere so there's no, like, visibility, issues within the car. They kind of put screens where the parts of the car are so it's almost like you can see everywhere all the time with cameras and screens. It was really mind blowing.

Dave: 13:37

The place the the things that I I was most interested in were the Garmin booth. I did stop by there. I had the opportunity to meet some of the PR reps that, like, I talked to all the time, and it was great to sort of meet people face to face and shake hands and actually get to know them a little bit more rather than just being a email signature. So I did that. They didn't really have anything new there.

Dave: 13:59

They were showing off their new, Lily 2 smartwatch in the HRM fit sports bra heart rate monitor so that was like the new thing they were showing off but it was a really rare opportunity for me to actually go hands on with some of the very unique watches they offer. So they had the Garmin mark carbon collection there. Those are like $3,000 carbon fiber watches that are like a Garmin Phoenix just inside of a very expensive case and I got to actually touch and feel and see what those were all about which was kinda cool, rare opportunity. Other boosts of note, shocks, the headphone brand, they were there. And they're showing off their new, what is it?

Dave: 14:43

Open swim pro, which has 32 gigabytes of internal storage for Spotify music playback. You can wear them underwater and listen to music. You can wear them in a downpour because they're completely waterproof. Pretty cool. There is, the Mojoa headphone company was there as well, and they had a very similar product to that Shokz headphone I was just talking about, bone conduction, waterproof.

Dave: 15:06

But this one actually has a heart rate sensor built into it, which takes your, your pulse from your your temple while you're wearing the headphones. I thought that was really cool. Of course, on top of that, we had all the smart ring companies, Ultrahuman, Our Ring, Ring Con. It was good to stop by those booths, but I think the most important smart ring at this event was actually from Amazfit, oddly enough. So Amazfit, if you don't know, they sell GPS watches, smartwatches.

Dave: 15:37

I cover them on the main channel in terms of review. They've grown in popularity over the years and now you can buy you can buy them at Best Buy. They've expanded quite a bit. They're pretty well known in America now, and they announced at CES that they're gonna be making a new smart ring called the Heliosmart ring or the hero Helio health ring. I forget what they're calling it.

Dave: 15:59

But the idea behind it is that because they make watches and now they're gonna have a ring, all the metrics between your ring and your smartwatch will work together. So if you don't wanna wear your watch for a while, you wanna take it off while you sleep or whatever, you can wear your Amazfit ring to bed and still collect sleep data just like you would while you're while you wear your watch, but now you don't have to actually wear your watch. And I think this is a pretty pretty smart move, and I'm surprised other brands like Garmin and and, you know, the larger smartwatch brands haven't done this as well. I know Samsung just announced their smart ring, which is a whole another can of worms worms we should probably talk about. If you didn't know at their, Samsung unpacked event, they talked about their new phones, but they also showed off their new ring for a brief second right at the end of the show.

Dave: 16:50

I'm not even gonna go into details on that because it's all speculation right now. But I can imagine that Samsung's ring is gonna work a lot like how Amazfit is doing it, where Samsung sells watches and phones, and now they have a ring. So maybe when you go to bed, you don't need to wear your watch to collect all of your sleep data. Super smart. And I think it's gonna go a long way and it's probably the beginning of sort of a trend of this happening.

Dave: 17:16

So there's the Ultrahuman Helio ring. No. I don't think there was pricing on it or avail availability, but I'm I'm guessing sometime in the the next couple of months we'll learn more about that. And like I said, CS is just so weird because if you've never been there, there's a whole area called Eureka Park that's like smaller upstart businesses and there there is a sea of these little booths that are just like random things like robotic roll, baby strollers in in new technology that's like a software thing that's not really hard wear, and it took a lot out of me. By the end of the week, I was totally fried.

Dave: 17:56

I was averaging 35,000 steps a day according to my watch, and I think I ran twice but only for a couple of miles. It was a lot of walking and a lot of talking and, yeah. By by the time I got back on the plane to go home, I was totally fried. By the way, shout out to the guy at the airport. I had dinner at their airport.

Dave: 18:15

I took a red high red eye home from Vegas, and I was talking to someone at a bar. It was like a pizza California pizza kitchen or something. I got dinner, had a beer, and there was a guy sitting next to me who also attended CES, and he just randomly paid for my paid for my meal. And I thought that was really nice of him. So shout out to that guy if he happens to be listening.

Dave: 18:37

He's probably not listening, but, hey. Why not give it a shot? Okay. So that was CS. I'm not gonna talk anymore about that because I'm wasting the whole episode talking about CS.

Dave: 18:46

So let's jump over to Apple Apple for a minute. Let's talk about Apple News. There's a couple of things, 2 parts to this. Apple Vision Pro will be available in a couple of days, February 2nd. And as of today, January 30th, they the big YouTubers out there like m MKBHD, The Wall Street Journal, I think The Verge, they all published their initial review after using after using the VisionPRO for a couple of weeks.

Dave: 19:18

And I found them to be pretty interesting because none of them were glowingly positive. It's a really interesting product. I I'm not sure how it's gonna be adopted. And the way I see the Apple Vision Pro is it's a new piece of tech that's mainly it mainly exists for developers right now because the Apple Vision is a whole new platform that's gonna require very specific apps that are good for augmented reality, productivity, maybe gaming, maybe, content com consumption. And those apps just don't exist yet except for a handful from, like, Disney and all those big names like Netflix.

Dave: 20:00

But right now, it's just a foundation for what it could be down the road. And watching some of these reviews, it reminded me of that fact. It's very heavy. It's got a battery connected to a wire you have to keep in your pocket. It just doesn't feel like it is very apple like.

Dave: 20:18

It's very polished and refined looking at high quality and it's got dials and buttons that are all very strategically placed. The the visuals inside the display look absolutely amazing, but it just doesn't feel done. It doesn't feel like this is a final product. I think the Apple Vision Pro is gonna be the first of many iterations of this and that this one is here to start the conversation and to get developers on board. And maybe a couple of years, maybe a year, 2 years from now, there's an Apple Vision non pro that is not $3,000 that is lighter, that has a built in battery, and that is what we want the vision pro to be, I think.

Dave: 21:04

But that's my my take on it. I I've been battling with this because, like, every content creator and YouTuber out there is sharing screenshots of them buying the VisionPRO. And it's $35100, and I I cannot justify buying this thing. And I've been trying to find a way to, like, in my mind, like, where how could I work this into my content? Like, is there gonna be workout workout apps?

Dave: 21:31

Like, can I wear it on a treadmill? It's fine. Find some way to tie these things together so I can validate the reason for preordering, but I just can't do it. So I have not preordered, but I do know, like, every friend I have that makes content has preordered. So it's gonna be really interesting to see what kind of content comes out of these things, what what the vision pro is actually good for.

Dave: 21:55

It's really, like, from what I've seen so far from the reviews I just talked about, they're they're marketing in it as like a computer alternative. Like, instead of your laptop, wear this thing on your head. But, like, do you want that? Do you want do you want something strapped to your head that only has 2:2 hour battery life? I don't know if I do because I can't think of a situation where I could be, like, in my living room with my 4 kids around and have this thing strapped to my head and be totally, like, isolated from them.

Dave: 22:26

I mean, it sounds nice, but I don't think my my wife would appreciate that. So the vision pro, I have mixed feelings on. I wanna hear your feelings on it, actually. Comment down below on YouTube if you're watching this the video version of this podcast. Comment down below.

Dave: 22:41

Make sure to to comment and let me know what you think of the VisionPRO and what what use case it actually provides and what value it will it will provide for users out there. Very interested. So the other bit of Apple news has to relate to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the app Apple Watch series 9. Because if you listen to the last podcast, Matt LeGrande, my good friend, Matt, shout out, Matt, YouTube channel. Go check him out.

Dave: 23:09

We talked about the the law situation, the the legal actions between Apple and Masimo, and for a while there, you you couldn't buy an Apple Watch. It was banned for a while, then it came back in the market, then it came back off the market, and now it's back in the Apple Store. You can buy an Apple Watch again, which is great. However, here in the USA, there is one big stipulation. If you buy an Apple Watch after January 18th, which was last week, you will not have let me clarify.

Dave: 23:40

If you buy an Apple Watch Ultra 2, an Apple Watch or an Apple Watch series 9 in the United States only affects the United States after January 18th, you will not get the pulse oximeter sensor. It will be physically in the watch, but it will be disabled from a software level. So you will not be able to pick up your blood oxygen saturation level. That's kind of a bummer, and be that's so that's kind of a main selling point of the watch. Like, if you look at the marketing material, the SP a 2 sensor is one of the, you know, sensors of the watch.

Dave: 24:15

It's it's a main feature. It was introduced back on the Apple Watch Series 6, and they kept it around until now. And now you you will have that disabled on your brand new watch. Keep in mind, all previous watches, all sales that have already happened prior to January 18th in America will still have that feature turned on. You won't lose it.

Dave: 24:35

They're not gonna take it away. It's only for new sales. And they're doing this because they were losing money. They wanted to get the Apple Watch back on the market. And to do that, they just said, you know what?

Dave: 24:47

We're gonna pull the plug, turn off the sensor, keep selling it without without that feature enabled. Maybe they should have knocked $50 off the price tag for for both the series 9 and ultra 2, but they didn't do that. Same prices, just missing that feature. Now I made a video about this on YouTube top talking all about it. And my conclusion is, does it really matter?

Dave: 25:11

Because I think for the vast majority of people out there, they're probably not using this sensor anyways. I know there is a small user group that does rely on it. Maybe you have a medical condition, you know, CPO COPD or or, you have a lung issue or you have pneumonia or you're elderly or whatever. There is a use case for an SPO 2 sensor, and it's nice to have it on your watch. That being said, the ones built into the watch, even from my Garmin, from Suunto, from Polar Coros, it doesn't matter what watch.

Dave: 25:45

I've never had super accurate readings from the SPO 2 sensors on a watch because it's on your wrist and not in an ideal spot like on your fingertip where, like, the medical grade sensors go. So in my mind, I'm like, okay. We lost a feature. That kind of sucks. But on the other hand, is it a feature you actually need?

Dave: 26:03

Is it something you actually use? Are you just collecting the data and not actually utilizing it for any reason? Does it matter? That's the question I have for you. Again, comment down below.

Dave: 26:14

Do you care about the lack of the SPO 2 sensor? But for now, it is not there. It is not enabled, and it is what it is. I think this is gonna be a very temporary situation. I don't think that they're gonna leave it disabled.

Dave: 26:27

I just think that's what it is right now until they can figure out how to settle this whole issue. I got to assume they're gonna exchange a big lump sum of money to Masimo to get the licensing agreement and the thumbs up, and then they're gonna go off in their merry way and continue to sell Apple Watches, but that's purely, speculation. Moving right along to the next topic. This is, well, let's let's talk about this first. Sennheiser.

Dave: 26:51

This is something I actually saw at CES too, but, it's kind of a big deal. I've actually reached out to them because I wanna I wanna get these things. They announced a new set of headphones called the momentum sport, the Sennheiser, Sennheiser, however you wanna say it, momentum sport. These earbuds are gonna cost $329. Very expensive, but they look really interesting because they are the first third party product that will be able to sync with polar flow.

Dave: 27:24

So if you don't know what Polar Flow is it's if Polar watches you can buy a Polar GPS watch like the Polar Vantage V3, the Grid X Pro, whatever In the software you use to sync your data is called polar flow. That's where your step count and your sleep data and activity data is all stored. So Sennheiser here has developed a pair of earbuds that have a heart rate sensor built into the they have a little optical heart rate sensor in the tip of the earbud. So the tip of the earbud is actually clear and the light pulses through it to pick up your heart rate inside of your ear canal. I found this to be kind of fascinating.

Dave: 28:03

So the idea here is you go for a run, and after your run well, you go for a run using the Polar Flow app or polar beat to record the GPS data from your phone. So you've got your your pace and distance and and duration and everything from the GPS data using the GPS chip in your phone. And then on top of that, you get your heart rate data from these earbuds that are in your ears. So now when you go for a run, all you gotta bring is your phone and your earbuds, and you can get a whole idea of your running index and VO 2 max and all of your data just with those two items. No GPS watch involved.

Dave: 28:41

Pretty interesting, and I've never seen anything like this before, and it's it's really interesting that it's tying in with the Polar Flow app. Polar has been doing some weird stuff lately. Like, they they licensed out their software to Casio with some recent G Shock watches like the GPR H1000 and now this with Sennheiser. I don't know if that's the, that's a bad thing. Like, if this is the like, how maybe they're they feel like they're on a sinking ship or something and so they're trying to license out and sell parts of their products they think are valuable or if they're just trying to collaborate with more, you know, other brands out there.

Dave: 29:21

Either way, it's pretty interesting, and I do wanna try these headphones out. Again, these are Sennheiser Momentum Sport. And not only do they do heart rate from the earbuds, but they also do body temperature tracking too. So it has a, body temperature sensor in there as well. Pretty interesting.

Dave: 29:38

Okay. We also have an update from Corus. So Corus has new firmware update as chorus does something I really like about chorus watches. They continue to update even old hardware and I actually missed an update. I usually do a short video about their updates just to keep everybody up to speed.

Dave: 29:56

A little while ago, they added HRV tracking or automatic HRV tracking, and they added a real weather widget, which is something that Corus watches were missing for a very long time. So now you get a a full weather forecast, but that's not the update I'm even talking about here. The new update is 3 things. You have a wellness check, which is basically like Garmin has their health snapshot that sort of takes a a snapshot of your vitals, like your heart rate, your stress, at at that given point in time, and that's exactly what the wellness check is on the Corus watch as well. It basically tracks your SPO 2, your heart rate, your HRV, your respiration rate, and your stress, and it kind of just plots that out in a historical way.

Dave: 30:43

So you can kinda take a snapshot, not a not a health snapshot, but a wellness check, and it will store that in a whole list of history so you can go back in time and see what your wellness check was for a given date. It is cool. I don't know the use case of it or how I'll use it every day, but if you are, like, sick or something and you just wanna check-in on yourself, you can do the wellness check. Welcome welcome to have it. Another new feature on Chorus is stress tracking.

Dave: 31:11

This is pretty cool. So Garmin, again, had stress tracking before, and now we have a very similar thing on Coros with stress tracking. Essentially, this will combine, like, mental stress like anxiety, you're worried about money, you're worried about your job, etcetera, but on top of that it'll also show your your physical stress on a daily basis like going for a long run, recovering, even drinking too much alcohol that'll all be reflected on the stress chart. And it has seemed to be pretty accurate. I've been testing it for a couple of weeks, and, it's pretty cool.

Dave: 31:44

It's very it's just as useful as Garmin stress tracking and that's to say I think pretty useful. I do think people read too much into this stuff sometimes. Like, they're like, oh, my body battery's low. I better not go for a run today, where you probably should be looking at it as sort of like a secondary validation and not your primary source of information, but I do think it's still pretty cool. I'm glad to have it.

Dave: 32:07

And the final thing they added is a new running form test. This one is, very overwhelming. So, basically basically, the idea is you you have to wear a Coros pod. So I have the Coros pod 2. You wear that on the back of your shorts, and then you go out and do a workout outside with GPS data.

Dave: 32:27

I think you can do it indoors as well, but I did mine outside. And then they do a guided workout. So there's a 5 minute warm up, and then there's a 5 minute, workout stage. And, basically, it tells you to stay within a target pace of, like I think mine was, like, 7 21 per mile to 804. And during that time, it'll take a bunch of measurements by combining the accelerometer in the gyroscope, in the watch, in the GPS data, along with your running dynamics from the chorus pod that's on the back of your shorts.

Dave: 32:58

So it's getting your ground contact time, your left right balance, your stride ratio, all that stuff, and combining all that data into a running form test. At the end of your activity, it spits out a running form score that goes from 0 to a100 to give you an idea of how good your form is, and then it breaks it down really granular granularly into a bunch of different details about that running form test from your balance to your running power to your efficiency, and it's very interesting. There's a whole bunch of details to go through. And for me as a, like, a normal everyday runner, the output of this test, I don't know how valuable it is because I don't know what to do with that data or how to correct things. I do think if you have a running coach or you're maybe you're just more advanced than me, you will you you'll know how to use this information, but it does provide a bunch of information.

Dave: 33:58

My other issue with this I mean, not so much of an issue, but I don't know how accurate it is because you there's no real way to compare apples to apples when it comes to your running form test. Like, I can't use a competing device or to try to generate a different score or try to replicate it. So I don't know how accurate it all is or how useful it could be, but it is a new feature on the Coros watches. You will be getting it actually February 1st right around the corner, on your watch and in the Coros app. So I've been testing it in beta.

Dave: 34:28

It's gonna be available in a couple of days on February 1st, probably by the time I post this podcast. Okay. Now it's time for the final topic of this podcast before we get to the q and a. That's going to be my experience at the 2024 Boston running show that happened last weekend. That was, like, January 28th or something.

Dave: 34:48

I forget the actual day. So the Boston Running Show is, it's kinda like CES, but for running at a much, much smaller scale. There's probably, like, 50 brands there from HOKA to Ultra to, different, you know, hydration packs to Solomon to Asics. There are also some new products. I forget the name of this hydration pack, but it basically had, like, a bladder at the bottom of it to try to balance out the weight instead of having a full length bladder like most common hydration packs.

Dave: 35:21

I feel like the booths weren't really showing off anything new. I went to the HOKA booth. They didn't have any brand new or exciting shoes. They were basically just selling shoes. It was like a retail spot.

Dave: 35:30

And the same with Altra and Asics, like, no one had any groundbreaking stuff. However, the sole purpose I went there was for one very important reason, Wahoo. Wahoo was there. And if you don't know who Wahoo is, they've been making bike trainers and watches and stuff in the fitness realm for a long time, I think 10 years or so. And their big claim to fame is really high quality, bike trainers, and now they've designed a new treadmill.

Dave: 36:02

So they've got a new product called the Wahoo KICKR RUN, and they announced it or they showed it off for the first time in public at the Boston running show right near me half an hour away from where I live. So I was super lucky in that my wife and I got to go. We scheduled the time with Wahoo ahead of time. I talked to their PR team, and I got to go and test out the new Wahoo KICKR run myself. I got to let my wife try it for we tried it for, like, a half an hour, 40 minutes, see what it was all about, and, it's really cool.

Dave: 36:36

So let's let's do some of the the heavy hitters here. So first of all, I do have a whole video about this on YouTube. Go check that out if you want more detail and more b roll shots of it, but here's the heavy hitters. This thing retails for $5,000 in the USA. It's gonna be available sometime in June.

Dave: 36:54

So super expensive, not available yet. The reason why it's $5,000 is, a it's a very high quality treadmill, super beefy looking, like, big it's mainly made out of metal. It's very heavy. It weighs about £350. It's got a 15 degree incline, a minus 3 degree decline, but most importantly well, there's a couple of things here.

Dave: 37:21

The really unique things about this is first, the top speed goes up to 15 miles per hour. That is very fast. That's a 4 minute mile pace on a treadmill. And if you look at residential treadmills in that, like, 3 to 4 2 to $4,000 range, you're gonna find that most are limited to about 12 miles per hour. So that's number 1.

Dave: 37:42

Number 2, it's got a very interesting set of features when it comes to peace control. First, you can fully you can fully control this thing from Zwift. You can pair the treadmill to Zwift which is a like a virtual running game. You kind of they kind of gamify running on a treadmill. Zwift run has been around for a while, but this is the first time on a treadmill that I found it to be actually fun and useful.

Dave: 38:10

So if you're in Zwift and your avatars running up a hill, the incline will actually move up automatically on the treadmill. And the same if you go downhill, it'll decline automatically, which is super cool. But there's actually 2 more party tricks up this thing's sleeve. First of all, there's something called terrain mode. In terrain mode, we'll actually allow the deck of the treadmill to tilt left and right.

Dave: 38:35

So while you're running, your body will actually be compensating for varying terrain. So imagine you're on a trail running virtual game thing up on your TV, and you're running on a trail, and the trail is kinda slanted. Now in the game, it'll be slanted. And then in real life, the deck of the treble will actually tilt a little bit to to simulate what's happening in the game. Super cool and a lot of fun.

Dave: 39:00

But on top of that, there's also the highlight feature of this thing called run free mode. So what they've done is they took a special sensor called a time of flight sensor. A time of flight sensor is something I used to use all the time at my old job. I used to be a mechanical engineer, and we used time of flight sensors for a lot of different reasons. What this sensor can do is detect your body's position on the treadmill deck within 1 millimeter of accuracy up to a 1000 times per second.

Dave: 39:30

And why that's important is because they use this sensor, to control the pace of the treadmill. So if you're running at a casual pace, it'll pick that up. It'll identify where you are on the deck. Now if you speed up, start to run faster and you that means your body would move up on the deck closer to the dashboard where the controls are. That's where the sensor is.

Dave: 39:52

It would detect that as well. And when you do that, it'll actually speed up the treadmill. So in practice, when you're actually running on this thing, it's completely autonomous. It it's kinda like you're running outside. So if you run slow, the treadmill will slow down.

Dave: 40:09

If you run fast, it'll speed up, and it's super reactive, like, there's no lag or anything. If you're if you slow down, it slows down right away. If you speed up and you start to run really fast, it'll speed up and run really fast right away. And it's really a trip. I think the the weirdest part about this so there's like a learning curve.

Dave: 40:29

When you get on this thing, it feels very unnatural to slow down on a treadmill. So, like, when you're running on a treadmill, the last thing you wanna do is stop. Right? Because on a traditional treadmill, you just get thrown off the back. But on this one, it'll slow down the belt.

Dave: 40:43

So you kinda have to get over that mental barrier of slowing down on the treadmill and and being okay with that. That was the first thing I noticed. My wife knows that too. But once you figure that out and you have, like, 3 to 5 minutes on this thing, you get very used to it, and it feels really, really natural. But I think the most trippy part of this was I was playing a Zwift game where there are big hills, so it's like rolling terrain up and down.

Dave: 41:09

And as you go up the hill, so the incline automatically goes up to simulate the hill. You're doing your own pace and it detects where you are and it's automatically picking up how fast you're running. And then when you crest the hill and you just get over the top of the hill and start to go down the other side down the downhill part of it, the the treadmill deck starts to decline, and you naturally start running faster. And it feels exactly like what it feels like to run outside. It's really weird, and they've simulated this really impressively.

Dave: 41:44

Now the weird thing I think a lot of people will struggle with here first of all, the price is $5,000. That's gonna be the biggest struggle a lot of people face with this treadmill. Second thing is there's no display. So the front of the treadmill is like a desk. It's a big platform, and they want you to put your computer on it or a tablet or your phone, and it actually has USB charging so you can put your phone or computer up there and plug the USB in and it will, charge your device while you're using it.

Dave: 42:12

And if you do use a laptop, you can use up to a 17 inch laptop and they have a special security strap that goes right over the laptop to keep it on that desk and so it doesn't vibrate off. So there's no display. And if you look at, like, NordicTrack or Matrix or any of those other brands, like, a big thing they do, like, their big updates, They don't really do anything in terms of the treadmill itself, like the base, the motor. That all pretty much stays the same. It's been the same since, like, the nineties.

Dave: 42:42

But what they do every year is, like, oh, we got a new 32 inch OLED model and whatever. It's some new display that they put on the treadmill. And that's really what gets updated every year, where Wahoo's taking a totally different approach and not giving you a display at all and telling you to put your own display on it. And I think I like that. I it's a bummer.

Dave: 43:03

It's so expensive without a display, but when you think about it, one of the things that gets outdated the quickest on your treadmill is that display. Like, I have a NordicTrack x11 I. It's got a tablet in it with an 11 inch display that feels kinda small now, and the operating system is Android. I can tell they've scanned it or whatever, but it's not very fast. Like, I have to tap on things a couple of times.

Dave: 43:28

It's pretty slow. Like, I have an iPhone 15 pro. So compared to this, it feels like old technology, and that's because it's 5 years old. So it is kind of old technology. So when on this Wahoo treadmill, they're saying, you put your tablet of choice on here.

Dave: 43:44

We don't wanna dictate that for you. You you pick what you wanna put on there, whether it be your Windows PC or your MacBook or whatever. You could you could play Zwift on it. You can use the Wahoo system app, and it will even tie into training peaks as well. And it's gonna be open source, so they put their, you know, code out there, and any other developer is gonna be able to work with Wahoo on this as well and tie into this and utilize it as well.

Dave: 44:10

So that is the Wahoo KICKR run. It's a really wild treadmill, and I I guess the question now is do I get one? I've already told Wahoo I want one. So we'll see how this works out if they can, set me up with a financing option, but I'm really I'm really interested in it. I I tell you what, it really for me, the big deal here is innovation.

Dave: 44:33

We we've been living a long time with the same old treadmills. Like, NordicTrack has been pumping out the same garbage for x amount of years. They're good treadmills. Don't get me wrong. I like mine.

Dave: 44:44

I've got issues with it, but, like, it's just a motor and a belt. And then there's, like, speed controls for tilt and and whatever. And everything's so manual. Right? Where this is the first time it feels like a company has really sat down and and kind of started from the ground up all over again.

Dave: 45:03

Like, how can we make this experience better? How can we make users think about treadmills differently? And they did it, and I really like it. I just wish it was, like, 3 grand and not 5 grand, but it is what it is, unfortunately. I'm pretty excited about it.

Dave: 45:19

I hope you are too because I just talked a lot about it. Now it's time for listener q and a. Okay. So if you don't know what this part of the show is, typically at the end of a lot of my podcasts, I like to do a little q and a session from responses that I get on Instagram. I post one of those stories with a little question box, and whatever you put in that question box, I address live on the show.

Dave: 45:41

I don't prescreen these. I read them as they come in, and I just react to them in real time. So if you wanna be part of this podcast and featured in the next episode, follow me over on Instagram and keep an eye out for the story where I ask for questions for an upcoming podcast. You can type them in, and I'll talk about it here. If you don't wanna get on Instagram and do that, you can, send me a message on Instagram with a podcast question, or you can just email me, using the contact form at cheese to summit dot com.

Dave: 46:10

I'm happy to take questions from anywhere, but, typically, Instagram is the easiest for me. Okay. So we're gonna go through these 1 by 1 and see what they're all about. First question is from Ankit Ankit Uphodie. I don't know.

Dave: 46:24

Close enough. What's your experience with the Amazfit team on being open and acting on feedback? Thank you. Amazfit's an interesting brand. I believe for the most part, they're based overseas.

Dave: 46:36

I do have a couple of contacts there. And for the most part, they are really, very nice people. I mean, they've sent out test products. They take feedback pretty seriously. When I have an issue, they try to respond to it.

Dave: 46:52

Generally, they're just as good as, you know, any of the other PR people I've worked with, so I don't have anything bad bad to say about them. The brand as a whole has grown a lot in popularity. It's pretty interesting to see them being sold in, like, Best Buy and stuff now, but that's kind of all I can say on that. Next question is from Torbjorn HB. Shout out to a Patreon member.

Dave: 47:14

How motivated are you for the new year as a full time YouTuber and reviewer? Very motivated. This year is gonna be big. I got some lots of ideas that I need to work on and and flush things out, but I'm I'm very excited for 2024. I'm getting to these questions late.

Dave: 47:30

I posted this q and a a while back, so that's probably why. He also asks, do you have any specific goals for your channel in 2024? I have some goals. I don't really wanna talk about them yet because they they're different, so stay tuned. Next question is from Oscar Farias Oscar Farias 12.

Dave: 47:55

I have a Garmin Instinct Solar 1st edition thinking about upgrading to the Instinct 2. I'd say it's a good upgrade. I'd also suggest checking out the Instinct 2 x. It's a bigger watch, but it's better than the Instinct 2 in just about every way. Most notably, it's got the built in flashlight and I really like that.

Dave: 48:14

So if you like the Instinct 2 and you don't mind a slightly larger size, check out the Instinct 2 x. I I like that one. Next question is from Tim Noho. Do you anticipate a Enduro 3 Garmin Enduro 3 this year? That's a good question.

Dave: 48:30

The Garmin Enduro 2, I believe, came out did it come out 2022 now? So Garmin, they typically do, like, a 2 year release cycle for their higher end watches, but they've kinda changed that a little bit lately with, like, the Phoenix 7 and then the Phoenix 7 Pro just like a year later. So I don't know what they're gonna do with the Enduro. I honestly kinda worry about the Enduro because I don't know how popular of a watch that was despite I love it because the battery life is totally insane, but I don't know how many people bought it. So I guess it would depend how well it's sold whether or not as to whether or not they will continue that line, but I guess time will tell.

Dave: 49:13

I don't really know. I it's hard to say. Do you prefer a 47 or 51 millimeter used for only running? 47 millimeter all day. I'm wearing the 40965 right now.

Dave: 49:25

This is kind of my preferred form factor when it comes to a watch. I don't know why it just feels smaller than the Phoenix even though it's basically the same size. But, yeah, the 50 ones can feel a little bit big on my wrist. I don't mind them, but it makes it, like, hard to sleep and stuff. Next question is from Gino Alder Weird.

Dave: 49:44

I think I said that right. What are what are you looking forward to in 2024 personal and business wise? 2024. So I'm looking forward to some travel I have planned. I'm looking forward to, watching my daughter get a little bit older, and we're, like, in the process of potty training in those phases of life.

Dave: 50:03

I know you you guys care about that. Right? Yeah. I don't know. I just, I have a pretty positive outlook on 2024.

Dave: 50:12

In terms of business, like, I all I can say is I hope for growth. You know, growth determines how long I can do this for. If it if it goes down, it's bad. If it flatlines and doesn't go anywhere, it's kinda bad. I want things to be on the upward trajectory.

Dave: 50:29

So that's all I can say about that. Next question from Van Drew s. How does a new runner know that they are experiencing the runner's high? I got a similar question to this a while back. I don't really know I mean, the runner's high thing is just that dopamine hit from getting some some air in working out and doing something physical.

Dave: 50:51

So if you're challenging yourself in any physical way you're probably getting that runner's high think that makes sense Next question from fields in need. If you had the time to take up another hobby, what would it be? That's a great question. Another hobby. I guess this is probably a cheat answer, but I would probably rekindle my love for climbing.

Dave: 51:17

In the past, you know, maybe 2, 3 years ago, I was really into rock and ice climbing, and I was very passionate about it. It was kind of, like, my top priority. But as I got more into running and ultramarathons and hiking and stuff, it kinda took the back seat because it's a very time consuming hobby. It's not one that you can sort of dabble in and, like, go in and out of. You have to be very committed because it's dangerous.

Dave: 51:40

It's extremely dangerous. So you need to tie the right knots. You need to clip the right things. You need to, you know, make sure your pro is good and and you're not falling and blah blah blah. So I I guess if I could pick up any hobby or rekindle any hobby, I would say climbing, in general would be nice.

Dave: 51:58

Next question is from James Phoenix. James asks, I asked on the last episode, Apple was making a ring. Now I wonder if Garmin will. I do too. I think what we are more likely to see from Garmin is not so much a ring, but I bet we're gonna see some kind of band.

Dave: 52:17

You You know, I'm just speculating. I don't know anything, but, like, it would make sense for them to to bring out some sort of WHOOP competitor that's very WHOOP like in nature where you got your body battery and your sleep tracking and strain and stress and whatever. But it's just a band with no screen. Honestly, I feel like if they did that, Whoop would be in some serious trouble because it would be subscription free. It would probably be pretty inexpensive, and then you have loop that's, like, $300 a year.

Dave: 52:45

So that'd be rough, for them, but I don't know if they'll do a ring. I think there are some challenges with rings even still even though become they've become more popular, there's a lot of friction to buying even an Oura ring. You have to get sized. You gotta make sure you get the right size. If you gain or lose weight, your size can differ, and you've already invested so much money on 1.

Dave: 53:09

There's a lot of variables with a ring. So I don't know if I see Garmin getting into it, but it would be cool to see if they did. Next question is from Alex bike rider. He asks or he or she, Beats Fit Pro still recommended. Expect a new version this year.

Dave: 53:25

Thanks. So the Beats Fit Pros are currently still my favorite earbud to run with. I use them on every single run ever since I got them a couple of years ago. They're by far my favorite mainly just because the fit with my ear, they lock in there really good. They don't fall out.

Dave: 53:41

Even if it's downpour raining I can run with them and they will not slip out which is a big deal for me. So, yes, highly recommended still. And nowadays they're a little bit cheaper so that's good to see. Is there a new version coming? Probably.

Dave: 53:55

I I have to imagine they were very popular when they first came out, and they're probably still very popular. I don't know even know how they could improve it. I guess the only thing I would like to see on the next version is wireless charging. That's, like, the one thing that drives me nuts with them. But other than that, they've held up great.

Dave: 54:13

I did have to superglue, on one of my earbuds. The little wingtip part actually folded back and kinda ripped a little bit, so I had to superglue it back. But I did that, like, 2 months ago and it still works. Still use them every day. So, yeah, I recommend them.

Dave: 54:28

And the last question is from Rodri Ba. Do you think Garmin will release a watch with satellite texting capability and when? That is a excellent question, and I've been waiting for that myself for a a long time. So if you know Garmin, you know they make the Garmin inReach device, which is a satellite communicator. Now we have satellite communication from iPhones.

Dave: 54:52

There's a new Motorola Defy product that's another satellite communicator. That Garmin's had in reach around for so long, but they still haven't incorporated it into their watches. The big hurdle I think there is that inReach used to be a separate company called DeLorem. DeLorem was around for a long time, and they made the inReach product. Then Garmin bought DeLorem.

Dave: 55:15

They rebranded the company to Garmin, and now it's called the Garmin inReach. But that team, that inReach team is still in a separate building. I think they're in Maine, I wanna say. So they the inReach team is, like, in Maine, and then the other Garmin people are in Kansas. And I don't know how much overlap there is between the development team from the watch side of things and development for the inReach side of things.

Dave: 55:41

Maybe they do work together. I don't really know how it works, but they seem like very different products. And I but I do hope I would love to see in reach in a watch. That would be super sick because, I mean, I know nowadays in my area, at least, like, cell phone reception's really good. It's come a long way.

Dave: 56:00

It's really not often I find myself even in the mountains without service, but it does happen. And those inReach devices are really important pieces of mind. It could be a life saving thing. So, I would love to see it. I don't think we're gonna see it anytime soon, though, though.

Dave: 56:17

I think the problem is the technology is too big still like you need an a physical antenna on your device for it to work well. So if you look like the the inReach Mini, for example, has that nub at the top, the Garmin inReach messenger is like a hockey puck. It's pretty big. And to take that and shrink it down into this is a whole different ballgame, especially when these are already so packed. Like, you got GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, etcetera inside a tiny little package.

Dave: 56:50

You have to put a whole another layer of tech in there. So it would probably be a pretty chunky watch, and I don't know if our, you know, our technology is there yet. So that is my answer. Alright, friends. We have reached the end of the q and a and, kind of the end of this podcast because I've been recording for over an hour.

Dave: 57:11

So, if you enjoyed this podcast, I really appreciate you tuning in. You made it to the end of the episode. And if you made it this far, I'd really appreciate it if you headed over to the Chiefs to Summit Trail Talk YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button. Give me a thumbs up on the video version of this podcast because we're approaching 4,000 subscribers over over there. Really appreciate all the people that that, subscribe to that and I wanna continue to grow it.

Dave: 57:37

We're gonna keep the video version going of this podcast along with the audio version. They're gonna live in tandem and, I really appreciate it. So head over there, comment on the video, give me a like, subscribe, check out the Patreon. Like I said before, it will be linked in the show notes down below. I'll try to have have links to all the other stuff I talked about in this podcast in the show notes as well.

Dave: 58:01

I hope you guys had or guys and girls had, you know, a great past month. I know it's been a while since I checked in on the podcast. Alright. Stay tuned for upcoming episodes. Like I said, I'm gonna be out in California racing the big Alta 50 k.

Dave: 58:15

There will definitely be a follow-up for for that and a lot more. So I think I covered everything. Check out oh, yeah. Visit the merch store and get some merch, and, that's it. Alright.

Dave: 58:27

Thanks for tuning in. See you next time. Bye.