Dave: 00:00

Okay we're back again and no, this is not a beer this is water well kinda it's like flavored liquid death water. I see these on podcasts all the time and I was at a supermarket the other day and What? 4 grams of carbs, no protein or anything, but hey, not What? 4 grams of carbs, no protein or anything, but hey, not bad for a little, thirst quencher. Not sponsored or anything, but if you're watching liquid death, reach out because, I'm looking for sponsors.

Dave: 00:37

Welcome back to the channel, everybody. The podcast, the channel, whatever YouTube channel, to the, Chase Summit Trail Talk Podcast, YouTube channel, and you'll be able to see me as well as hear me, hopefully, if everything's recording properly. Today, we've got episodes with 56, 65. I forget the number. It'll say it in the intro.

Dave: 01:04

It doesn't really matter. Anyways, we're gonna talk about a few things. We're gonna talk about, the Vermont 100 Endurance race, which is my upcoming race, and my involvement with that race, which is actually really exciting and something new for me. We're gonna talk about what training has been like leading up to this race, some of the stuff I I'll be planning to bring with me to the race, and the gear and shoes and stuff. We'll also be talking a little bit about Western States coming up.

Dave: 01:32

The new Suunto race that came out, a few days ago now at the time of recording this podcast, And we'll be talking about WWDC, Apple's, launch of the new software feature for Apple Watch, watch OS 11, which has some really interesting stuff that I can add a little insight to. I did post a video about that, but we'll get there. And we will be talking about the new stuff coming to Garmin, the Coros Dura, and a few other random tidbits throughout the way. Yeah. We're just kind of winging it today.

Dave: 02:08

I want to talk about Vermont because this is probably 1 of the most exciting things in my small world that's happened in a while. So if you know me and my history, I've run the Vermont 100 endurance race a few times now. The first year was 2019, and I failed. I dropped at mile 43, because of crazy heat exhaustion. It was like a 115 degrees out that day.

Dave: 02:33

I was wiped out, and I couldn't move anymore. So I dropped at mile 43. Excuse my sip of this delicious drink, And then I came back again in 2022, and I was able to complete the race in, like, 25 hours and change, which I was really proud of. Anyways, I have a bit of a history with this race. It was the the first 100 miler that got put on my radar as something I really wanted to do to do since it's kind of in my area.

Dave: 03:01

I live in New England for Montelani, a couple hours away. So it seemed like a a good first 100 to do even though it wasn't my first hundred. It was my first attempt at a 100, and I did share a lot of videos and stuff on this YouTube channel about this race. I just have, like, a fondness for it. In either case, I'm signed up again to run again this year in 2024.

Dave: 03:28

And a couple of weeks ago, someone from Vermont, from the race organization reached out and asked if I'd be interested in sponsoring the race. And at the time, I didn't really know what that meant because my operation here isn't a big operation. Chase to Summit is pretty much just me. I do have some help from other people, but, you know, for the most part, I'm the person, you know, in front of the camera. I'm the person writing the scripts, doing the testing, and of course, I'm the person running the the merch store and shipping everything out.

Dave: 03:59

I I put everything individually in boxes myself. So it's not a big operation. I don't have a ton of money to throw around. So when they mentioned the word sponsorship I was like, well, I'd love to. I'd love to be involved in some way, but I don't know if I have the means to be a true sponsor of your race and provide money in any way.

Dave: 04:19

Anyways, we got to talking, and, it actually worked out in a way where what they're looking for was really more, you know, awareness around their cause. Because if you know the race, the Vermont 100 endurance endurance race is a it's a benefit. It's a charity for the Vermont Adaptive Organization. If you don't know what that is, it's a it's a a foundation organization charity kind of thing where they adapt sports for people with all kinds of disabilities to take part in them. For example, they have a mountain bike, program where people who have disabilities with their legs, get to go and mountain bike with these specialized wheelchairs.

Dave: 05:03

They have other programs for running for people who might not be able to see or hear visually impaired athletes. In the Vermont 100 endurance race is a huge benefit to that cause. They basically all the profit from the Vermont 100 endurance race goes towards the Vermont adaptive, which is super cool. I guess, what I'm getting at here is my involvement with the Vermont being a sponsor for the race is basically using my platform here on YouTube with the both the podcast and the main YouTube channel to just grow awareness for their cause, what they're trying to do, and of course trying to get donations in the door raise money for a really good cause something I believe in and it's a big part of what the race makes the race so special. With all that being said, there's a couple of ways if you wanna help, you know, totally voluntary, but I do want to mention it in this podcast if you want to help the cause with the Vermont adaptive in the Vermont 100 and Chase the Summit, help us all.

Dave: 06:00

There's 2 ways you can help, in the comments down below or in the description of this video in the audio version in the show notes. I'll have 2 links. 1 link will be to a donation page where you can make a straight up donation to pledge reg where it's totally transparent. I'm not taking any of the money. They're not taking any of the money.

Dave: 06:18

It's completely going to the Vermont Adaptive, and you could just donate there. Any amount helps. It's really appreciated. And the second way you can help is to go and shop at chase to summit.com. Yes.

Dave: 06:29

Shameless plug, but what I'm doing here is I'm offering a discount code that is Vermont 100, all 1 word. And if you use that discount code, you will get 10% off your entire order. So that's good for you, but the best part of it is if you use that discount code, I'm also gonna take 20% of the profit of that order and then give that as a donation to their cause. So I'm basically making no money on these orders. My profit margins aren't huge, but I found this to be kind of the best way.

Dave: 07:00

It's kind of a win win situation. We get some, you know, awesome chase to summit hats and merch and t shirts and everything out the door. People get to wear them, you get something out of it, and the Vermont Adaptive gets something out of it. So if you're interested totally voluntary of course, check out the links in the show notes in the description on YouTube for both the donation page and to head over to chasethesummit.com where you can pick out a hat or a t shirt or sweatshirt or whatever. Get some money off and make a donation.

Dave: 07:31

Okay? That's all I'll say about it. Oh, yeah. I have 1 more thing because I am sponsoring the race, I'm actually gonna be there both running it. Yes.

Dave: 07:39

Of course. I was doing that anyways, but the cool thing is I'll also be at the runners expo. There's like a pre race expo on Friday, July 19th that will start at 11 AM and end at about 3:30 PM. I'm gonna try to be there all day and I will have a booth. I'll have a tent, a table, and I'll have all of the merch that we sell, the t shirts, the hats.

Dave: 08:03

Check it out. Even if you're volunteering, you live in the area, you're running, whatever. If you're in the area for any reason come stop by the pre race expo at Silver Hill. Check out my booth. Come say hi.

Dave: 08:16

I don't want to be lonely there. Hopefully people, come and say hi and I'm very excited about that. So it's gonna be cool to sort of meet everybody out there. Is this drink annoying? I keep taking a sip of drink and I I hate when people do that on a podcast but I hear I'm here I am doing it.

Dave: 08:32

Alright. So to my notes on my phone let's talk a little bit about the Vermont 100 but not sponsoring really the racing part of it in my training. So I'm actually pretty happy with where I sit right now when it comes to training for Vermont. I've been ramping up my mileage like crazy. I honestly think I've been ramping up a little bit too quick because I kind of was in a lull for, like, I don't know, a couple of months ago.

Dave: 09:00

I was I wasn't hitting crazy mileage. I was still pretty active, you know, getting in that 20, 30 miles a week, but not really where where I should be to be, you know, running a 100 miles. So lately, last week, I cracked 60 miles. That is pretty good for me. I know most people out there running a race like this probably wanna be hitting a 100 miles in a week to be ready for a 100 mile race, but I don't think I've ever done that before.

Dave: 09:26

I might have I might have had a 100 mile week before, but it's not something I typically do. I just kind of rely on, pure grit to get me through the 100 mile race, but I'm pretty happy where the where the training sits right now. I've been seeing my VO 2 max creep steadily uphill, on my Garmin and all the other devices that I've been wearing. And things are looking pretty good. The body's feeling pretty good.

Dave: 09:50

And as a test, I've been doing like back to back long runs where I'll do like a 20 mile run, you know, on Saturday, and then I'll follow-up with, like, a 15 mile run on on Sunday and just back to back. And by the time I get out for that second run, I'm actually feeling pretty good and not totally destroyed. So that's a pretty good sign of where I stand right now. Now if you know me, you know I'm, like, not very good at structuring workouts and and having a real detailed training plan, and I'm doing that again this year. I just kinda wing it.

Dave: 10:21

Not something I'm proud I'm proud of, but, like, my schedule is is so flexible with the kids. I got 4 kids. I got this weird job where I'm juggling a lot of things back and forth. So I try not to put too much pressure on, like, putting things on the calendar, but I am trying to be more strategic about what I'm doing on a given day. Like I said I'll do back to back long runs.

Dave: 10:43

I'll do a day of speed work if the legs are feeling fresh. I'll do like a trail run with a lot of, you know, elevation game to get the hill climbing ready because Vermont has a crapload of hills. It's about a 100 miles long, but it's got about 17 to 18 8 17 to 18000 feet of elevation gain along the way. The trails aren't, like, overly technical though. They're not, like, super rocky and rudy.

Dave: 11:09

There's probably 20% of the whole course is that, you know, traditional East Coast single track, rocks and roots, mud, and kind of things. But for the most part like 80% of this race is like buffed out jeep roads that are really wide and pretty flat, but there is a lot of rolling hills and rolling terrain. And that is actually kind of the x factor of this race. Because if you imagine like a a hiking trail or like a single track trail running trail when you go uphill like you're climbing up typically you're gonna be like on a staircase like there's gonna be rocks and logs and stuff you're kind of climbing uphill But at Vermont, the the roads, the Jeep roads are all very smooth, but they are all rolling. There's a lot of incline and decline.

Dave: 11:59

And because of that, your foot isn't really on a staircase. It's not like sitting flat. It's always at this weird angle, and that weird angle can lead to Achilles problems because you're going uphill with your foot slanted up or just blowing out your quads because of all the descent in trying to move fast on the downhills during a long race. So that is something I need to be very cautious of. Now when it comes to planning for the race, training's been pretty good but like all the other aspects I'm kind of a mess.

Dave: 12:30

Like, I just booked my hotel room today. It the race is only 3 weeks away. It's, July 20th the restarts. July 19th is the pre race expo and everybody will be finishing up on July 21st because the race starts super early. But like I said, I just booked my hotel room today, and I'm actually trying to decide what shoes I'm gonna be wearing which is like a huge decision at a race like this.

Dave: 12:58

But the unfortunate thing is my my trail shoes and my road shoes both are totally dead right now. I need new pairs, and unfortunately, the models I was wearing are really hard to find right now because they're not made anymore. So I probably can't get the exact shoes. So I actually went on, like, running warehouse.com, and I not sponsored or affiliated or anything, and I ordered literally, like, $700 worth of shoes to just try out a bunch of different kinds, and then try to find the best fit so I could break them in in the next couple of weeks before the race, and I'm in the process of working that out. It's very ugly.

Dave: 13:35

I don't recommend it. Last time I ran I ran in Altra Montblanc shoes which actually did work out pretty well, and I actually still own a pair of those with some life left in them, but they are kind of beat up. So I don't know if I'll wear those or 1 of these new pairs. It's kind of a gamble. We'll find out.

Dave: 13:54

I'm I'm torn between the Montblancs or going with the new, HOKA Speedgoat 6. I have a pair of those right now and actually do like them. Also got a pair of HOKA Challengers which I'm I really like in the they might be best suited for this race since they're kind of a hybrid shoe between road and trail. And I'm also toying with the idea of running with a pair of ultra lone peaks, but it's very up in the air right now. And I'm kinda that kinda makes me nervous.

Dave: 14:28

The other thing that makes me nervous is, I just switched my nutrition. So I'm starting to use precision gels, and I've never used them for a long race like this before, but I have been training with them. But I really like these precision gels. Again, not sponsored. I just bought them with my own money, but there's something about them.

Dave: 14:47

They're they don't have a lot of flavor, and that was an issue for me. I used to use goo. Roktine was, like, my go to. And after a long time of taking in those goos, they have such a strong flavor. It, like, wears on your palate.

Dave: 15:02

Your tongue gets dried out from all the sugar. It's just like really uncomfortable where these precision gels are they're kind of subtle like they don't have a strong intense flavor in the texture of the liquid inside the gel itself is very watery and and it's easy to kind of just squirt into the back of your throat. That sounds gross, but it's easier to get it down than something you almost have to chew because those goo gels are so thick and viscous, I think that's the right word, that you almost have to chew them to get it down your throat. And it's just not a pleasant thing when you have to do that for a long period of time. So I'm gonna go with those for the race.

Dave: 15:42

For the vest, I'm gonna be wearing the Salomon advanced skin 12 set. That's a vest I've owned since like 2018. Seen a lot of miles but it still works so I'm gonna wear that. And when it comes to the watch you might be asking what are you gonna wear? Well probably realistically like 3 different watches but I know I'll have the Garmin, 40965 on.

Dave: 16:03

I might have an Apple Watch for some testing I'm doing and I'll probably have something else. I don't know yet. So that's the rundown. I will be wearing a chase to summit hat because it's the best hat out there. Go buy 1 at the link in the description down below.

Dave: 16:17

I'm I'm gonna be wearing the shorts I'm wearing right now which are Patagonia, Patagonia. Patagonia. Did I say it right? Strider pro 5 inch shorts. Those are my go to right now, and I'll probably have a CTS shirt on as well.

Dave: 16:31

For socks I think I'm gonna do the Ingi Ingi toe socks. Those are kind of my go to. I know people don't like them but I like them. So Western States. I'm filming this on June 27th 2, 024.

Dave: 16:45

We are just 2 days away from the Western States Endurance race out in California. And I tell you what, all the media buzz around this from the free trail podcast to, the swap podcast to all the other ultra running podcasts out there singletrack, whoever else, sorry if I missed you, has got me so hyped up, and it has me so bummed out that I'm not gonna be there because I was there. I got to go back in 2022. I got to spectate. I was there with HOKA.

Dave: 17:14

It was so much fun. I think I need to go back again next year even if I'm not running just to be there to be around the whole vibe of of what this race is because it's such an amazing it's such an amazing race. In this year because of my FOMO, I've been fault following it quite a bit for watching the pre race interviews and stuff. It's gonna be very exciting because for I think it's like the 4th consecutive year maybe that a champion from last year is not coming back this year, which is kinda weird. And this year, Jim Walmsley is back after a hiatus from Western States.

Dave: 17:52

After going and being the 1st American to win UTMB and just be a total savage on the trails. He moved to France to, like, get better climbing leg legs and everything, and now he's coming back to the Western States, and he's gonna be competing with the likes of like Hayden Hawkes who also looks very hungry for a win and a lot of other incredible athletes. And on the women's side, Courtney DeWalter is not coming back which is kind of crazy because why not? She she should definitely come back, but there's a whole stacked field of women at Western States as well. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how this plays out at Western States this year.

Dave: 18:34

But the other reason I have some FOMO about Western States this year is because a couple of weeks ago I got an email from Suunto, the watch company, and they are gonna be at the western states pre race to show off their new watch which is the Suunto race s. And you've probably seen a couple of reviews out there about Suunto. Unfortunately, I didn't get 1 early and not a lot of people did it seems. Their USPR people aren't as generous as some other companies. I hope if you're watching this maybe you would reconsider next time.

Dave: 19:10

So I don't have 1 yet but I do have 1 in the mail and my review of it will be coming very soon. But the cool thing is if you're at Western States you get to visit the Suunto tent and actually check out the new race s in person see what it's all about. And I think that's a good what segue into the tech talk this week. Let's talk about the Soontoor Race. What is it?

Dave: 19:31

Well, this is very exciting. I think this is gonna be a banger. This one's gonna sell really well. First of all, it's a Sunto. They have a reputable name right up there with Garmin, not quite as big as Garmin and they had a quick hiatus of kind of falling off falling off the map and you know they had the Suunto 9 the 9 barrel, the 9 peak, but none of those really like blew me away.

Dave: 19:53

And then they came out with the Sunto vertical which started to shift my opinion on Sunto, and then they came out with the Sunto race, the the original race, which I think set a precedent for them as to what they're trying to do here. They're coming after the big names with really good price points, solid hardware with high quality materials and a good watch experience over overall. So the Suunto race came in at like 449 and had an AMOLED display and a sapphire lens. It was a big watch, a great battery life, great GPS accuracy, mediocre heart rate accuracy. Watch my review if you wanna learn all about the original Suunto race, but overall a banger of a watch for that for that price because it was competing with like the Garmin epics at $1, 000 or you know the Corus, vertex 2 s at whatever that is.

Dave: 20:49

All very expensive watches and then you have sent over here releasing something at this of the same caliber at a much lower price. And that's what they're doing here this time around as well. They have the Suunto race s. It is $349 here in the USA. That price is bananas because this watch is built out of metal.

Dave: 21:10

It's got high quality materials, and it's made in Finland this time around. That was a big about the original Sento race. It was made in China. But now, the new Sento race s is made in Finland. If if however you buy it in the USA or Canada.

Dave: 21:26

If you buy it in Europe or another country you might get 1 made in China that's just a logistical thing to have warehouses closer to where where they're shipping. But if you're in the USA and you buy a race s it should be a Finnish or Finland made watch which is super cool. A couple of other details about this. It's a smaller watch. So if you saw the Suunto race since in thought that was way too big.

Dave: 21:48

Good news. The Suunto race s is smaller. It comes in at 45 millimeters in diameter, which is the same size as the, 4965 or Garmin Phoenix middle of the road or an Epyx middle of the road. It's got a new heart rate sensor which seems to be vastly improved over the old heart rate sensor from the Suunto Race in vertical. It's got a 1.3 inch AMOLED touch enabled display.

Dave: 22:12

It's got a faster computer inside, so scrolling around the interface is much quicker than the original suit to erase, which was a complaint as well. It's got a steel case around it. However, it does not get the sapphire display that the original suit to a race got. This 1 has a gorilla glass display which is a trade off I think most people would be willing to make for this price point. However, I can say in my experience I have scratched a lot of Gorilla Glass displays in my life.

Dave: 22:40

In fact, the 965 I'm wearing right now, has a screen protector on it just to protect it because I don't have a great history. I'm very clumsy. I end up hitting a brick wall or something and scratching my watches. Sapphire that's never been an issue, but on a Gorilla Glass watch it can be an issue. So just consider that.

Dave: 23:00

And on top of all that, at that $350 price point, it still has great battery life. You get 30 hours with the highest accuracy. 40 hours with decent accuracy in 50 hours if you go into like their endurance mode or battery saver mode. All very impressive stuff. I cannot wait to get my hands on this thing and start testing it out for review.

Dave: 23:22

So stay tuned to the main channel for that because it looks really good. I'm excited about it. Okay. Let's move on to the next the next topic. Strava.

Dave: 23:33

So Strava, if you followed along, their Strava camp thing they did like a month ago, I was there out in Los Angeles Angeles, California where they announced a bunch of new features for Strava from new group features to, new algorithm features with AI. And the other thing is the biggest, most requested thing for Strava, dark mode. It's here. It's finally rolled out. So if you have Strava installed on your phone, I recommend you go to your app store and make sure it's up to date because dark mode is now available and you'll be able to enable it right away.

Dave: 24:07

Not a huge thing but I thought it was worth mentioning. And if you wanna learn more about all the new features check out my review on YouTube where I go through all the new stuff when I was out at Camp Strava. Okay. Next topic. Apple WWDC.

Dave: 24:21

This has been, it's been what? 2 weeks now? I think w d WWDC happened on June 10th, but I haven't done a podcast since then, so we're gonna talk about it now. Big things happening for the Apple Watch. So if you don't know, WWDC is the worldwide developer conference that Apple hosts every year and it's typically where they release all their new firmware software updates for their their phones their iPads, Macbooks, all their products.

Dave: 24:49

And typically where we see kind of a foresight of what will be happening with Apple Watches in the future, with the next release whenever that might happen. Probably September. I don't know anything, but I would guess September. Okay. So in watch OS 11, there are some key new features for fitness for athletes out there including this is a big 1 training load.

Dave: 25:15

So the Apple watch now finally has a native training load without needing to download any third party apps. And this was a criticism of of not Garmin, but Apple that I have had for years years. It's like if you buy a Garmin watch when you take it out of the box, you sort of have everything you need. You buy a Corus, a Garmin, a Suunto, whatever. You get your training load.

Dave: 25:38

You have some form of recovery advisor. You have your daily wellness metrics from step count to sleep tracking. All that stuff all baked into the product right out of the box. Now Apple Watch however has never been like that. The experience is typically you'd buy an Apple Watch you take it out of the box and then you rush to the App store to download 5 different apps to accomplish what you wanna do.

Dave: 26:03

So if you wanted training load you would download something like athletic for example or elite HRV or, what's the other 1? Ismoothrun which is another running app that has, like, a training load built in or even which is, HealthFit, I think is another 1. There's a lot of them out there, but you basically need to download 1 of these third party things to import your data into you to get, like, actionable recovery in training load and all of that. No longer do you need to do that because it's all baked in to the Apple Watch OS 11 software. So the way this is gonna work is training load lives within your activity app.

Dave: 26:41

That's both on your phone and on your Apple watch. And within your activity app, you can see a new icon in the top right corner for training load. It's a little graph icon. You tap on that. It'll bring you into your training load.

Dave: 26:53

There's gonna be 2 different training loads. A 28 day rolling average, and then there's gonna be a 7 day, training load as well. And the cool thing about this is you will be able to go in and filter out what kind of activities you want to analyze in your training load. So if you're mainly a runner, you can just look at running and see that training load. But if you're a multi sport athlete, you you cycle, you run, you swim, You can look at those activities individually and see a different training load for cycling, swimming, and running.

Dave: 27:23

Just super cool. Another unique thing to training load on the Apple Watch is they have an all day training load which includes everything. That's running, cycling, your walk to the mailbox, your step count, your calories burn, your general activity throughout the day will be reflected on your all day training load. And I thought this is really cool because that's a metric most of the competitors are not giving you. For example, Garmin only gives you a training load for activities, where Apple will give you a generalized training load for just your daily life.

Dave: 27:53

I thought that was pretty clever and something unique and hopefully other companies adopt that because I kinda like that. It also ties into this new vitals app. The vitals app is as the name implies a a entirely new app on your phone and watch that will record your overnight vitals. That's gonna be your resting heart rate, your blood oxygen saturation, your respiratory rate, your skin temperature, and I think some more. Now the interesting thing about this is it looks like the vitals app is actually going to ignore HRV.

Dave: 28:27

That's as far as I can tell so far. Again, this is all early days. I've only seen like the slideshow they presented at WWDC, but it seems like they might ignore HRV, which is kinda interesting because the Apple watch collects HRV natively and it just kind of buries it in your health you know app on your phone. So you can actually view your HRV over time. But they're not gonna leverage that for the vitals app which is kind of odd because HRV is typically a good means of identifying if you're overtrained or sick or you drank too much alcohol or something like that.

Dave: 29:01

HRV is a really good way to identify those those different factors, but they're not using it in the vitals app. The vitals app though is basically gonna aggregate your data every day while you sleep. And if there's an outlier, for example, your resting heart rate goes up and spikes, your skin temperature goes up and spikes or something like that, it'll actually send you a notification on your phone letting you know, hey, something's up, and you you should probably take a look at this to make sure everything's okay. I like that. I think that's pretty cool.

Dave: 29:34

And the other cool part of this is vitals gets tied into your training load as well. So if you look at your training load app, you'll actually see a button now you that'll bring you right over to the vitals app. And in training load, when you're viewing your training load, you know, scrolling through it on the timeline, you'll notice like at the bottom of the watch or the screen, there's gonna be a little button that'll show, like, a summary of your vitals. So if your if you're training load indicates you're overtrained and your vitals show that your sleep for the previous night was off, then you know the correlation there could kind of make sense. However, I was hoping the vitals app would be kind of a competitor to like the Whoop Band or the Oura Ring or Garmin's body battery or something like that, but I don't think that's what we're seeing here.

Dave: 30:21

I think this is really just a way of, like, kind of a medical way of analyzing what's going on on with your body while you're asleep. There's no, like, recovery advisor. There's no, like, body battery metric. There's no nothing like that. It's no recovery score or training readiness.

Dave: 30:39

It's not really like that even though I wish it was, but it's still a step in the right direction. And again, a lot of third party apps out there are are gonna no longer be used after we get these features. Another thought on this whole training load vitals thing is that it's a very applet esque like launch in that the fact that they're not giving you a lot of metrics like numbers and data to dive through and instead just kind of giving you like a summary graph of your training load, I think they're doing this as a way to, like, introduce this metric to the masses. There are millions of people out there with Apple Watches and I would say 90 to 95% of them probably have no idea what training load actually is. And I think the way they're introducing it being sort of like a really pretty interface and not a whole lot of data and making it easy to use is a good way to introduce training load to those that may otherwise not use it.

Dave: 31:40

So if you're just kinda like a casual runner you're out there doing, you know, couple miles here and there throughout the week you might notice hey, this training load thing is pretty cool and I think that's where this could be a big turning point for not only Apple but, like, the whole industry. Once the masses out there kind of learn what training load is and how it can be beneficial, it could be really interesting to see how, like, the average Joe moving forward could leverage that kind of information. But that is, that's the the activity app, the training load. Oh, yeah. In within the activity app, not only is there a new training load function but you can actually customize the app now.

Dave: 32:20

You can actually move the tiles around within the user interface and there's a new tile for weekly mileage which I I really appreciate as someone who hangs my hat on weekly mileage every week. So that's pretty cool. On top of vitals and training load, we also get a new watch face, a new smartwatch face within iOS, Apple Watch OS 11, where you can actually take 1 of your own pictures, import it into a watch face, and the app will actually use AI to sort of embed the watch face into your photo. So the examples they showed at WWDC was like a guy jumping through the air and the time actually went behind him as if he was like masked into the image. Really cool, and I'm looking forward to playing with that.

Dave: 33:06

And finally we get a new smart stack in I Apple Watch OS 11 where they've included a new rain predictor widget and a new translation widget where you can tap and translate languages in real time on your watch. Pretty cool. The final thing and last but not least here is something they didn't even talk about at all during WWDC, but they sort of like flashed it in a little graphic at the end of the announcement. And it's that the mapping and navigation is going to change on Apple Watch OS 11 for the better. So if you remember, in Apple Watch OS 10, they had a big announcement that we could now have offline maps on the Apple Watch and that's great.

Dave: 33:50

However, there was a catch as always. So on watch OS 10, you could have offline maps on your Apple Watch. So if you're going on a hike or you're trail running or something, you could see the map on your watch while you're out there without needing a cell phone signal. But you would still need your phone on you because the way they achieved this was they would store the map data to your phone and then your watch would communicate with your phone to get the offline maps. Not a great solution for those out there who don't always have a phone on them or maybe your phone battery dies and all you have is your watch.

Dave: 34:23

So in this update, in watchOS 11, they've finally done it. You can now store store maps in Apple Maps offline into the watch's internal storage. No longer do you need your phone on you. This is a huge deal. And not only that, you can actually now design custom routes just like you can on Garmin Connect or the Chorus Evo Chorus Explorer tab or in the Suunto app.

Dave: 34:50

You can actually design a course for like hiking, trail running, running, whatever you wanna do on the map on your phone, on your Mac, or on your iPad, and you can actually import that route into your Apple Watch to follow it in real time when you're out on the trail. Super cool. So you can do this entirely offline, and I'm looking forward to trying that out as well. Now the only thing they need to fix on the Apple watch experience when it comes to mapping and navigation is embedding a map into the workout app. If you're an Apple Watch user user, you know what I'm talking about here.

Dave: 35:25

If you're out on a hike or trail run and you're using navigation in Apple Maps and you're recording a workout at the same time you have to fiddle with your watch a lot to jump from 1 app to the other. You have to double tap the button to go into the recent app folder, tap on the maps, Double tap again to get back to your activity to see how far you've gone in terms of distance or how fast you're running, and it's just it's too cumbersome, man. Just add a map page. Take an Apple Maps page and embed it directly into the workout app so you can just scroll that little wheel and scroll through your data pages and find the map. That's what I want at least.

Dave: 36:00

Maybe I'm in the minority. Let me know in the comments down below. I'd like to hear from you. So that is Apple watch OS 11 in a nutshell. I probably talked too much about that.

Dave: 36:10

I made I made a whole video about this already and I'm kind of just regurgitating that. I apologize for that but I thought it was still worth be talking about here. So moving on to iPhone OS 18. Another big deal. So I'm gonna skip like 99% of what they announced for iOS 18 for for phones.

Dave: 36:30

If you have an iPhone, that's the operating system of course. They they announced a whole bunch of new features including a new Siri, a new, AI feature called Apple Intelligence that's kind of on all the devices including the iPad, the Mac, the phone, all really cool stuff. The 1 thing that stood out to me though, and again they only talked about this for about 53 seconds, is that on Apple Watch or iPhone too many Apple products. On iPhone Ios 18, you'll now have the capability to send text messages via satellite. This is crazy.

Dave: 37:06

So if you remember last year on iPhone, what was it? IPhone. I I'm getting so confused between Apple Watch and iPhone. IOS 17, they announced that you'd be able to get SOS over satellite. And what that meant was if you're hiking or trail running and you're out in the off the beaten path off grid, you have no cell phone signal and you break your leg, you could dial 911 on your phone and still get emergency help in a pinch via satellite with no cell phone towers around.

Dave: 37:35

And you'd have to aim your phone a certain way at the sky, and it would beam the signal up to a satellite and get you connection with, emergency responders, and that was super cool. But this year, they've now announced that they're gonna allow this to work with standard text messages. So when you're not in an emergency situation, maybe you're hiking and you wanna just let you let your wife or husband or whatever your kids know that you're running late, you can send them a text from the top of a mountain with no cell cell phone signal saying, hey, I'm running late. Again, you have to aim it at the sky a certain way. That's how it works, but it will be 2 way communication.

Dave: 38:12

And not only will this work with iPhones, you can send text messages to Android devices or whatever else through standard SMS. It will support, emoji support, reaction support all that stuff. But you won't be able to send like pictures or video because that's just too much data for that satellite connection. But this is pretty cool because if you're someone like me when I go off the beaten path and I'm you know out of reach of cell phone for a long time I typically carry a Garmin inReach, and I made a whole video about this as well. And now we've got that kind of Garmin in reach satellite communication capabilities on the iPhone.

Dave: 38:51

And in the video I made about this a lot of people complained. So I basically titled it something like did Apple just kill the Garmin inreach? You know, you have to use that click bait title I guess. But a lot of people got mad at me saying, well, a phone isn't isn't an emergency device. A phone isn't gonna replace my inReach.

Dave: 39:11

2 is better than 1 and 1 is none. That's something I heard a lot. And I think it's easy for people who own a Garmin inReach to think that way. But you have to remember there is a mass a huge amount of people out there that go hiking and trail running who don't even carry a phone. You know?

Dave: 39:30

Like, they just go out into the wilderness. And there's a lot of weekend warriors out there that maybe venture out once a month maybe a couple times a summer where it wouldn't be practical for them to pay like a $30 monthly charge for a subscription on a Garmin inReach for using it 2 times, you know, the entire year. That just doesn't make sense. You have to buy a $200 device then pay, you know a monthly fee for this thing. You're only gonna use a handful of times throughout the year.

Dave: 40:00

So the fact that we have these capabilities on a phone in my opinion is a huge deal because those people those weekend warriors are not gonna buy an inReach anyways. And if they have an iPhone they now have communication in an area where they otherwise wouldn't. I think, you know, don't get mad at it. It's it's a really good feature. Now there there are a lot of questions here.

Dave: 40:20

Is it gonna be free? You know, Apple kind of alluded it, might chart it might cost something down the road. At launch, it might be free. Who knows? But if it is a cost, how much does it cost?

Dave: 40:31

Is it $5? Is it $10 a month? No 1 knows at this point, but I am really interested to see, a how it works and b if it will be free. That's gonna be the question. Okay.

Dave: 40:42

Couple of other things we have before we wrap this up. We've got a Garmin. Garmin gets YouTube music. So again, I have a whole video about this as well. Garmin got YouTube music.

Dave: 40:55

This was a highly requested feature for a very long time. It is a third party app you have to download from the Garmin Connect IQ store. You can watch my video on how to do this. Again, I have a video about that. I have a video about everything here.

Dave: 41:09

But basically, you go to connect IQ, you download the app, you do a couple of things, and you'll be able to get your YouTube music on your watch. This is a big deal for all those YouTube music users out there because in the past we had Amazon Music, we had, Spotify, Deezer, Iheartradio, but no YouTube music. It was a big hole for those users, and now we have that support. The only thing we don't have on Garmin is Apple Music, and unfortunately, that will never happen because Apple will never allow that to happen. And the final thing is, cycling.

Dave: 41:44

Yes. I'm gonna talk about cycling here. The Coros Dura. The Coros Dura was announced I think last week. Coros, I guess they're big fans of mine.

Dave: 41:54

They sent me 1 to test and review before launch. And it's really interesting to be part of this launch because I'm not a huge cyclist. I have a bike. I enjoy cycling. I in the past like in my younger years, but 10 years ago, I was only a mountain biker.

Dave: 42:12

Every single day of the week, I would mountain bike 10 to 15 miles every single day, and I absolutely loved it. But over time, it be became like very expensive and cumbersome, and I just ended up transitioning to running because they're so simple. All I had to do was throw my shoes in the car and I'd have something to do after work. But, you know, Cora sent me this device. I decided to get back on the gravel bike.

Dave: 42:35

I actually have a new gravel bike I bought a few weeks ago and I've been having a ton of fun riding that bike. I've been out there on the trails, on the road, just getting the miles in, and I tell you what, I think it's really benefiting my my running as well. That cross training has really I it's working out my quads. It's been a good source of cardio, and I'm just having a ton of fun with it but that's besides the point. The Coros Dura, I got to test and review it before launch.

Dave: 43:04

Again I was kind of new to the scene of testing a cycling computer compared to like a GPS watch is what I'm used to. But I did have fun with it and I actually did enjoy the device. But it was weird on launch day seeing all the reviews out there because they were so polarizing. Like, I thought it's a cool device, but again, I don't have like a pile of Garmin Edge units and, you know, the Wahoo's and the Carus and all them to compare to. So I'm coming at this from like a newbie's perspective in in the in the sport when it comes to cycling computers.

Dave: 43:36

Even though I am really knowledgeable with like GPS watches and all the technology behind it, it's just not just not something I use regularly, so I was coming at it pretty fresh. So I used it. I liked how it worked but then on watch day I saw all these other reviews from like the bigger names out there in the sport of cycling. And everyone was kind of giving it a bad rap and saying bad things about it and maybe it it deserves those things because admittedly, it is still kind of in beta. They're still kind of working out some bugs and features and stuff.

Dave: 44:07

But again I, like, enjoyed my time with the Chorus Dura. And 1 thing that a lot of people really hated about the Chorus Dura was the scroll wheel. Just like on their watches there's a scroll wheel on the side, and it's funny because that's like 1 of the features I really liked about the Dura. Because when you're when you're riding, you know, I have the curly bars on my gravel bike, but when you're riding you can simply, like, put your hands on the top of the bars, reach your thumb over, and kind of flick that wheel to scroll through the data pages. And I thought it worked pretty seamlessly, but I guess I was in the minority on that.

Dave: 44:41

But what is the Dura? So the big thing about the Chorus Dura is it's affordable. It's $250 And the other big thing about it that's kind of game changing if they can get it to work as advertised is the solar capability. So yes, it does have a big solar panel right on the top of it. It's got a big forehead solar panel which you could argue is kind of ugly, but it is functional.

Dave: 45:03

Because if if they can get it to where they what they're advertising, it kinda means you will never have to charge your cycling computer. It's kinda crazy. Basically, the Coros Dura, if it gets enough sunlight, will actually charge up while it's being used instead of depleting charge like everybody else out there. Even the Garmin devices out there, the edge units with solar, they they actually lose power even though they have solar, but they mitigate power. So you can actually elongate how long you're riding for because of that solar feature.

Dave: 45:34

Where on this Coros device you could theoretically just ride forever if you have enough sunlight which I thought was really cool. So $250 the first cycling computer to come out of the chorus camp and I thought it was pretty cool. If you haven't yet go check out the YouTube review about it, but don't take my word for it. It's a take it as a grain of salt because like I said, my opinion on it was much different than everybody else's out there. And I promise I'll get better at reviewing these things, and hopefully, the next 1 will be better.

Dave: 46:03

Any other case, that's kind of the end of the road here on the podcast. I hope you you enjoyed this 1. We're coming up in an hour here. My wife just poked her head in the door and told me I have to wrap it up because we have places to be. We're actually running a 5 k today.

Dave: 46:16

That's why I'm in my outfit here. I actually ran before this. I ran 4 miles earlier today, and now we're gonna go and do a nighttime 5 k, which is like a fireworks thing in a neighboring town for the 4th July. So that's gonna be kind of fun. I'm pretty trash so I'm probably not gonna get a PR, but I'm gonna give it my best shot.

Dave: 46:33

I'm gonna take down some ketone IQ and a gel and and really, put the hammer down and try to try to run as fast as I can with this 5 k. But, that's sort of the end of this podcast. Again, I want to remind you to check out the links in the show notes down below. Head over to the merch store, use discount code Vermont 100 for 10% off your order, and a 20% donate donation out of that profit goes towards a great cause. So please consider shopping at the store, buying something, and donating, and if you don't wanna buy something, just donate.

Dave: 47:06

Check out the link for that as well in the show notes down below and on the YouTube description as well. Whoo. That is it. Oh, yeah. Check out the merch store.

Dave: 47:16

I just said the merch store, but I've actually been designing a whole bunch of new t shirts and hats and stuff, and I'm adding stuff to the store, like, every day at this point. And I'm not even in, you know, sending out emails or announcing, and I'm just hoping people like them. So check out the store. There's new stuff being added all the time. And finally, I haven't said it yet in this entire podcast, make sure to hit the subscribe button on YouTube for the podcast channel.

Dave: 47:39

It really means a lot. We need to grow the subscriber count. Get this going. Open the conversation in the comments down below. Say hi.

Dave: 47:48

Tell me what's on your mind. Tell me what you think of all the topics I talked about today. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the like button. Follow me on the audio version of the podcast on Spotify, Apple Music, or whatever else you listen to, and of course, check me out on the main channel as well if you you probably came from there.

Dave: 48:04

But if you didn't, check out the main Chase to Summit YouTube channel as well and follow me over there. Follow me on Instagram, threads, whatever else, and join the newsletter on chase chase the summit.com. Did I plug enough things there? I don't know. Anyways, I'm gonna get back to enjoying my liquid death here.

Dave: 48:21

That is not a sponsor of the channel, but hopefully they will be in the future and, get ready for my 5 k. I hope you all enjoyed this podcast. Again, we're just gonna keep cranking these out. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know what I could do better in podcast form, and I'll see you in the next 1.

Dave: 48:41

Bye.