Coach to elite ultra runners Jason Koop says there’s more training insights we can get from our Ambits than most of us realise.© zooom.at/bergermarkus.com When it comes to trail running, coach Jason Koop says gaining meaningful information demands more effort than required for cycling or road running.  “Coach Koop” – as his athletes call him – has recently published a book called Training Essentials for Ultrarunning, which condenses the knowledge he’s amassed over his sixteen-year career. It’s received positive reviews and is a must on the bookshelf of every dedicated trail runner. He’s also the director of coaching at trainright.com and is a big fan of using cutting-edge technology like Suunto Ambits to achieve better training results.© zooom.at/bergermarkus.com There’s more in there Koop says many trail runners don’t know how to extract high value information from their “wrist-top computers”. It takes more effort and know-how than gaining high quality information for cycling and road running via power meters and pace. “It’s the same type of information – how hard the workout was, what energy systems were tapped into, how much stress was put on the body, but the tools are different and with trail running it takes a few more steps to extract it,” Koop says. © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Trail running makes it tricky When it comes to cycling and road running this is easier, says Koop, because it’s simply a matter of calculating the time of a workout session with the power output for cycling or the pace for running. This simple formula makes it easy to score how hard and stressful a workout was. “It’s not as easy with trail running because you have all these other factors like the trail surface and the elevation gain and loss so you can’t work it out as easily – it just takes a few more steps to extract meaning from the information,” Koop says. “A lot of trail runners are stuck at the information stage.” © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Moving past the basic numbers Numeric information such as distance, time, elevation gain and loss, pace and heart rate are interesting, Koop says, but in of themselves don’t offer the necessary insight to build and guide a systematic trail running training programme. Achieving this, he says, requires a “physiological tie-in”. “There’s a big difference between just looking at the usual information your watch records versus using all of it to determine how hard the workout was, how much training stress was involved, and which energy systems were tapped into. That's the bridge that ultimately needs to be gapped – taking the statistical information and having an actual training tie in.” © zooom.at/bergermarkus.com Taking the next steps There are two key steps to get past the information stage. “Firstly, you need to normalise your pace so when you’re running a 10 minute per mile pace uphill you know what pace that equates to on the flats. Strava and Training Peaks have algorithms that do this for you. This gives you an apples to apples comparison for workouts that have different elevation gains. This first step sharpens the picture of the workout from a blurred mess to something where meaningful analysis can take place. It allows you to see how hard a workout was. “The second step is to compartmentalise the aerobic stress a workout session generates, which is predominantly during the up hill and flat sections, from the muscular-skeletal stress predominantly generated in the downhill sections. “If your normalized pace on the flats and uphills are getting better, your aerobic system is adapting. Similarly, if you are handling the total amount of descending or the rate of descending better, your muscular-skeletal system is adapting.”  

The X-Adventurer Freetracker is going to be a game changer for freediving.The X-Adventure Freetracker following William down. © Daan Verhoeven When Suunto ambassador William Trubridge attempts to break his own freediving world record in July, an underwater drone will follow his dive. He and his team tested the drone, called the X-Adventurer Freetracker, during Vertical Blue 2016 and hope at next year’s competition it will offer live video to audiences around the world. It’s mounted on parallel tracks adjacent to the competition dive line, and descends and ascends with the diver, capturing the entire journey from the surface to the plate and back again. See how long you can hold your breath as William dives! “For this year we just got a proof of concept,” Will says, “but for next year’s Vertical Blue we hope to have it hooked up to a live internet feed, so people can watch from the other side of the world while an athlete grabs the tag at 120 m.” “I think it’s going to be a real game changer for the sport because once people can tune in and be in their living room watching someone dive to 100 m as it happens, then that will really increase the spectatorship of the sport.”© Daan Verhoeven Aside from making freediving more accessible to spectators, The X-Adventurer Freetracker will also improve safety. Never before have safety staff been able to see what’s happening for an athlete at depth before. If anything goes wrong, the safety crew will see it immediately via a live feed at the surface. “It will definitely help with analysis of technique also,” Will says. “Because there's such a logistical difficulty in videographers going deeper than 40 m, a lot of freedivers have never seen what their technique looks like at depth from a good angle.” William is attempting to break his current world record of 101 m this July and the X-Adventurer Freetracker will follow his journey into the depths. Stay tuned!

Mårten Boström says that the process of developing a new compass was an interesting one. “I have realized how much I as an elite orienteer can give insight to the product development team into how the product is actually used,” Boström says.  The team came up with an innovative design that supports three methods of direction finding. You can easily switch between methods, even during the same event, to match the challenges of your current terrain or the distance to the next control point. With the AIM compasses it is possible to find and follow the direction in different ways. Which methods do you use and when? On short legs I simply place the compass on the control leg and turn my body facing the next control to align the map meridians and needle north. After I have picked a distinguishable object in the terrain to aim for I check which color/symbol -combination the north arrow is pointing to and aim for that same visual combination on every glimpse while proceeding towards the next control. If I only need a course direction towards a big object (e.g. a lake) I might just use a whole sector in a similar manner. On long legs I turn the compass capsule so I can see the north arrow fit in the orienting indicator – thus I don't need to keep the compass on top of the map on the rest of the leg. In all of these I'm of course AIMing into the correct direction where the red arrow on the far end of the compass plate is. The new Suunto AIM-6 can be used with a magnifying lens. When do you use that? A loupe (or magnifying lens) is starting to be a popular accessory even for orienteers with good eyesight. There are more and more details on the maps nowadays and the loupe really helps. Place the loupe in front of the thumb compass so that you can see the corner of the compass baseplate but mainly magnifying the map. READ MORE Learn more about the new AIM-6 and AIM-30 compasses  World champion’s 10 tips for orienteering Meet the orienteer who runs a 2h 18m marathon

Mårten, when did you start working on this project? I have been involved in the development of Suunto's new orienteering compass line from the beginning of the year. Product development is exciting as I have realized how much I as an elite orienteer can give insight to the product development team into how the product is actually used. Mårten Boström worked closely with Suunto's compass business line manager Henrik Palin and designer Heikki Naulapää. What did you want to change or improve? As the compass is an orienteer's most precise aiding tool in navigating it's been an interesting task to refine the current compass to become an even better friend when out in the woods. I wanted to redesign the needle in order to achieve a better contrast on to the map, make the needle much more stable while keeping it fast and take away some markings on the baseplate. The graphics on the baseplate and the compass capsule were designed based on Mårten’s feedback. Since the use of the compass needs to be swift I wanted to add color and symbol codes on the edge of the bezel so that there's no need to rotate the compass capsule. Using the colors and symbols one can simply memorize where the arrow is aiming and advance rapidly. Our goal was to make the colors and symbols on the AIM distinguishable but easily memorable. What are the key characteristics of a great compass? A great compass should be easy to use and have a fast & stable needle. How do you actually test a compass? The compass is best tested in actual orienteering conditions out in the forest where temperatures vary from -10°C to +35°C and twigs hit your face while you are trying to navigate through unknown terrain over hills and through marshes!      Learn more about the new AIM-6 Thumb Compass Learn more about the new AIM-30 Compass

Marine biologist, author and pro photographer Alex Mustard is taking over @suuntodive for a week, beginning today. Make sure to catch his incredible images and the stories behind them! What’s your story, Alex? I’m an underwater photographer and marine biologist from the UK. I have been taking underwater photos since I was nine years old and diving since I was 13. I’ve recently distilled all I have learned into the new book Underwater Photography Masterclass. Where do you dive? All over the world! In salt water or fresh water. In crystal clear blues of the Pacific Ocean to murky green-browns at home in England. What inspires you about the underwater world? The diversity. This can be the biodiversity of life – the ocean is home to such a variety of animals, that getting to know them, watching the different ways they live their lives, is certainly many lifetimes worth. But more than that it’s the diversity of diving experiences I love. One week I might be aiming my lens at a great white, and the next week I am just as excited to be framing up seaslugs back home. Then it is on to shooting in caverns, with cathedral like light beams spilling in through gaps in the ceiling. And next diving deep inside a wreck, searching for secrets that nobody has noticed before. How would you describe your photography style? I would say diverse. The non-diving world sees me as a specialist underwater photographer, of course. But within underwater photography I challenge myself to be able to photograph everything well, from shipwrecks to seahorses. Is there a story you wish to tell with your images? Most of us who dive are very passionate about the underwater world. Yet we all see how humanity is hurting the oceans. Taking out too many large predators, damaging fragile environments with destructive fishing and polluting the seas. I think that all photographers hope that their images will inspire a change in attitude from the general public. Follow @SuuntoDive to see Alex’s images or follow him on Instagram and Facebook. Check out his book Underwater Photography Masterclass.

Suunto UK has partnered up with the Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon Leeds in England. Amongst the 5,000 professionals and amateur triathletes competing, there is one that caught our eye – Jim McKellar – who just so happens to be the same age as us. Both Jim and Suunto turned 80 this year! We got in touch and found out a little more about what makes him tick. As a veteran of 120 marathons and ultras alongside being a member of the Great Britain Age-Group Team at the ITU World Championships, Jim McKellar, or ‘Old Bullet’ as he is known by his running friends after his multiple exploits at the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, is no stranger to pushing the boundaries of our self-imposed limitations. But what makes his achievements particularly impressive is that he only took up running at 51 after being made redundant from his workplace of 25 years. “I lost my pride and became a bit of a mess,” Jim tells us. “My doctor told me that if I carried on like I was, I’d be dead in five years. So I entered the London Marathon. That was back in 1992.” Twenty consecutive London marathons later, and it’s fair to say he'd got the bug. You’re never too old to take up triathlon But it wasn’t until the ripe old age of 74, shortly after completing his 120th marathon, which happened to be the 89 km long Comrades (for the third time), that he took up triathlon and in the following year entered the 2012 Windsor Triathlon, even though he didn’t know how to swim. “Triathlon training is horrendous,” he laughs, “but I’m getting there”. The following year, in 2013, he qualified for the ITU World Championship at Hyde Park and competed in the 75–79 age group, coming 3rd in the country and 10th in the world, one of his proudest achievements. He had hoped to return the following year, but it wasn’t meant to be. Overcoming setbacks Sadly, not long afterwards Jim suffered a major setback. Out cycling with his club, he was involved in a collision with a car, suffering injuries to his pelvis and a chipped bone in his right leg that required specialist treatment and skin grafts. For 18 months walking was hard enough, let alone running or cycling. Now, most people under the circumstances might decide to call it quits, but not Jim. Indeed, if ever a man embodied the spirit of Suunto, a determination to win and to never give up, Jim is it. “I need that challenge of getting up in the morning,” he continues. “My wife had myeloma cancer and for the past three years, I looked after her 24/7. We battled on. I’m battling on now – I will not give up.” Sadly, his wife passed away in March, making him even more resolved to compete in this year’s Columbia Threadneedle World Triathlon Leeds. However, Leeds won’t be without its challenges if Jim is to achieve his goal of winning gold in his age group (M80-84) as a tribute to his late wife Lily – and in the process raise money for MacMillan. “My leg injuries have curtailed my training a little,” he says with a wry smile. “I’m not bothered about the swim or bike – I’m riding a hundred miles a week – and my swimming’s come on a treat, but I’ve had to adopt a let’s get round job in the run element.” “Every morning I do exercises up lampposts to get rid of all the stiffness in my leg. But I’m up to six to eight miles of fast walking and jogging, which I’m pleased with considering three months ago I couldn’t go 100 yards.” And so he should be pleased. Because as Jim points out, people don’t use their full potential and simply compete in their comfort zone. So perhaps we should follow his example, and learn to push ourselves beyond the norm. We never know, we might just surprise ourselves. Images by James Carnegie   Read more triathlon stories: 10 Ambit3 hacks for triathletes How to use the power of commitment 7 spring training camp tips for triathletes