Suunto Blog

This Pride Month, we are calling all LGBTQIA+ trail runners to participate in the 2nd Annual LGBTQ+ Running Retreat in the North Cascades this October, hosted by Queer Pro Ultra-Runner, Suunto ambassador Ryan Montgomery and Aspire Adventure Running! Ryan having a blast at the Javelina Jundred 100-miler. (Image by Nick Danielson) ”A couple of years ago when I started becoming more visible as a queer-identifying elite athlete, I recognized that the opportunity to compete at an elite level also comes with the opportunity to make an inclusive impact in the sport,” says Ryan. “Running has been my conduit and my catalyst for really helping me understand who I am — to come out of my own closet and to be comfortable with my own identity. Part of the genesis of the Out Trails LGBTQ+ Running Retreat is to help other queer-identifying athletes have an opportunity to push themselves physically and mentally, alongside a supportive community, to learn something new about the outdoors or themselves.” All experience levels are welcome The LGBTQ+ Running Retreat is inviting 40 runners to Mt. Baker Ski Area, Washington, USA for 3 nights and 2 full days of running/hiking. If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ running community, we encourage you to sign-up for the running retreat now! And to help eliminate the barrier for some members of the LGBTQ+ community, this Pride Month, Suunto is supporting the event with scholarships for 25 LGBTQ-identifying runners! Also the scholarship applications are now open. Register for the running retreat here, or apply for the scholarship here!   To learn more about the trip, visit the Out Trails LGBTQ+ Running Retreat Course Page.   READ MORE The importance of diversity in the outdoors Allyship in the outdoors: what is it and how to be a good ally for others? A native runner's perspective on inclusivity

This summer, we want to inspire you to take a new, unknown route and have built Weekend Adventure route collections around major European hubs. We kicked off in June with gravel adventures around Munich and Paris and hiking adventures around Milan and our hometown of Helsinki. For July we have added four more exciting route collections: hikes in Madrid and Berlin and gravel rides in London and Rome! Most routes are within an hour from the city centre and long enough to be split into two day adventures. Adventuring close to home is not only practical and time-efficient; it’s also good for the environment. You don’t always need to travel far to experience something new. So, pack your tent, get your gear and start exploring – the adventure starts here! Scroll down for hikes in Berlin, Helsinki, Madrid and Milan or gravel bike rides in London, Munich, Paris and Rome! Connect with Komoot to get the Weekend Adventure routes on your Suunto The Weekend Adventure collections are hosted by our partner Komoot. Komoot is a platform that lets you find, plan, and share adventures. Personalized route recommendations and inspiration are in the core of Komoot. Suunto is fully compatible with Komoot: Once you have connected the two accounts (go to Suunto app’s “Partner services” section and select “Connect with Komoot”) routes planned with Komoot flow automatically to your Suunto app’s route library and your activities tracked with Suunto go to Komoot. Turn-by-turn guidance and all is included in the sync. Learn more about the various Komoot packages Find tranquility on these hikes in Berlin Just a few kilometres beyond Berlin's city limits, you'll find tranquillity, magnificent landscapes, sparkling lakes and rivers, but also some thrills. In this Collection, we present three hiking Tours that take you to three regions around Berlin. You'll hike along clear waters, discover mystical wetlands and unique, mangrove-like forests. The Tours all have one thing in common: water plays a major role. Two of the hikes can be completed in a day, an overnight stay is recommended for the third one. Enjoy the English countryside on a gravel bike You don’t need to live in the countryside to find fantastic gravel trails. London has a vast network of off-road cycling, with some excellent tracks radiating from the city and transporting you to the serene landscapes of the home counties. The three tours in the London collection can be covered in a day or two: All of them include a convenient midpoint accommodation option, allowing you the flexibility to extend the adventure over two days if desired. Hike in vast forests less than an hour north of Madrid The hiking routes in Madrid take you to the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park and the Sierra Norte region less than an hour north of the city. The area boasts vast expanses of lush forests, fantastic granite formations, mountains that tower over 2,000 metres, important rivers, and impressive limestone ravines. You can complete all the routes in a day if you wish. Otherwise, you can also spread the distance over two days and stay halfway at a refuge or hostel. We’ve included more information in each route description. Ride ancient roads in Rome The gravel cycling routes around Rome venture through the Italian countryside and take you on compacted dirt tracks, ancient paved roads, fast singletrack, and rolling lanes with little traffic. Discover the woods around Lake Bracciano, trace historic routes like the Via Appia Antica, explore the wonders of the Castelli Romani, and pedal along the Regina Ciclarum – the most beautiful cycle path in Lazio – until you reach the seafront and the pine forests of the Roman coast. These Tours are real adventures that require decent fitness and plenty of determination to complete in a day – the distances are between 97 and 179 km. You can also take it easy and split the route so you have more time to fully enjoy these rich natural and historic places. Gravel rides just outside of Munich Get out of the city, leave your stressful week in the city behind with only a few pedal strokes and start your weekend adventure in nature. The green surroundings of Munich are diverse – you circle crystal-clear lakes, dive into bubbling river valleys, enjoy Bavarian country life or taste the specialties of Salzburg. Best of all: A large part of these three journeys take you away from the paved roads on fine gravel paths or exciting single tracks. Mountain hikes close to Milan In this Collection we offer you three truly epic hiking adventures a stone's throw from Milan. Just head north by train or car to quickly reach the foot of the mountains – and what mountains! These three treks are as spectacular as they are demanding. They will take you to some of the most beautiful places outside of Lecco, close to Lake Como. In each tour we point out refuges or other accommodations where you can stop to eat or spend the night, as well as options to shorten the route, if you wish. Explore Paris on a gravel bike In this Collection, you discover the surroundings of Paris in adventure mode. The surroundings of the French capital offer a superb playground for gravel cyclists – this Weekend Adventures Collection is a proof of that! These three cycling routes are rather long, but you can split them in two stages. Two of them make a loop and one is a point to point. However, that is not an issue as you can get back by train. Hike in the national parks just outside of Helsinki Our Helsinki Weekend Adventure Collection features three beautiful hikes accessible from the city. It doesn’t take long to escape the buzz of the city and find yourself immersed in archetypal Finnish landscapes, where the right to roam enables you to explore freely. Two of the hikes explore parts of the spellbinding Nuuksio National Park, with its glistening lakes, serene woodland and rugged terrain. The third hike discovers the quieter Sipoonkorpi National Park and its nature-rich boardwalks. Images by Philipp Reiter

Suunto Vertical comes with detailed outdoor offline maps that are globally free of charge. The new maps build on Suunto’s already advanced route navigation in the Suunto app. Discovering and creating routes is easy with the Suunto app's heatmaps, 3D maps and road surface-type layers and syncing them into a watch is effortless. Now, users have offline maps to consult no matter where they are, offering them greater safety and confidence! In this article, you will learn how to get started with the maps. Getting the maps on your watch You can download the maps on your Suunto Vertical watch using the Suunto app. You don’t need to pay any extra for the maps: simply select the right area for your adventure and download it. The watch has plenty of storage capacity, too: You can download 32GB of maps. As a reference the entire France is 7,47 GB and the entire Canada 15,17GB. Naturally large maps take longer to download so being a bit more specific helps you get the maps on the watch faster. Add wireless network to watch To install offline maps on the watch, connect your watch to a wireless network using the Suunto app: Pair your Suunto Vertical with Suunto app In the Suunto app go to the watch settings (select the watch icon on the top left and then the settings symbol on the top right) Select ‘Wireless networks’ and add a network You can add multiple wireless networks (like home and work) Select the offline map area Go to the map view in the Suunto app and tap ‘+’, the same “plus” you use to create a new route. That will allow you to download new offline maps. Search for the correct map or select it in the country menu. You can still review the selected area on the map before downloading. Connect the watch to the charger Once you have established the connection with a wireless network and selected your preferred map area, you can download the maps on the watch. To start the download, connect the watch to a charger. Using the offline maps on Suunto Vertical Top buttonShort press: Zoom inLong press: Zoom out Middle buttonShort press: Next screenLong press: Zoom/pan options Lower buttonShort press: Navigation options You can use the terrain maps during an activity with a preplanned route or simply see the breadcrumb trail, the path you have already traveled, on the map. Happy adventures! READ MORE Six ways to plan a route for your next adventure How to use avalanche terrain maps Lead image by Maximillian Gierl

The role of a coach is to provide guidance, support, and expertise to help athletes achieve their goals. A coach can be crucial for monitoring progress and providing feedback and adjustments as needed to ensure the athlete is training safely and effectively. A great coach is also a friend and a companion in your journey. A coach motivates you and requires accountability. Overall, a coach helps athletes improve their performance, avoid injury, and reach their full potential. This is also our goal when providing you with Suunto Coach. Suunto app’s Training zone has an AI-based coach that is an integral part of the service. It looks at hundreds of different parameters after each workout, learns how you train, and builds a normal training pattern that evolves from every workout you do. Based on this, it can give you the key highlights of your training, recovery, and progress. It provides insights and suggestions for the current week, so you can adjust your effort level as you go forward. The Suunto coach recognizes areas you are missing in your training this week that you normally are focusing on: Are you lacking volume in your swim workout? Do you push yourself too much with high-intensity runs? The Suunto coach is not trying to push your training in a direction that you are not used to. For example, if you usually do just high-intensity training, the Suunto coach is not going to ask you to focus more on lower-intensity sessions. Suunto coach doesn’t really know what is your goal or if you want to follow some specific training methodology. But what it does, is alert, highlight, and comment when you are exceeding healthy limits or just lacking some training aspects you are used to. Suunto coach is there to keep you on your selected path. Its recommendations and highlights are easy to digest without you needing to dig deep into the data. Now, go to the Suunto app and meet your new coach – the coach already knows you based on your training history!    Lead image by @rsalanova READ MORE Manage your training with Suunto app's Training zone  

Get a detailed overview of your training in Suunto app’s new Training Zone! A progressive training load with adequate recovery and ways to follow progress will lead to a successful adventure or race. Suunto is your daily companion to enhance your performance. The new training toolset in Suunto app’s Training zone is vast. Read on and learn what’s available. We are sure you will find your new favorite dataset to analyze your training and follow your progress. To ensure you have the latest Suunto app version update your iOS app in App Store and Android app in Google Play.   Four new ways to look at your training Am I training smartly? Is my training load progressive? Do I have the right intensity mix? What type of impact do my workouts have?   Training load The training load theme in Suunto app’s Training zone gives you a good overview of this week’s training load compared to a six-week average. You will also see the daily training load split and the split by activity type. All of this will help you understand your overall physiological load and how much more you can – and should – still do this week. The value of following your physical load weekly with comparisons to your long-term baseline is that you can look at this as a goal for the week. To gain some fitness, you might want to slightly increase the load for the week. To ensure recovery, keep the load level lower than your average. Training intensity Are you really doing both easy base training and higher intensity? Or is your training piling up in a single intensity zone, like tempo work in zone 3? The new Training intensity theme in Suunto app will help you understand your training better as you will see both the weekly intensity distribution and the six-week averages. The workout intensity totals can be viewed as heart rate, pace, running power, and cycling power zones. You can set your sport-specific training zones in your Suunto watch based on heart rate, pace and power. Suunto is following a five-zone model where your anaerobic threshold is at zone 4 /5 limit. You can find your correct training zones with a lab or a field test. SuuntoPlus Sports apps like the Anaerobic threshold test and the Functional threshold power test will guide you through a field test session.     Learn more about intensity zones. Training volume The sports you have done during the week are shown with duration, distance, load, and ascent. Sports are also grouped to give an overview of each type of sport i.e. running includes running, treadmill, and trail running. Volume is compared with your six-week average. As you follow your training volume, you can now easily ensure that you meet the numbers for your key sports any given week: It might be that as a trail runner, you want to get 3000 meters of ascent each week, or as a cyclist, ride 200 kilometers weekly. Your six-week average will help you match your personal benchmark. Training impact Suunto app’s Training impact is a new tool that helps you understand your training model and the physiological systems you are targeting. This will help you understand if you are doing what you were planning to do – and if you are missing something in your training. Training impacts are defined as cardio and muscular impacts. Each workout gets assigned an impact such as “Aerobic” or “Speed & Agility”. Cardio impacts are based on workouts intensity, load, and duration. Muscle impacts are based on activity type. The training model is identified based on your workout intensity distribution such as Polarized (most activities on low and high intensities, less in the middle), Sweet spot (training mainly between aerobic and anaerobic thresholds), and Base training (most workouts are in zones 1&2).   In addition to the current week, you will see the six-week average for your training impact. As with other training insights, the impacts are illustrated with long-term reference. If your normal training week has two aerobic sessions, one VO2 max session and two strength sessions, and on Friday you are still missing those aerobic sessions, you know what to focus on during the weekend. This will help you check all the boxes. Training impact is currently available on Suunto app for Android. Coming soon to iOS as well!        Lead image by Roger Salanova   READ MORE Get feedback from the Suunto coach Test your fitness with Suunto Plan your interval workouts with Suunto app Unlock your interval training and watch your running improve

In his previous post, Suunto ambassador, running coach and champion Stian Angermund broke down interval training and how to get started with it. “If you can run without stopping for 20 minutes, then you can start running intervals,” he said. In this post, Stian gets more specific, providing three drills you can implement into your training regimen right now. Just keep in mind his advice in the previous post: “To ensure you do a quality interval training session it’s essential you have fully recovered from any earlier training sessions. If you have sore muscles or feel tired when you are about to start your interval training, then it’s not the right time. You should skip or postpone the planned interval session.” Learn how to build your interval workouts using the Workout planner in Suunto app and follow the session in real time on your Suunto watch. Three intervals sessions to get faster and stronger By Stian Angermund First things first, I recommend using your Suunto watch to guide your interval sessions. Your watch has a pulse ‘speedometer’ where you can see your running intensity. If you run intervals based on time duration, turn on your watch’s interval settings to help you through the session. You can contact your local gym for an anaerobic threshold and Vo2max test to find your intensity zones or use your Suunto to test your fitness. Stian lives in Bergen, Norway. Vo2MAX interval session The goal of this drill is to improve your Vo2max. For this session, you will run at a high intensity. The intensity should be around 90% of your maximum heart rate. At this intensity, you will feel some lactate while running. Warm-up: Start with a 20 minute warm-up. Run 15 min easy, Then run one minute harder. Not as hard as your Vo2Max interval intensity. Run easy for one minute before repeating one minute of hard running. Run two minutes easy before starting the intervals. Now you are ready for the interval session. The intervals: These should be run on trails and mainly uphill. If you have a long uphill, you can run the intervals uphill, then easy down, before continuing to run uphill again. If you don’t have a long uphill, you can make a loop, where you run a slack uphill during your interval, then a steep downhill down to start, before running the next interval. Duration: The intervals during this session are four minutes each with a two minute recovery between them. After an interval, you’ll feel tired, but don’t stop or stand still - keep moving (active recovery). Do an easy jog or walk. If you stop, your legs will overflow with lactate, and it will be harder to run the next interval. The number of intervals will depend on your individual level. If you haven’t run intervals before, you can start with four repetitions. If you are used to intervals and in good shape, you can do five or six intervals. Don’t push too much during the first interval. If you run your intervals as a loop, you can see the distance you cover during each four minute interval. The goal is to run the same distance in all the intervals, or maybe a few meters more for each interval. That means the first interval should feel easier than the following. Cool down: After you have done the intervals, do a 10 to 15 minute easy run/jog. Drink and eat during your cooldown to optimize your recovery. Anaerobic threshold interval session The goal of this session is to improve your anaerobic threshold. This session has a lower intensity than the Vo2max interval session. The intensity for this interval is around 82-87% of your maximum heart rate. The intensity should be under your anaerobic threshold. You should not feel any lactate during the session. Warm-up: Start with a 20 minute warm-up. Run 15 min easy, then run one minute harder. But not as hard as your Vo2Max interval intensity. Run easy for one minute before repeating one minute of hard running. Run two minutes easy before starting the intervals. The intervals: This session can be done with a short and long recovery time. You can make it a short recovery if you have a long uphill or a loop. You can also run the same hill, up and down. It is often one of the hardest parts of a trail race to start another ascent after running downhill.The benefit of running up and down is that you will improve this skill for your race. Duration: The intervals are eight minutes long and the recovery between them is two minutes, or the time you will spend running down to start again. The number of intervals will depend on your fitness. Your legs will not be heavy from lactate, but fatigue from moving uphill. For the less experienced, start with three intervals. For the experienced runner, you can run up to six intervals. You must be able to run the intervals at the same pace. If you get too tired, then stop the session. Do not sprint at the end of the interval, like on your way to the finish line of a race. The best training is to be disciplined about the pace. Then you’ll get more benefits. Cool down: After completing the intervals, do 10 to 15 minutes of easy running or jogging. Drink and eat during the cooldown to optimize your recovery. Downhill interval session The goal for this session is to improve your downhill running skills. In this session, we don’t focus on the intensity. We focus on technique and try to increase your confidence. The session should be short. The reason for this is twofold: to be able to maintain concentration and to cause less impact on your legs. If you lose concentration, it’s easier to twist your ankle or fall. And a short session will have less impact on your legs’ recovery and total training volume. You need to find a hill to run down for your workout. If you have an upcoming race, it can be a good idea to try to find a descent that is similar to one in your race. It can be rocky, muddy, steep, technical and so on. The duration of the interval should be up to two minutes. The intervals: Start with defining your finish line. Then you walk uphill at an easy pace to your start point. The first interval is to run at an easy pace down to your finish line. Then walk up again. On the second interval, you will try to beat your first time. Repeat this six to seven times, each time trying to be faster than the previous interval. This is a fun activity with friends, but do be careful not to overdo it or get injured. Cool down: Run easy 5 to 10 minutes after the intervals. To get coaching from Stian visit: https://stianangermund.com