Welcome Apple Watch Series 11

As I decided my 8 year old Apple Watch had to go also I had to decide what to replace it with. For a long time I had been thinking about switching to a Garmin ForeRunner but after watching some reviews on DC RainMaker I went for the newest Apple Watch Series 11 instead. This seemed to be more than adequate for a casual runner like myself in terms of metrics to track and with the improved battery life of the Series 11 I figured this was good enough, especially since the Apple Watch was quite a bit cheaper then the ForeRunner 570. This was especially so because I could get a good deal on an Apple Watch that was returned within a few weeks by someone. Brand new but at a reduced price, no blemishes, only the box had been opened. That saved me 70 euros on the RRT and made it almost one third cheaper than the Garmin. I am not chasing records and being on Strava is more about keeping track and staying self motivated than about athletic achievements in my case. I went for my first run with the new Apple Watch and I am now seeing all these additional running statistics to analyze my runs : stride length, ground contact time and vertical oscillation. These give me some insights into how efficiently I am running. I had to search on the internet to get an idea about the target values for these but all in all I am not doing too bad apparently. See for example this article on Runner’s World about vertical oscillation and why it matters. And this article about cadence and how it is linked to ground contact time and stride length, also on Runner’s World.