I ran a half marathon with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 against the Garmin Forerunner 965

The Garmin Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 are two of the best sports watches I’ve tested in recent years, and as an avid runner, both are packed with features to help me during training and on race day.

To test their accuracy and usefulness for racing, I wore both to run the Battersea Park Half Marathon in London last weekend, where I achieved a PB of 1:09.46. I checked the GPS tracks of both watches after the race and compared their distance during the event to the mile markers on the course.

I also wore a Polar Verity Sense wristband heart rate monitor, which proved reliably accurate in my testing, allowing me to check the heart rate readings of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the Garmin Forerunner 965. The Verity Sense was connected to a Coros Pace 3 watch that I had in my bag just to make it easier to get the post-race HR data for comparisons.

GPS accuracy

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

The race involved running eight and three-quarter laps through the lower half of a park. It was a crowded event, meaning I had to run far on every lap except the first, and loop courses like this always present a challenge for GPS accuracy in my experience.

Both the Garmin Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 ended up running longer than the official half marathon distance of 21.1 km (13.11 miles), with the Apple Watch running 21.50 km (13.35 miles) and the Garmin 21 .23 km (13.19 miles). I almost certainly ran further than the official distance, as I had to weave around people and run wide on corners, but even so, the Apple Watch’s reading seems a bit high to me.

Blue – Apple Watch Ultra 2 Brown – Garmin Forerunner 965

GPS track: Blue – Apple Watch Ultra 2, Brown – Garmin Forerunner 965 (Image credit: DC Rainmaker Analyzer)

If you look at the GPS recording of the event, you can see that the recorded loops show that the Apple Watch makes wider turns than the Garmin in most corners, adding the extra distance. In some corners I would say the Apple Watch looks better than the Garmin from what I remember from the way I ran the race, but in some it looks like it gives me a little more distance .

Overall, the Forerunner 965’s distance was much closer to the race distance on an officially measured course, and although I had to run far most of the time, I found the Garmin to be a bit more accurate in this regard.

HR accuracy

Garmin Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 compared during a half marathon

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 had a bad day in terms of heart rate, it consistently showed significantly higher values than the Polar bracelet and even failed completely for some stretches. In contrast, the Garmin Forerunner 965’s readings closely matched those of the bracelet throughout the race, and my heart rate steadily increased as I became more tired.

Blue – Apple Watch Ultra 2 Brown – Garmin Forerunner 965 Purple – Polar Verity Sense

Heart Rate: Blue – Apple Watch Ultra 2, Brown – Garmin Forerunner 965, Purple – Polar Verity Sense (Image credit: DC Rainmaker Analyzer)

As a result, the Garmin’s average and maximum heart rate readings were much closer to those of the Polar Verity Sense, and if I had used heart rate to assess my performance in the race, it would have been much more useful than the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

However, other than this race, I would say that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is usually fine for heart rate and produced an accurate graph for me recently during a 10K race.

tempo

Garmin Forerunner 965 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 compared during a half marathon

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

For this race, I used the Apple Watch Ultra 2’s Pacer mode, which lets you set a target pace or time goal and then shows how far ahead or behind that goal you are during the race. On the Garmin Forerunner 965, I used lap pace and manually completed a lap each time I went through the timing mats that marked the start/end of each lap in the park, which was approximately every 2.4 km (1.5 miles). was the case.

The Apple Watch’s Pacer mode is great and I’ve used it in a marathon in the past when it was spot on and helped me reach my goal. However, since the distance recorded by the watch was longer than the half marathon distance, I was generous throughout the race with how far ahead of my goal I was.

I had to essentially ignore Pacer mode and instead use the Forerunner 965’s manual lap splits and compare my overall time to the mile markers on the course – luckily calculating my sub-1:10 goal is easy because it’s 5:20 per Mile. Although the Forerunner 965 also ended up recording a longer distance, I was able to use it to assess my pace on each lap and it was more useful than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in this case.

Verdict

There was a clear winner in this race: the Garmin Forerunner 965 provided more accurate heart rate measurement and a more useful pacing feature, as the total distance was closer to the official half marathon distance.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 was still pretty good at the distance considering I had to run long distances, but the heart rate accuracy was poor and the normally great pacer mode wouldn’t have helped me reach my goal if I I would have completely relied on it.

topicnews · October 25, 2024

I ran a half marathon with the Apple Watch Ultra 2 against the Garmin Forerunner 965 – here’s the winner

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