Ultra runner Michael Crawley isn’t currently wearing a and these days, most of his runs are to and from school pickup. But for research into his new book, , he wore a on one wrist and a on the other 24 hours a day, and ran all over the world. In addition to gathering information about running culture in Nepal, Ethiopia and amongst the of Chiahuaha, the anthropologist seeks to raise questions about how influences endurance sports.
Every year, more of us pull on and run further. A survey conducted by found that in North America there were 2,950 ultra marathons in 2024, more than twice the number held in 2014. In the past decade, the number of unique runners taking part in ultras rose from 48,000 to 97,000.
That’s a lot of Garmin watches being strapped onto a lot of wrists. Tech in running is nothing new, as Crawley explains in the book – in the 1920s, Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi caused a stir when started running with a stopwatch in his hand to track his pace. Today, a watch, band or ring can tell you your pace in real time, as well as a swathe of other metrics.
But is it all necessary? Or helpful? These are just some of the questions we discussed when we met recently. The following are five key takeaways from our conversation about the role of wearable tech in endurance sports. In the name of research, Crawley, a professor at Durham University who has been running since the age of 12 and competed for Scotland and Great Britain, subjected himself to continuous mon.