Suunto Spartan Ultra – New Sports GPS

Posted on June 7, 2016 by talkultra

Spartan Ultra collection

Suunto introduces its next generation multisport solution with a new family of GPS watches and a renewed Suunto Movescount.com

                      Press Release by Suunto

The long-awaited next generation of Suunto multisport watches is soon here. Today, Suunto introduces Suunto Spartan Ultra, a premium multisport GPS watch for athletes and adventurers. At the same time, Suunto is renewing its online sports service Suunto Movescount with a range of new features and improvements.

“People have been asking about what’s next after Ambit3 for quite some time now,” notes Sami Arhomaa, Performance business unit director at Suunto. “So it’s a great pleasure to announce our next generation Suunto Spartan solution for athletic and adventure multisport.” The solution comprises of the Suunto Spartan Ultra watches, a renewed Suunto Movescount service and mobile applications for both iPhone and Android.

“In a fast-paced world with an overwhelming flood of information, athletes need better tools to determine how to efficiently achieve their goals,” explains Arhomaa. “People who are driven by the passion to progress want to know if they are doing things right. More and more people are reaching out to communities of like-minded people for guidance and inspiration. With the Spartan solution, we are building on the insights we’ve gained through our constant dialogue with athletes and coaches around the world. The new Suunto Spartan multisport solution will offer customers new community powered tools to progress. We are convinced these tools will help them progress beyond their expectations.”

Suunto Spartan Ultra – the GPS watch for athletic and adventure multisport

Adventure proof

Suunto Spartan Ultra watches are hand-made in Finland and built to last in any conditions. Water resistant to 100 meters, the watches sport an extremely durable color touch screen with a wide viewing angle and great visibility in bright sunlight. The watch is built with a glass fiber reinforced polyamide casing, sapphire crystal glass and a grade5 titanium or stainless steel bezel. For your multisport adventures, Suunto Spartan Ultra offers guided route navigation, barometric altitude with FusedAlti™, a digital compass, as well as a competitive battery life.

Sports expertise and insights

The Suunto Spartan Ultra is a true multisport watch. With GPS, FusedSpeed^TM, heart rate measurement and in-built accelerometer, it accurately tracks your training and provides versatile insights on your progress for a multitude of sports. It offers dozens of preset sport modes, e.g. for triathlon, swimming, cycling, running, adventure racing, and snow sports – including modes for specific types of training, racing and activities. If you are a runner, for example, you can choose a basic running mode that offers the essential information for running, or an interval running mode, a trail running mode, and more. The Suunto Spartan Ultra also provides you visual overviews on your training load, rest&recovery status and your progress to help you plan your training. With the watch you can also track your feeling after each workout.

In addition, Suunto Spartan Ultra monitors your overall activity 24/7 with daily and weekly steps, calories and active time. Pair the watch with Suunto Movescount App to get smart mobile notifications. The watch will also keep you up to date on your personal bests by sport.

Community powered progress

In connection with the launch of the Spartan solution, Suunto deploys big data methods for turning the community generated sports data into valuable training insights. Suunto has been analyzing tens of millions of endurance sport sessions to provide both existing and new consumers with answers to the questions like where should you train and how are you progressing. The first tool utilizing this data are sports-specific heatmaps, available from today in Suunto Movescount. Later, the toolset using the data will grow with tools for peer group comparison and insights.

The Suunto Spartan Ultra collection includes four models: Suunto Spartan Ultra All Black Titanium, Suunto Spartan Ultra Stealth Titanium, Suunto Spartan Ultra White and Suunto Spartan Ultra Black – each available with or without Suunto Smart Sensor for heart rate monitoring. The RRP price of the Suunto Spartan Ultra Titanium will be £585 and Suunto Spartan Ultra £545. Prices with a HR sensor are £40 higher.

Further details of the product will be released in July 2016. The watches become available in August, and the solution will continue to grow in functionality via SW, service and application updates during the remaining year.

Read more about the Suunto Spartan Ultra at www.suunto.com/spartan

Northern Traverse 2016 – Day 2 Summary

Posted on May 31, 2016 by talkultra

“We seek him here, we seek him there,

Those photographers seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?

That damned, elusive Eoin Keith”

– a mis-quoted Baroness Emma Orczy

Eoin Keith is on fire, he is blasting through checkpoints and burning up the trail. I tried to catch him this morning and missed by about 10-minutes at Nine Stands. I even expected a faster pace and navigated ahead on the trail so that I could run towards him…. a lack of 3G failed me and when I finally goy an update on my tracker it told me the bad news. Eoin had passed but by the narrowest of margins.

I remained on the higher ground and was blasted by the strong icy winds to John Knapp and Matt Neale come through. The front three are relatively equally spaced at the time of writing (1400 Tuesday), Eoin is probably getting close to Richmond? If only I could get 3G.

The 190 mile journey is taking its toll and runners are now spread over a large area, the last runner is David Taylor (I believe) and he is climbing out of Patterdale – puts Eoin Keith’s pace into perspective.

Day 2 conditions are good with great visibility, just a strong, cold wind to contend with.

Ship will be a key aid station in the coming hours and evening for the back markers, equally, Richmond important for the from markers.

How long will Eoin Keith stay in Richmond? My guess, not long… Robin Hood Bay is starting to appear quite close

Follow the race live on tacking HERE

Check outage race website http://www.northerntraverse.com

A Day on Fells – Wolf’s Pit, Peak District

Posted on March 22, 2015 by talkultra

A fun weekend in Sheffield for ShAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival) and the opportunity to take American ultra running legend, Nikki Kimball to experience a fell race.

It was a blast. I had so much fun… a course like this for 100-miles would be great! – Nikki Kimball

Well, I am not sure that anyone else in the race would fancy running the route eighteen times to make up the required 160-km but hey, we know what Nikki means (I think!).

The Peak District played ball and the sun came out. Great day!

Wolf’s Pit, Peak District

Date & time: Sun 22nd Mar 2015 at 11:00
Country: England
Region: Peak District
Category: AS
Website: www.wolfspitfellrace.org.uk
Distance: 9km / 5.6m
Climb: 450m / 1476ft
Venue: Shatton, nr Bamford, Hope Valley.
Grid ref: 196825
Skills & experience: ER, PM, LK, NS
Minimum age: 16

Richard Bowles – Finders on Foot a 1200km journey

Posted on April 1, 2014 by talkultra

Starting on Sunday 4th May 2014, Richard Bowles will run an average of 85km each day (two marathons) along South Australia’s ancient backbone; The Heysen Trail. A trail that spans 1,200km the length of the rugged Flinders Ranges in the outback to the coast.

In 2012 he ran “The World’s Longest Marked Trail” (5,330km National Trail, Australia) where he crossed crocodile infested waters, encountered packs of wild dogs and had a shotgun pointed in his face by an angry farmer. He followed that with New Zealand’s Te Araroa Trail at another 3,054km; crossing both islands through avalanche zones, ice cold white water rapids and fickle weather that saw him tumble down a mountain side, both runs seeing him become the first to run the entire trail.

2013 saw him conquer the dry and arid Israel National Trail at 1,009km while suffering with a foot infection in the desert, followed by becoming the first to run around the base of an exploding volcano, in Northern Sumatra, with a shower of volcanic ash closing out his year.

In 2014 Richard will create another “World First” back on Australian soil and a swag of adventurous stories on route. Who knows what might happen in the Australian outback!

The project is funded and supported by Nixon Communications who supply reliable clear communications solutions in remote and non-remote environments. They will play a key role in the safety of this project through runner and support communications as well as bringing all the action to the world with internet and phone reception from remote parts of the trail. “For the first time my followers will not have to wait a day or two for updates, they can follow it as it happens, thanks to Nixon’s” Says Richard.

British born Richard has the determination to make a positive contribution to the country he calls home, supporting Indigenous Health promoters Red Dust Role Model who deliver innovative health promotion programs in partnership with remote communities. The Healthy Living Program encourages Indigenous youth to learn more about health and inspire them to live a healthy lifestyle.

“Health is a basic human right” says Richard. Red Dust state it is essential to the social development of Indigenous people in remote communities. Health promotion strategies improve and transform lives and have a sustainable impact on social, economic and environmental conditions. Health promotion is a practical approach to achieving greater equality and closing the gap.

Richard says he is keen to meet with the communities through which the trail passes, even when running such huge distances each day.

“The highlight of all my projects is the people that I meet and impact on the way, I have been welcomed into peoples homes, sharing stories over a meal and enjoying the wonderful adventure which they had now become part of”

Salomon Running TV Season 3

Posted on October 16, 2013 by talkultra

An all new season of Salomon Running TV! On October 30th, 2013 season 3 of Salomon Running TV begins and it promises to offer a completely new look on the sport we love so much. With a variety of characters and stories that span the globe — join us on our journeys and adventures!

http://www.salomonrunning.com
http://www.facebook.com/salomonrunning/
http://www.twitter.com/salomon_running/
http://www.instagram.com/salomonrunning/

Summits – insight

Posted on June 12, 2012 by talkultra

This is great little insight into Kilian’s next project by the man behind the camera, Seb Montaz.

Seb is without doubt one of the best cinematographers out there. He has worked closely with Kilian over the years and between them they are the perfect combination. Kilian performs the magic with his feet, Seb performs the magic with his eyes. Together it is a stunning combination.

Seb Montaz – Summits