Battle of the GPS watches: Which fitness tracker won Run in the Dark?

The results are in. Head to page 2 to find out how each GPS fitness tracker faired.

This time last year, a bunch of us were planning on running a 10k race. For my colleagues, that involved just remembering to move their legs back and forth at a suitable pace, but for me it had the added burden of fiddling with seven fitness trackers, leaving my arm looking like a child’s ring tower toy.

365 days later, we’re back again: a year older, but not a year fitter. Four 2.5k loops of Battersea Park. Technically, we’re allowed to do just 5km, but by putting it in writing here that I’m doing the full ten, I’m hoping I won’t back down and will keep trundling along to the bitter end.

This time around, having looked through my drawer, the theme is GPS. I was able to quickly source a TomTom Spark 3, a Fitbit Surge, a Microsoft Band 2 and a Samsung GearFit 2 (review coming soon). Each watch will be reporting into a Samsung Galaxy S7, for a total body RRP of £1,330: leaving me in that special category of a crime statistic waiting to happen.

I’ll wear two on each wrist, and report back on what each one tells me about my performance after the event. What I suspect they’ll tell me is that the last year hasn’t been kind to my body. But hopefully they’ll also tell us something we don’t already know, eh?