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My favourite kit and nutrition
- Maurten — the race nutrition trusted by elite athletes. Gels and drink mix engineered to be easy on the stomach.
- Garmin 90-degree charging adapter — the small adapter that keeps your charging cable tidy at the stem. Essential for race day.
- Garmin charging puck — the fastest and most reliable way to top up your Garmin before a session.
- Ravemen FR300 — front light that mounts directly under your Garmin or Wahoo head unit. Keeps your bars clean and your beam pointed where it matters.
- Garmin Varia RTL515 — radar rear light that alerts you to vehicles approaching from behind. Pairs with your Edge or Garmin watch.
- Stryd — the footpod that brings running power to your Garmin. The single most useful running upgrade I have made.
- Favero Assioma Pro RS2 — the power meter pedals most serious cyclists end up choosing. Accurate, easy to move between bikes.
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tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID
Good luck!
Interestingly, the map you have above does show it passing relatively close to my house, but the 2026 route published on their site currently keeps fully within the mountains on the west side instead. So…further away from my place.
As a side note on the GT Runner 2 results, they did actually come back to me last month with their results after they sent a few engineers there to run it a gazillion times up/down (poor guys). TLDR: The ‘Run’ mode didn’t handle any inclines/hills correctly, and caused the GPS issues I saw. If you were in ‘Trail Run’, it handled fine, but regular run basically broke all hills from a GPS standpoint (hence why I also saw the issue on road running with hills). They were planning a firmware update the last week of March, but I haven’t been home much in the timeframe since to re-test.
Speaking of which, I sadly won’t be home this weekend either, but halfway cross the world. Have fun though!
hi and thank you.
Yes the image is not the 2026 route, I need to update this soon
re amazfit, yes i was aware what had happened but was aksed not to share info at the time,
Good luck – should be a decent character building exercise!
So, how did it go for you in the end? I also participated and completed the long loop. Cool event!
So, how did it go for you in the end? I also participated and completed the long loop. Cool event!
write up to follow…it wasn’t pretty!