Dublin Marathon Race Test: PB chasing with the Puma Fast-R3, Apple Watch Series 11 and Foreunner 970

The Dublin Marathon is a pretty big city marathon with quite a local feel, a challenging course, with a city centre start and finish – and one of the best post-run celebrations you’re likely to find. Because everyone has Monday off for a Bank Holiday. Run Tester Kieran headed over to take on the race for the first time and put the Puma Fast-R3 through another marathon PB hunt, while testing the Apple Watch Series 11 and the Garmin Forerunner 970. Hit play to see how the shoes, the watches and Kieran got…

0:00 – Intro
0:31 – The Race: Dublin Marathon review
6:10 – The Shoes: Puma Fast-R3
8:19 – The Watches: Apple Watch Series 11 & Garmin Forerunner 970

Hey people, welcome to the run testers. And it is a little over a week since I was on the quite wet and cold but wonderful streets of Dublin for the Dublin Marathon where I was busy retesting the Puma Fast R3 in an allout shot at a PB. I was putting the Garmin 4970 up against the Apple Watch Series 11 on what was a really quite blustery, cold, and challenging course getting my first experience of the Dublin Marathon. So, how was it? How did this tech do? How did the shoes do? Let’s get into it. Now, before we discuss the shoes and the tech, I wanted to chat a bit about the race and also to make an upfront confession, which is that I have very, very little footage from the race itself either before or after. Well, might ask me why that is. Normally, I’m pretty good at filming. We’re doing this, you know, we it’s our job. We have to film, but for large parts before, during, and immediately after, it was raining. So, my Insta Go 360 camera and my iPhone, they don’t f too well when it’s properly wet. Secondly, just like I did for Chester a few weeks back, I had decided to lay it all out there on the course. And what that means is I tend to end up having to use all my energy to run and survive. And for this one, I was trying to run and survive at 6 and a half minute mile pace for the whole 26.2. So, I didn’t really have the chance or the energy to get the camera out. I was running right on the edge. I did have the camera in my pocket, but it just stayed there the whole race. So, apologies for that. Anyway, the race and I’ve always wanted to do Dublin mainly because it’s one of the only races I think in the world where it takes place on a Sunday and the city has the following day off because it’s a bank holiday in Ireland, which means everyone gets to enjoy the afters and I knew it would be really fun in Dublin and they really were. There is a huge buzz after the race with full pubs, Guinnesses flowing, lots of runners also will book temporary gym passes to get showered. so that they can sort of get showered in the city center and then go straight out and enjoy the afterparty. That’s what I did. And though the showers were cold, it was a smart idea and the reception was lovely and warm after that. One quick word about the expo. It was massively overrun. The cues there at 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon were bonkers, and that’s something that I think could do with work. If you’re going to go and do Dublin, get to the expo early if you can. I know that’s the case with a lot of expos, but this seemed to be a long queue for so late in the day on a Saturday. Then on to race morning and the walk to the start. I had a hotel pretty much central and it was pretty well signposted. But this isn’t one of those where you can just follow runners anywhere as there are multiple funnels for different start waves and there’s runners walking in all different directions to get into those waves or to the backdrop. So you could end up going down the wrong sort of streets. The backdrop itself when I got there was really hectic as well on quite a narrow street. was bitterly cold and it took quite a while to get through that. There was actually some sort of crowd control, so people were held as well. But the perfect antidote to that was that everyone was in pretty good spirits. It didn’t kind of feel stressy and angsty. It was all quite kind of calm and it cleared fairly quickly. One thing that did surprise me though is there are no covers for the bag. They’re not under like a an awning or anything. They’re just out there in the rain. So, you have to make sure that your bag is done up pretty tight or you’ve wrapped everything inside in something else so it doesn’t get wet. Now the race goes off in waves with I think four different start funnels. On the way to my blue start which went out later at 9:25. There was a handy spa. This is a big tip as well if you did the blue wave where everyone was sheltering for warmth just around the corner. So it was back like about a 4m minute walk around the corner. So I stayed there for quite a while. That was a big win. The start itself wasn’t too crazy busy where I was. I was quickly running free once we got over the start line. Um though I was running from a slower pen and what that meant is because I was moving quite well. I eventually ran into the back of the earlier waves that had set off and the pace groups and often found in those groups some sections where the streets were narrow were quite crowded. It was quite hard to weave your way through. So, there can be some congestion. Now, the course itself is what I’d describe as challenging. It’s lumpier as a marathon for sure. You This is not Berlin. It’s one of those that’s kind of got hills that can make it quite hard to find a consistent pace. We had headwinds to contend with as well. I was still cold after moving for about seven miles. And some of those hills, they will come when you least want them, kind of around mile 20, 22. This is also one of those races where you’ve just about had enough of the ups, the downs come, and you can offset quite a lot of the ups with those downs if you run smart and with discipline. The support out there was excellent. It’s not the size of the crowds that you’re going to get at some of the majors, but it was full of energy, plenty loud, boisterous, really, really good support. The aid stations, I would say, just about frequent enough, though I think a few more wouldn’t hurt. And they weren’t always on two sides, which did mean sometimes it was a little bit trickier to get water. Uh they tended to mix paper cups with bottles. So you’d get one that was a paper cup, one that was bottles. So if you like either of those, it’s quite good. And there were gel stations, but I didn’t use those. Now, the finish line for me was a bit of a blur with a few twists and turns as you close in on the end of the race. I did laugh at one point because I sort of remember seeing a sign that was for 500 meters to go and then about 10 meters later, there was a sign, I think, for 400 meters to go. That made me chuckle. quickest 100 meters I’ve ever done. Anyway, there are decent crowds right to the finish line as well, which I really liked. And then once you’ve crossed the line, it is just a cold, wet slog to find a place to change. Mine was in the gym. Loads of people just doing it on the street. But I do think this race, knowing when it is in the year, could probably benefit from sort of some cover for that kind of postrun change. Though, I did like the fact that the race top was a long sleeve, not a tea, and that came really in handy for a quick swap out of my soaking race t-shirt. The medal is also good as well. But probably my favorite bit of the entire race was the post-race celebration. So many lively pubs, loads of runners and supporters settling in for a great Sunday afternoon of celebration out there. Everyone really chatty, everyone welcoming. Really, really good vibe. And if you like a beer after your race, this is a race that you need to do, I think. Overall, it’s one that I would recommend. Not the most thrilling course. Definitely a battle in terms of the elevation on the course and and some of the sections that can feel kind of quite long, but it’s a really excellent weekend and it gets a thumbs up from me. On to the shoes then and I ran in the Puma Fast R3. This is my second full marathon in this shoe after London back in the spring where I ran a half marathon PB in the first half which was a terrible mistake and then the wheels came off and uh I missed my PB. I can’t quite remember how by how much, but I missed it and I suffered. This time though, I bagged a new 25024 PB, which I’m pleased with just two weeks after doing a 250 236 PB at Chester in the AS6 Meta Speed Edge Tokyo. Now, I knew from London that the Pummers were fast, almost too fast in that first bit and they had all the attributes that you want in a marathon race. These are light, punchy, propulsive, fast with a really quite snappy feedback. I had to kind of run my way into them in Dublin, but once I settled into them and I was up on my mid to foroot running, you know, with locked in form and running really well, I could pretty much forget about the shoes underfoot. The one thing I will say is now that I’ve run with the AS6 Metas Speed Edge Tokyo, there’s quite a marked difference in how the two shoes get their efficiency on how they’re giving you that edge or the edge that I got to help me get that PB. the Edge Tokyo. They’re softer. They’re a bit more bouncy. They are a bit more protective underfoot. The Fast R3 bit more aggressive. And I felt a lot more of the ground coming up in the final six miles. So, for pure comfort, I actually think the Edge Tokyo wins. But on speed and efficiency, I think these shoes are about equal. The R3 is working kind of that lever foam combo much harder. And that may not be a ride that everyone finds totally natural or, you know, one that they kind of enjoy. Though the research kind of does suggest that most people do respond to it from an efficiency perspective. Now, for me in this test, I think the Fast R3 did everything that I wanted it to do. It was super punchy. I could feel it giving me that efficiency. And it’s right up there with some of my favorite marathon race shoes. I would 100% racing them again, even though I did have a little bit of foot fatigue towards the end. Overall, the comfort, the fit was on was spot on, and they just did what I needed them to do. So yeah, from that test, still impressed by the Puma Fast R3. Yeah, a a great marathon ratio, I would say. So I also tested the Apple Watch Series 11 and the Garmin 4970 with a HRM600 chest strap. I looked at the battery life, the GPS, and the heart rate accuracy. On battery life, I took both of these watches off charge at 7:00 a.m. on race morning. during the race in max accuracy GPS mode with screen set to full brightness. The 4 on a 970 burned 10%. That’s a pretty good performance. The Series 11 burned 32%. Again, that’s I mean for a go back a few years, the Apple Watch would have struggled with a marathon. It’s now doing that easily. By the end of the race, the 970 was on 84%. The Apple Watch Series 11 still had 65% left. So, that was good for the afternoon after. as well. When it comes to GPS, despite the Series 11 lacking dual frequency GPS, it’s more than a match for the 970, which does have dual frequency. So, it proves that dual frequency doesn’t always mean better accuracy. The series 11 clocked the race at 42.5 km compared to the multiband 4970 at 42.4 km. I did a lot of weaving during the race, moving through big pace groups. And so, you know, I think that was pretty much spot on. And the real-time pace performance was solid for both watches. I consider both watches as sort of reliable to race marathons for GPS. Though Dublin isn’t a big builtup city, so maybe that if you’re going to a bigger city. On heart rate, the Apple Watch Series 11 Optical impressed for the majority of the race. Matched the HRM600 beat for beat. Though towards the end, it had some struggles, particularly right in the last minutes where I got some kind of big high spikes. So the max spikes or the max read out over the whole race ended up being high, but the averages were pretty much level. Again, in practice, I think the performance is good enough here to use it for racing. Though I would probably still reach for a chest strap on race day if I was running absolutely to heart rate and I wanted that really dialed in, you know, better performance. So there you have it. That’s been my race test at the Dublin Marathon. A cracking race that I’d 100% recommend. I hope you found it useful. Thanks to everyone who came up and said hello. Wish me good luck out there. It’s always a happy thing to meet you guys out there at the starts of races and stuff. Maybe I will see you back there next year. I’m seriously thinking about having a repeat. And until then though, happy running