Gift Guide on the Run: iRun Presents Presents for the Everyday Runner

Running is beautiful because it requires so little: a decent pair of shoes and some free time and away you go! However, the running world offers loads of bells and whistles to help a runner stay comfortable and (perhaps) get the most from their runs. Also: once some of us start running, we immediately get hooked. Hence the urge to purchase some products. From now until Christmas, iRun editors, running shop owners and iRunNation tell us what they want this year for the holidays—move quick, us runners sure do.  

There’s lots of watches for runners to choose from, all which provide a variety of functions. For most of us, the main tools we seek are current pace, distance elapsed and some variation of a timer. I want to know how far I’m going, how fast I’m going and how long the whole thing takes. Also: the watch should feel comfortable and look decent—even in the age of omnipresent cellphones, it’s sometimes nice having a little wrist bling.

Since first trying the Fitbit Surge, I’ve become a convert. It’s not so much what it does, there’s lots of watches that more or less do the same thing, and I’ve been using the Apple Watch and the Nike+ SportWatch, with relative success. But what makes the Surge so awesome is that it’s more accurate than my Nike+ watch and easier to use than the Apple Watch. I keep things real simple on my runs. And with two little kids and a full-time job, I don’t really want to get into advanced level programming when figuring out how to use the thing. I’m not looking to launch a space shuttle.

The Surge is easy to pause at traffic lights and I’ve never had trouble finding a signal. The buttons are big, which is nice, because I can use it with gloves, and it has a heart rate tracker that I’m going to start using in 2016. At $300, it’s a piece of equipment not to be taken lightly—the Nike+ SportWatch is $100 cheaper on Amazon—but if there was a watch I had to recommend, and price wasn’t the main concern, I’d pick the Fitbit Surge.

I also like the idea of wearing the same watch as David Sedaris.

—Ben Kaplan