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My experience on Tor des Geants with Enduro 3

Birdy77
23 days ago

Hi everyone,
I bought the Enduro 3 specifically in anticipation of the 2025 Tor des Géants, and I think it might be useful to give a quick summary. (I also bought the Enduro 3 for fun! I used to have a Garmin 945 LTE).

As for battery life, I never saw a significant increase in battery life during the day, despite the sunshine this year. I completed the Tor in 145 hours, and I don't think I could have completed it without recharging the watch, despite the claim of 320 hours in sunlight.
My GPS mode was set to “GPS Only” (120 hours or up to 320 hours with solar charging).

I chose to stop my watch at each base camp. I did this for two reasons:

  • I didn't want my watch to crash 300 km into the race after already recording a huge FIT file in its memory and risk losing the history. Even though, when this has happened to me in other races, the watch resumed recording without any problems after restarting.
  • I wanted to have all the watch's features easily accessible at the base camp, especially the alarm and countdown timer, to wake me up after my naps. It is possible to use the alarm during an activity, but I didn't want to complicate things and leave my watch “running” during my breaks of up to 4 hours at the base camps.
  • Psychologically, I wanted to do seven races of about 50km/4000m of elevation gain rather than one 350km race. So it was good to be able to end my activity at each base camp and start another GPX track.

I recharged my watch twice with an accupack at the base camps, once out of "necessity", when the battery was at 50%, and once for safety, to make sure I didn't have to think about my watch battery (I already had to think about my phone battery and my headlamp, not to mention a thousand other things during a race like this).

I was very happy with the watch during the race, no problems at all. I loaded the GPX files available on the Tor website, validated by Garmin. A nice feature was having the remaining distance to each aid station. Although not very useful on the well-marked course, the mapping helped me a few times to be sure of my route.

I used the flashlight to move around the dormitory in the Refuges, which was very handy.

I am very satisfied with the battery life. As stated, being able to get at least 120 hours means I don't have to think about my watch during the race.


However, I would like to have a tool that allows me to merge the seven FIT files together at the end, before uploading my entire race to Strava. This is impossible, as the files are too large for all the solutions I have tested online. So I posted my files separately.

1. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901768526
2. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901737411
3. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901695337
4. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901690149
5. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901684379
6. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901615957
7. https://www.strava.com/activities/15901597338

As for readability, no problem, I am delighted with my MIP screen.

Apart from that, Garmin's recovery algorithms are completely off after a run like this. It told me I needed 96 hours of recovery after the run. I think it's more like a month... It should be noted that I wasn't wearing a heart rate monitor belt and that, in my case, the wrist measurement is completely unreliable, after having made numerous comparisons. It's not reliable during activity, but it's okay for measuring heart rate at rest.

What I do find satisfactory, however, is the HRV measurement. I find it relevant and consistent with how I feel. I felt very tired for 10 days after the race, and then better and better, and that's exactly the pattern my HRV follows.

Finally, shortly before the race, the Fenix 8 Pro was released. I thought it would be good because it includes satellite messaging, but now I much prefer to invest $200/EUR in an InReach Mini 2 and a Protegear.de data subscription, as the safety and messaging features are better.

All in all, I am extremely satisfied with my Enduro 3, which is perfectly suited for a 150-hour "run" in the Italian Alps.

I am even more delighted with my race and am already thinking about doing it again to try to get under 130 hours and participate in the Tor des Glaciers. You have to set goals and dreams for yourself!

Total on my watch: 370.9km and 25'879D+

  • 0 23 days ago

    First of all, congratulations and very good to finish it! And the race of my dreams that I would like to participate in next year! But I don't get one thing that I don't understand if it's an inaccuracy of the Enduro 3 or if as sometimes the actual mileage is another... but actually the kilometres are 370? Instead of 330? Do you have testimonials from other people that those are the actual kilometres?

  • 0 22 days ago

    Great race report! Congrats to the achievement. The usage you describe is what I would suggest as well. My experience is that it is possible to get extended battery life in sunny weather, seeing at least a potential 150 hours. But I have not done such endurance races as you, so it is just during shorter sessions. The only thing you miss (I think) by dividing the route into sections is to keep track of total event time. But perhaps an ordinary timer running in the background can be possible?

    Thanks for sharing and good luck pursuing the Tor des Galciers!

  • 0 22 days ago in reply to 9561751

    I am also surprised by the distance.

    I know someone who ran for a while and recorded their entire route with a Fenix 6. The result is 374 km. (Seen on their Strava).

    I have also seen several reports on YouTube claiming a distance of 358 km. In short, the actual distance is a bit unclear.
    The “Garmin Certified” GPX files available on the Tor website have a total of 336km.
    I'm leaning towards a distance of around 355km, which is the average between 370km and 336km. And the ITRA website indicates a distance of 352km.

    If we take 355km as the actual distance, the distance recorded by my watch (370km) in GPS Only mode, without dual frequency, represents an error of 4.23%.

    According to Gemini:
    In comparison, your measured error of ≈4.23% (calculated above) is slightly above the often-cited average error range (1-3%), but remains within the order of magnitude of errors observed in areas where GPS reception is degraded.

  • 0 22 days ago in reply to n.y.a.n

    I do like having all my runs in one block, so I can show off with a big number on Strava :-)

    Yes, during the race, the question arose of how to keep track of how far ahead or behind I was on the time barriers. But in the end, it was very easy because each base camp indicated its entry and exit time limits, and I always kept in mind that it was, for example, 3 p.m. and that the time limit was 7 p.m., so I was four hours ahead. In the end, it was much easier to base my calculations on the time of day than on the total duration, because knowing that I was 100 hours into the race would not have given me any information about how far ahead I was at a given aid station.


    Regarding the post-race:
    in this specific case, I also have a precise record of my passage times between aid stations throughout the course and my total time on the Tor live website. I also have the entry and exit times for each aid station. This is important to me because I'm thinking of doing the race again to try and finish in under 130 hours, and I want to study the passage and rest times in detail.

  • 0 22 days ago in reply to Birdy77

    Distance given by any kind of file is directly proportional to the track points on it.

    You take a 3 hours ride recorded with “each second” will end with 10k+ points.

    Playing with that file using Basecamp filter options and you will see all stats varying being distance, total ascente, avg speed etc …

    Simplifying, besides any possible positioning error, for each record rating configuration we got a different set of measurements.

  • 0 21 days ago

    Hi! Congratulations on finishing this race! I´m thinking of a fastpacking version with 8-10 days :)

    You can merge files on this page:

    Combine FIT, GPX, CSV or TCX files for Garmin or Strava. Merge Heart Rate Power and GPS