The Suunto Race 2 is an impressive watch, delivering many of the same features of pricier Garmins at a lower price. It’s the bigger brother of the Suunto Run, with some capabilities its predecessor doesn’t have, such as the ability to access the SuuntoPlus store. There, you can download apps and integrations so your watch can do more than just the default features.
There are some real hidden gems in the SuuntoPlus store, and the best uses for them are covered below. (Suunto Race 2 users should also check out the Suunto Run hacks since most of them relate to features shared by both watches.)
Download Offline Maps While You’re at Home
The Suunto Race 2 can display maps right on the watch, but you need to download those maps before you head out for your adventure. You’ll want to do this at home, on a wifi connection. If you wait until you’re at the trailhead to think of it, it will take forever — that is, if you can get the maps to download at all.
To download maps, tap the watch icon at the upper left of the screen, and scroll down to Offline maps. Rather than downloading a specific area, you’ll need to choose one of the available selections. In the U.S., the selections go state-by-state; for example, you can download a Pennsylvania map and a West Virginia map separately, but not an area that includes bits of both.
Once you have the maps on your watch, you can leave your phone at home and either select Map from your widget list to see the map without starting an activity, or view the map while navigating during a run.
Learn to Use the SuuntoPlus Store
Even if you know SuuntoPlus is a major advantage of Suunto’s higher-end sports watches, it’s not immediately clear how to use it or what it’s actually for. Here are the basics.
First, find the SuuntoPlus apps you want. Tap on your watch icon and scroll down to My SuuntoPlus sports apps. If you know the name of the app you want, search for it here; otherwise, browse around.
To use a sports app, select an activity, like a run. Before starting the activity, scroll down and you’ll see a menu called SuuntoPlus. From here, you can select up to three sports apps to run during your activity. Each app will have its own screen in the carousel of data screens. To move between these screens during the activity, press the dial.
The SuuntoPlus store also allows you to sync workouts from TrainingPeaks or intervals.icu, or to connect with other devices like the Core 2 temperature sensor. If you’re already a user of one of those services or devices, check out their instructions. The sections below focus on some of the lesser-known uses of the regular SuuntoPlus sports apps.
Set More Accurate Zones with a Threshold Test
If you’ve ever thought your heart rate zones might be incorrect — and they probably are — there’s a SuuntoPlus app that can help. Search for the one called Anaerobic Threshold and follow the instructions. Be warned: they will lead you through a tough workout. After a warmup, you’ll be asked to run as fast as you can for 30 minutes. At the end, the app will tell you the heart rate that corresponds with your lactate threshold.
Here’s the useful part: on your watch, go into Settings, then Training, then Intensity zones. Choose either the Default HR zones for all sports (recommended if you aren’t sure) or choose a sport under the advanced setting. Here, you can set the boundaries between your zones. The boundary at the bottom of zone 5 (and thus the top of zone 4) should be set to the number you got from the threshold test. If you’d like to tweak the other zones, Suunto has more information on how to calculate numbers for the other zone boundaries. Unfortunately, they are not set automatically.
Use the Cadence Coach to Work on Your Running Form
Cadence is one of the easiest aspects of running form to change deliberately. Cadence means how many steps you take per minute — either per leg, or total. The quicker your steps, the shorter your stride, and the easier it is to keep your landing leg underneath you rather than overstriding. Quickening your cadence tends to fix a lot of common form problems.
A SuuntoPlus app called Cadence Coach gives you a handy way to work on this, and it’s particularly useful during warmups. Install the app and make sure it’s enabled for your run.
By default, the app sets a target of 80 to 90 strides per minute — that’s 160 to 180 total footsteps per minute. It will beep at you if you’re running faster or slower than this range, so you can use this screen to drill your form.
If that range isn’t right for you at a given moment, press the bottom button and the watch will monitor your cadence for one minute. Whatever cadence you run during that minute becomes your new target. You can use this feature to set an easier goal if the default recommendation feels too aggressive, or to dial in a cadence appropriate to the terrain and workout you’re doing that day.
Use the Sprint App to Automatically Record Your Strides
Stride workouts are a great way to add some speedwork into your routine without needing to measure anything specific, but there’s no easy way to review a stride session after the fact — at least, not on most watches. The Sprint app on SuuntoPlus provides a dedicated tool for exactly this purpose.
The Sprint app begins with a 10-minute timer to get you warmed up, then automatically detects when you accelerate into a stride and records each effort as a lap. This makes it easy to review your sprint splits after the run and track how your speed develops over a session without any manual lap-button pressing required.
