To add, Costco has the Air Pod 3 pro on sale for $199 and that includes two years of AppleCare which would be a plus for anyone running.

Pair the Apple Ultra watch with the Pro 3's and you'll have a comfortable pair to wear and great sound. Air pod 3s also have heart rate sensing tech along with other things like active noise cancelation.

https://www.costco.com/p/-/app...applecare/4000404510

Also, I can use my Garmin Instinct 3 Solar to make payments just like Apple Pay.

It also receives and displays my texts and iPhone notifications. I have a Ring camera and an AI bird Id feeder, and I’m always getting notifications with people walking by and/or birds feeding.

You can configure the screen with your preferred data, and you can get other screens from Garmin’s ConnectIQ app. I leave mine original with time, date ,heart rate, battery strength, and sunrise/sunset. Did I mention the nifty flashlight feature!

Back to Apple Watch, if they could last at least a month between changes, I probably would have gotten one since I’m an Apple guy. Also, I like their style. Additionally, my son-in-law loves his, and he said he will continue to upgrade with each next gen.

Garmin. Before being stuck fighting the Big C, I ran every day and/or road my mountain bike on the weekends. I’ve been through several Garmin watches…….moving up from bare bones to moderate models. Not the $500-$600+ ones, but good middle of the road ones. Currently wearing a Garmin Instinct.

And…on my watch, there are about 100 sports/activities it will track. Out of that hundred, there are different types of runs, which should easily cover most needs.