A few months ago I had the opportunity to run my first Behobia - San Sebastian. The excitement and desire to run the demanding 20km of this legendary race was growing as the days went by. My main goal was to enjoy, but I do not pretend to deceive anyone. To enjoy without giving away a single minute to the time. The resulting ratio between enjoyment and sporting ego had to be 50/50. I will use this review to explain my experience with the Suunto 9 peak, in preparation for the Behobia and also, while we are at it, my experience of this fabulous race. Previously I already published the test of the Suunto 9 Peak. If you haven´t read it, I recommend you to do so. Let´s start.

NEW FEATURES:

Since its launch, until today, through various updates, new functions have been incorporated. These are two of the most relevant: 

Multimedia controller: The Suunto 9 Peak, has no memory to store music. You simply control music playback on your smartphone. 
Default responses for notifications. These default responses can be modified and selected from the Suunto app. 

Behobia - San Sebastian, an experience I recommend to every runner, at least once in their life. Here goes my B/SS: 

11/14/2021 Race day. Believe it or not, it's not raining and the temperature is perfect. I leave the thermal and gloves in the car. The Suunto 9 Peak informs me that we are at 14ºC. Seeing the storm they had in the last edition that was held, and the rainy days of the days prior to the race, we have been brutally lucky. The atmosphere is spectacular, we are more than 20,000 runners. The organization never tires of repeating that everyone must wear a mask if you can not leave the 1.5 m distance with the people around you. I warm up while I look for my starting box. I greet friends and co-workers. I'm nervous, impatient, upset, I don't know if I'm going to be able to run at my pace, I have a lot of people in front of me. But what I do know is that I really want to run.

10:13h It's been 13 minutes since the first runners were given the start. And fulfilling the timming marked, the start is given to each box of runners according to the marks they want to do. Now we give the start to the runners of the box number 6. Fast start, to look for a good position and cut minutes to the time, as we seek a faster time than that marked in our box. The public from km 0 giving everything. Once past the first kilometer, I regulate to stick to my race strategy. 

My Suunto 9 Peak on the main screen gives me the following data: elapsed kilometers, total time, average pace and heart rate. These are the data that interest me, that's why I set it up like this. I'm checking that the pace is optimal. I intend to maintain a constant pace on the flat. On the climbs, regulate the pace a little and on the downhills, push a little, without forcing and thus recover the time lost on the climb. And from the 17th kilometer of the race, push as hard as you can to shave a few seconds off the time. 

In the previous review of the Suunto 9 Pak, I reported that I had some problems with the pulse sensor. Specifically, I refer to some erroneous reading, where I marked too high pulse peaks. Well, I have to say that by being conscientious about setting the Suunto 9 peak correctly before each workout, these erroneous readings have been reduced to a minimum. So, as they say, it is wise to rectify, so there you have it. I agree with Suunto that their pulse sensor is more reliable than the previous one and that the data it has given me during these months has been very reliable. I'm not saying that it has never given me a bad reading, but the errors have been minimal. For the calculation of the race pace, I let myself be guided by the rhythms in the series of training, the pulsations in the long runs and the post-training recovery. The tracking of these data I have of course been analyzing through the Suunto app. Where the summary of these is very visual and helps you to get an idea of your fitness. For the popular runners that our knowledge about training, performance and physiology of the sport are reduced, it helps us a lot to get an idea of whether we are doing things right or not. 

For the large number of runners in front of me, I don't find it difficult to maintain a steady pace. I go through km 5 within the target time. In no time the first important climb begins, until we reach Gaintxurizketa to later be able to press and recover the time lost on the climb, with the descent that takes us to Errentería, km 11.5 and past the halfway point of the race. I continue with strength, the kilometers pass me very fast, I'm having a lot of fun. Km 13 uphill to Capuchinos, a short climb, even with strength in my legs it is not too hard, there is less left, let's go! Now only discount kilometers to km 17, where the last climb ends, Alto de Miracruz. How hard it gets, here you can already feel that the legs are starting to weaken and it's hard to keep the pace. Three runners who have left together, we are encouraging each other, so that the forces, already scarce, do not leave us. Once we reached the top of the Alto de Miracruz, the only thing left to do is to empty the tank. 1 km downhill and 2 km of endless straight. Until then I was looking at the Sunnto 9 Peak calmly to check that everything was going as planned. Now it's time to give it all. The public shouts as if we were all winners.

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