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For athletes, there's nothing worse than running out of juice - in every sense of the word. After all, energy crashes and dead watch batteries both spoil the fun of a sport.

In the early days of GPS watches, a short battery life was the norm. While some product details advertised over 10 hours of battery life, only a fraction of this runtime was available in normal use, making things tight during a marathon. Modern GPS watches have a much longer battery life, but come with factors that can impact their longevity. For example, many watches now have an increasing number of smartwatch features that guzzle battery power.

However, manufacturers are all aware that there is a certain target group for whom a long battery life is extremely important. It’s now possible to go for several days without having to charge these watches, both during everyday use as well as when training.

How to save battery charge and extend runtime

• Switch off: extra features might make new sports watches more appealing, but they also drain the battery. It’s therefore a good idea to switch everything off anything you're not using. Don’t need smartwatch options? Then your mobile phone doesn’t need to send notifications to the watch. And you can go further: why not switch off Bluetooth or fitness tracking for the entire day?
• Display: the display on a GPS watch is also a major battery drainer. Dim it as low as you can while still keeping it comfortable to read. New AMOLED displays have an ‘Always On’ feature which is not necessarily required. If possible, switch off the display just like you do with your smartphone. Whenever you look at your watch, the display will turn back on.
• GPS mode: there are various options for GPS tracking. For example, you can retrieve activity information once per second. Both this and smart software allow you to track your running route with extremely high accuracy. However, it doesn’t always need to be this accurate and some watches allow you to adjust the tracking mode. Garmin's UltraTrac mode is a power-saving example that tracks your current position just once per minute. While this is far less accurate, it does preserve the watch battery.