Andreas Almgren won the 2026 New York City Marathon on Sunday in 2:06:01, in the first marathon of his life, 13 seconds clear of Yemaneberhan Crippa. Six weeks ago he was winning the world half marathon title. On Sunday he was the fastest man in New York.
Now here is the part that matters for anyone reading a watch site. Almgren's training watch, according to COROS's own athlete profile, costs $249.
That is not a typo, and it is not a knock on the watch. It is the most interesting gear story of the fall, because the biggest marathon in the United States was won by an athlete whose training setup sits at the cheapest end of the serious running watch market, while the industry keeps pushing $999 flagship titanium.
What Almgren Actually Uses
COROS publishes an athlete page for Almgren, last updated October 26, four days before Central Park. It is specific about his setup:
- COROS PACE 4 as his watch
- COROS Heart Rate Monitor, the optical armband and not a chest strap
- COROS Training Hub for the build
The same profile shows how he trains: weekly training loads around 1,000 with very little week to week variation, a Base Fitness score that climbed from 115 to 149 before the European Championships in Birmingham. His Birmingham 10,000 meter gold came with a negative split that COROS logged in detail, 14:05.07 for the first 5,000 at 165 bpm average, then 13:17.74 at 180 bpm.
He won that race in 27:23.44, a championship record that had stood since 1978. Then a half marathon world title in Copenhagen in 58:06, a European record. Then a marathon debut in New York. All of it built on a watch that weighs 32 grams in its nylon band.
One honest caveat before we go further: COROS has not published a race-day gear breakdown from New York, so what is confirmed is that the PACE 4 is his training watch and the armband is his HR sensor. We are not going to claim more than the brand itself says.
The $249 Watch in Question
The PACE 4 launched on November 10, 2025 at $249, and it is a strange product in the best sense. Why it punches above its price:
- 32 grams with the nylon band, 40 with silicone
- 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen
- 41 hours of GPS in all-systems mode, 19 days in daily use
- Built-in microphone for training logs and Voice Pins
- Running fitness scores, race predictions, personalized marathon plans and Virtual Pacer
- Full offline maps arrived in the September 2026 update, with the catch being the storage it eats
You can find the current listings on Amazon for the PACE 4 if you want to see where the price actually sits today. If you would rather stay in the Garmin ecosystem, the Fenix 9 Pro listings show what the top of the market costs by comparison.
None of that is exotic. It is a light watch that tracks GPS accurately, holds a charge for a week of hard training, and does not distract you. For a man running 2:06 in New York, that is the entire job.
What the Extra Money Actually Buys
Put the PACE 4 next to the flagships and the price gap is dramatic:
- COROS PACE 4 Pro is $449, and it buys a 1.47-inch 3,500 nit AMOLED, a titanium bezel and 60 hours of GPS in a 43 gram body.
- Amazfit Cheetah 2 Pro is $449.99, with sapphire glass, a Grade 5 titanium frame, offline maps and 32GB of storage.
- Garmin's Fenix 9 Pro line starts at $999 and runs to $1,399 depending on case size and solar.
That is a $750 to $1,150 gap between Almgren's setup and what the market calls the best. What you get for the money is real, by the way. Sapphire does not scratch. Titanium does not scuff. Solar extends a trip. Onboard maps matter on an unfamiliar trail with no signal. Multi-band GPS earns its keep in a canyon.
What you do not get, at any price, is a faster marathon. Weight and data quality are the two things a runner actually feels on race day, and a $249 watch is already excellent at both.
The Runner-Up Is an Amazfit Athlete
Crippa, who ran 2:06:14, has been on Team Amazfit since June 2024. Zepp Health announced him alongside triathlete Morgan Pearson, describing both as brand ambassadors who work with the company's R&D team on product feedback.
So the top two men in New York both represent brands that undercut Garmin on price and lean hard on the running segment. Kamohelo Mofolo took third in 2:06:26. On the women's side, Sheila Chepkirui won in 2:24:36, six seconds ahead of American Jess McClain and seven ahead of defending champion Hellen Obiri.
We are not going to tell you which watch Chepkirui wore, because nobody has confirmed it. That is the difference between a gear story and a gear guess.
If You Are Buying This Week
The fall marathon majors just wrapped up, which means a lot of people are about to buy their first serious GPS watch, and the instinct is to buy the expensive one. Here is the shorter version:
- If you run road races and care about pace, cadence and training load, a PACE 4 class watch covers it. Our full COROS Pace 4 review covers the accuracy and battery numbers in detail.
- If you want maps on the wrist without a phone, the September 2026 offline maps update changed what the $249 tier can do.
- If you split time between trail and road and want the lightest thing that still has topo maps, the Pace 4 Pro is the middle step, and we reviewed it here.
- If you want the rugged case, the sapphire and the multi-band accuracy on technical ground, that is what the $999 tier is for. Buy it for the terrain, not for the speed.
The tri-band GPS breakdown is worth reading if you are weighing whether the accuracy upgrade is real for your routes or just marketing for your kind of running.
And if you are replacing an older watch to train for a spring marathon, the honest answer is that a $249 watch and a $999 watch will both hold a pace alert and both upload to Strava. One just costs $750 less.
Bottom Line
Almgren built his New York win around a watch that costs about the same as a pair of carbon-plated racing shoes, made by a company that does not do fashion plays. Crippa finished 13 seconds back and runs for a brand whose road race watch, the Cheetah 2 Pro, sells for $449.99.
The flagship watch market is not going away, and it should not. But a 31 year old in his first 26.2 just took the biggest marathon in the United States on a training setup built around a $249 watch and an armband. If you take one thing from Sunday, take that.
Sources: NBC Sports' full 2026 New York City Marathon results for the men's and women's elite top 10, cross-checked against Reuters' race report and FloTrack; COROS's own athlete profile for Andreas Almgren, last updated October 26, 2026, for his PACE 4 and COROS Heart Rate Monitor setup and his 2026 championship record; COROS's November 2025 PACE 4 press release for the $249 price, weight and battery specifications; and Zepp Health's June 2024 announcement of Yemaneberhan Crippa joining Team Amazfit. One caveat worth stating plainly: COROS has not published a New York race-day gear breakdown, so this piece describes Almgren's confirmed training setup rather than asserting what was on his wrist at the finish line.
