2026-01-18 / 21.1K / Hong Kong Marathon
January 18 was a milestone for me: I finished my first half marathon at the Hong Kong Marathon.
For race day, I chose Shokz OpenFit Pro because I wanted to know how open-ear noise reduction would behave when the environment was not controlled: crowds, wind, announcements, traffic-adjacent noise, and the shifting sound of the course.
This was not a lab test. It was 21.1K of movement, sweat, glasses, pacing, changing noise, and fatigue — the kind of use that makes small product details stop hiding.
Before the start, I still checked the fit carefully. That small setup moment is real race behavior: once I start running, I do not want the product to ask for attention.
Three things stood out. First, stability over distance: even with glasses, I did not need to adjust the fit once the race started. Second, comfort: open-ear listening avoided the sealed-ear fatigue I often notice in long use. Third, clarity at a lower volume: with noise reduction on, I could keep the volume lower, hear music and pace prompts clearly, and still stay aware of the course.
I also noticed runners wearing AirPods Pro and even AirPods Max. Traditional ANC can be powerful, but in a long race the trade-offs are obvious: sealed-ear discomfort or extra weight for more than two hours. For me, open-ear noise reduction gave a better balance between awareness and focus.
The details I trusted most were not dramatic: whether the frame stayed quiet with glasses, whether pace changes made the fit feel different, whether the sound helped without pulling me away from the course, and whether awareness mattered more than immersion.
What stayed with me after the race was not just that the product felt stable. It was that long-duration use makes honesty unavoidable. If something presses, slips, overheats, distracts, or adds fatigue, a race is long enough for it to become obvious.
The race reminded me of one engineering truth I trust: long, messy, real use is where product experience becomes hard to fake.