Every fighter's camp has a roadwork problem: you need to track pace and distance without babysitting your phone for three miles in the dark before the gym opens. A GPS watch solves that, but the "best" one depends entirely on what you're actually training for and how much you want to spend finding out.
I'm currently testing a couple of these myself as I build back into running after a long break, so this isn't a spec-sheet summary — it's what actually holds up on real roadwork.
Budget Pick
No-frills GPS tracking, solid battery life, and Garmin's pace coaching without paying for features you won't touch as a beginner. The right call if you just need reliable mile splits for roadwork.
The Sweet Spot
This is the one I'm actually running with right now. Lighter than most Garmins in this price range, genuinely excellent battery life, and pace accuracy that's held up on every road session so far — worth the jump over the budget tier if roadwork is a real part of your training, not an afterthought.
Premium Pick
Full training load metrics, recovery tracking, and a bright AMOLED display — built for someone tracking camp progression in real detail, not just logging miles. Overkill if you're just getting into roadwork, but the right tool once you're training seriously.
If you're serious about roadwork but don't need every metric under the sun, the Coros Pace 4 is where the value actually is. I'll update this once I've got more miles on mine.
Pair whichever watch you land on with a chest strap if you want genuinely accurate heart rate data during interval work — wrist-based sensors tend to lag during anything explosive, which describes most boxing conditioning work.