The Brownlee boys battle our battery

lis

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For those of you who are avid readers of our weekly Friday Roundup posts you’ll have seen a set of British brothers really take the challenge to our Xperia Z3’s battery life. Admittedly, these aren’t just any brothers, they’re Alistair and Jonny Brownlee, British Olympic (2012) and Commonwealth (2014) triathlon champions.

The Brownlee Boys pic Masters of endurance, the Brownlee Brothers know a thing or two about going the distance in rain, wind or shine. So who better to put our Xperia Z3’s battery to the test to see who can last longer in a two-day triathlon challenge?

The challenge took place a couple of weeks back, and saw the boys take our Xperia Z3 travel by bike, dirt track and lake to the Scottish boarder. We wanted to catch up with the boys following their challenge to learn a little more about them. You can check out some of the photos and videos below to see how they get got on.

Looks like you really put Xperia Z3 through it’s paces, were you surprised by how well it coped?

Alistair Brownlee (AB): I don’t have a great track record with phones so it was a good test, especially as we had it working in water on both days. Jonathon Brownlee(JB): It lived up to its billing. Great photos and easy to use, and the battery lasted two days.

So you’re obviously pretty competitive; who had the better Lifelog stats?

AB: We’re not entirely sure, the lead has changed a lot since we did the challenge.

JB: Watch the videos and you’ll see who the winner was…

How did the stats compare to the sorts of speeds and distances you normally do for a triathlon?

AB: A triathlon for us is a 1 hour 45/50min race and we are basically going flat out for the whole thing, so the two days we did getting up to Scotland were done at a much slower pace than we race at. JB: But the water was so cold in Loch Lomond that we weren’t that far off race pace, it was fresh.

Lake selfie

Lifelog’s all about capturing moments and measuring statistics from your life; being professional athletes you must have to record things that the normal person doesn’t. What sort of day-to-day stuff do you have to record that might be a bit out of the ordinary?

JB: In terms of training for a global athletics event, not too much to be honest. There are some specific sessions where stats are very important, like looking at steps taken and speed etc. and they get looked at a bit more closely as the season approaches, but otherwise there can be too much information available that you lose track of why you are actually doing, from a technical side of things, during the session. We record our power when we ride, which is what most pro cyclists use to gauge their training these days, but its our coach that looks at that rather than us mostly, and it’s really useful to review at the end of the month to make sure we are on track.

AB: We know what we need to do to get ready for our season and we have been doing it for a while, which is different from someone wanting to focus on a particular challenge or to get fit. Getting feedback can then be really useful, and also very motivational, as you see your times drop for a certain distance or you can do the same time at a lower heart rate, for example.

Would you rather live without a phone or a bike?

JB: Without a phone, definitely – Both of us love the Outdoors above anything else.

And lastly, what’s your favourite phone app?

AB: Anything to do with the camera. I would love to play with the Multicam app with a wireless QX lens. You could capture some really cool stuff.