November 28, 2022
I have confirmed that this training is working at least in one dimension. My runs, though still slow, are now a bit faster, and with less speed modulation needed. After about 1.25 miles of warm up, my heart rate settles into a narrow band and I can zip along at the relatively brisk pace of 13-14 minutes/mile with almost no walking to keep my heart rate in zone. Zone training does seem to be improving my aerobic conditioning.
This is very exciting in the sense that having been a runner all of my life, I find constant pace modulation, and walking, to be quite frustrating. It’s a lot more satisfying to just be able to jog along, even if my pace is still very slow. It feels like an accomplishment.
There are still bad days, however. We all have them when training. There are days that you set out feeling confident that you are going to run a good pace, but a few miles in, reality is different. You are pushing harder than you expected to and you can’t quite keep the pace you planned to run. The more miles you run, the more out of sync reality and your pre-run expectations become. The same thing happens with zone training. Only now the disconnect is between the pace you were hoping to maintain and the heartrate range you are limiting yourself to. Somedays they are in perfect sync, other days, I have to slow back down to 15-16 minutes per mile to stay in zone. Ugh! I know.
I’ve read that our zone boundaries can vary from day-to-day based on how well we slept, how we feel, etc. My experience also shows that how fast I can run within a zone also varies by how well I feel. When I am well rested and feeling strong, the same heartrate produces a much faster run than when I am tired.
But I did have some great days in the past week. On Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I ran a steady 8 miles and even added in eight 15 second Zone 3 sprints in the last quarter of the run. It felt great to go fast again, if only for a few seconds at a time. But, running fast even for short bursts required a counter (more on this in a future post); on Wednesday I set out for a Zone 1 hike in the mountains. I started out hiking through the snow but found that I was below Zone 1 pace. I had to jog uphill to get into Zone 1. I took this as a good sign. I managed 4.8 miles of Zone 1 jogging. I had to cut the run short and get back to the car as darkness was quickly setting in.
I had gotten a Covid booster that morning. By Thanksgiving morning I wasn’t worth a sh*t. Oh, I could lay around and eat and watch tv all day, but the mRNA particles were doing there thing and my body engaged in the battle. I could see all this play out on my Garmin. My stress levels were screaming even when I was laying around eating or sleeping. The fight lasted a full 24 hours. Like most of America, I awoke Friday morning in a haze, but my body eventually defeated whatever the mRNA concoction delivered. Tada!
Friday and Saturday were tough runs. The battle was over, but I was not myself.
One last note for this week: Early last week, after about 160 miles of slogging, I finally felt confident enough to alter my zones around a bit. First, I increased the top of Zone 2 from 119 to 124. I am quite sure the top of Zone 2 for me is actually closer to 130, but the move to 124 gives me just enough more beats to let me move a bit faster and help keep me motivated. I am confident in making this adjustment in large part by feel. I am running 6-days a week, and I am not struggling. I am able to complete my planned workouts. I would exhaust myself if my gauge of my fitness didn’t match reality.
In reading The Uphill Athlete, I learned that the top of Zone 1 is about 10 percent below that of Zone 2, so I shifted the Zone 1 cap to 109. I still do not know how to set Zones 3, 4, and 5, so I split my remaining heart beats between the top of Zone 2 and my 159-maximum heartrate in thirds. At a minimum, even if this isn’t exactly accurate, I believe I am getting closer.
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