[LM]

I am in the middle of one of your running training plans and so far seeing great results and really enjoying it!

I have a questions on my heart rate accidently entering zone 3 from time to time during runs (especially trail runs with variable terrain, not so much on flat road runs):

As an example today I went on a 2 hour aerobic hill run in rolling trail terrain. Terrain like this I am constantly switching from running down hills to jogging flats to power hiking the uphills to keep myself in the right heart rate zone. However, I find that I often overshoot slightly and find myself in zone 3 for 30seconds or so at a time until I get a chance to slow my heart rate back down. This is mostly because I’m trying to stay near the top range of zone 2 for most of these runs, I am pushing the pace as much as possible while trying to say in zone 2,”racing the heart rate monitor”. The two-hour run today (and most days I do a run like this) resulted in 14% of the time in Z1, 77% of the time in Z2, and 7% of the time in Z3 (most of the Z3 was less than 157 BPM and the max heart rate achieved momentarily the entire run was 161 BPM)

Note that my aerobic threshold is 152 BPM and I am a reasonable new and slow runner (my treadmill drift test was done at a 11:10 min/mile pace) (my “10% rule” is calculated to be about 20% right now)

SO MY QUESITON: is pushing the pace like this and spending 3-8% percent of my long base building runs accidentally in Zone 3 detrimental to your training methodology? Is this a good strategy since im feeling good or would I be much better off backing off a bit and not even getting 1% of the workout to accidentally land in zone 3? In order to achive this the run would need to be preformed lower in my zone 2 range to stay away from that upper edge. Any advice here would be greatly appreciated!

I am recovering quite well from these runs. So, I am more concerned about messing up the desired metabolic training effect by doing this. I am less concerned with if I am recovering alright from a slighly harder run. Will spending a small amount of time in zone 3 durring these runs shift the training effect away from my aerobic system and be counterproductive, stalling my progrestion as an endurance runner? or is pushing the pace like this a tiny bit better than the alternative of always training between Z1 to middle of Z2?

[Scott Johnston]

Great question!  It’s hard to keep in the HR zone 2 when you’re trying to stay close to the top of it.  Short bumps up into Z3 during your aerobic base runs will not have a negative effect on the aerobic base you are building.  I’m glad you are seeing gains. Don’t lose sleep over this.  Now if you spent a continuous 15-30min in Z3 that’d probably have some negative effect.  From the sounds of your note it sounds to me like you’re doing this very well.    Keep it up and retest your AeT after 6-8 weeks and see if your AeT hasn’t moved up 5-10 bpm as well as your pace.

Scott

[Brian Bauer]

a mistake that it took me a long time to figure out was: Zone 1 means easy all the time, not easy +segments of hard = an easy Z1 avg.  my mistake was constantly thinking “I’ll run the whole way up this hill…a few moments above Z1 doesn’t matter as long as the whole run averages out to Z1″….those moments can stack up and accumulate to ~20% of your Z1 run.   It took a segment of periodization for it to click ” hard means hard, easy means easy”…cheating your easy day impacts your hard day.  as I am mainly a trail runner, on easy Z1 days I now have no problem walking over the crest of hills to ensure that my HR stays Z1.

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