So I decided to purchase a training plan online to try to help get some structured workouts in. I’ve been piecing together bits and pieces from different sources including this site so far coaching myself.
The plan calls for doing a 30 min test to figure out what my zones are. Sounds perfect let’s get a baseline. I do the test and find that my threshold is 5:28 min/mile. I covered 5.5 miles in the 30 minutes with my average being 5:28. The plan says that’s my threshold and I feel it’s accurate. I should be able to hold that for an hour trained. So now down to the zones. Here is how they are broken down.
Zone 1: 7:17 - 6:50
Zone 2: 6:50 - 6:04
Zone 3: 6:04 - 5:45
Zone 4: 5:45 - 5:28
Zone 5: 5:28 -
I was like ok this seems like a very short range. For easy/endurance runs, it says to run in the middle of zone 2 at 6:26 min/mile. That would be just a little bit shy of what my estimated marathon pace would be.
That’s what I have a problem with. I’ve asked the people about the zones and they just say that it should feel easy if my threshold is correct. I tell them that while yes, I can run at that pace, that shouldn’t be my endurance run pace. They even say conversational pace. I’ll let you know right now if I’m going at 6:30 pace I’m not talking to someone with a full conversation. You’ll get bits and pieces if that.
I think the 6:26 works out to over 80% threshold. Is this right in context? The bottom of zone 2 is set at 80% threshold.
My question is even if I can run at 5:30 miles, shouldn’t I still be doing my easy runs in the 7:00 - 7:30 even 8:00 min/mile pace? These should be recovery days anyway. I’d bury myself running easy days at 6:26 basically never letting off the gas.