Zone 2 Training for an 800m runner looking to do 5k now.

Training Advice/Discussion 5k/10k

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1 year ago 11/17/2022 4:06am EST

re: Zone 2 for fast twichers?

I have a neighbor who runs ultras, I think he holds the 6h and 12h national records. He just raced a 5K downhill (nothing too crazy, about -10m for km 2, 3, 4 and +10m uphill for 5th km) in low-mid 15s. He trains, most of the time, at 6:00/km (~10 min/mile).

I used to train similarly to the ultra guy and run my easy runs that easy, too, and raced a 3K @ ~3:40/km, following Hadd's approach, so very little speedwork. I ran 10K in 37:15 in October and can probably race a 3K @ ~3:20/km, my easy pace is now 5:00-5:15/km (~8:00-8:25/mi), for which my HR stays at 145-ish on average (my max is 197 and I'm always running with a chest strap).

1 year ago 11/17/2022 4:59am EST

re: Zone 2 for fast twichers?

Zone 2 for fast twichers? wrote:
I ran the 800 in college. 1:52.0 PR. I have maintained decent running shape the last few years, recently running a 5k in 15:50.
Reading more about Zone 2 (65%ish max heart rate) benefits and a fellow endurance athlete (cyclist) I talk to says I should focus on this zone a lot more. When I look at some of the people I competed against in cross country in college, I do see many of them running somewhere in the range of 130-140bpm.
For me however, pretty much all of my runs are around 150-160 bpm. To achieve 130-1:40 for the whole run I would have to average 9:00-10:00 minute per mile most days. My current training feels very easy already—typically 7:00-8:20 on easy days. Is there anyone actually running 5ks in 15:30 who are also running 9:00 pace easy runs? Endurance was never my strong suit and I can’t really see how training this slow would be beneficial for someone who already has to overly rely on their anaerobic strengths to get them through a 5k. Additionally, I don’t think I could even run this slow, it would essentially be a fast walk.
Any wisdom from the crowd?

As you don't know your HRmax, training by HR is point and clueless. Forget the
formulas to calculate HRmax, they are all inaccurate.

However, we have your current 5k race time, which is very good. So without knowing your HRmax, you should train by pace. I recommend for you the range of 06:50-8:00 min/mile for easy runs. So what you do at the moment is quiet good.

>08:00 are junk miles for you and you can stay at home and rest instead, would be better.

#23

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1 year ago 11/17/2022 9:34am EST

re: lexel

lexel wrote:
As you don't know your HRmax, training by HR is point and clueless. Forget the
formulas to calculate HRmax, they are all inaccurate.
However, we have your current 5k race time, which is very good. So without knowing your HRmax, you should train by pace. I recommend for you the range of 06:50-8:00 min/mile for easy runs. So what you do at the moment is quiet good.
>08:00 are junk miles for you and you can stay at home and rest instead, would be better.

Please just stop. You keep banging the drum about HRmax.

How many athletes do you coach, by the way? Or have you ever coached?

1 year ago 11/17/2022 12:05pm EST

re: V

V wrote:
Part of my point is also that zone 3 isn't really even moderate. It's still really quite easy for most well trained runners. I think it was Alan Couzens that posted something not too long ago on Twitter this retrospective look at former great runners and deduced that they were all doing 70-80% if volume in zone 2... But it was rationalized by descriptive terms from their training like "easy" or "conversational".
Not paces. Not HR. Not data.
Thats all fine, but it could just have easily been the dreaded zone 3 that injures you in an instant and leaves you lethargic for months on end (please no one miss that sarcasm).
I just think people are MASSIVELY overplaying how strenuous 70-80% of max HR is to train at for a large number of miles.

I am guessing most elite guys train a lot at the bottom of zone 3/top of zone 2. People here like to focus on the 2nd/3rd runs at 7:30+ and ignore the faster moderate run elsewhere in the day. People here quote Nick Willis complaining college kids running too fast but he is running a a lot of 6:30-7:00 miles (i.e. not fast but a long way from the 9+ mins). That 30s slower than the college kids trying to run everything at 6:00 does matter. Just don't go crazy the other way.

Hopefully we start getting elite publish HR data and training logs when they retire. It is one thing to see a week of training. It is another to see 6 months.

I expect if our OP slowed down by a min, nothing would really change. If they want to double training time, running slower will let them do more work.

I have always wished Al Sal explained why he was pushing Mo and Rupp to run 5'40s(call it 90s off 5k pace) instead of like 6:15. He tended to have decent reasons for everything he was doing....

1 year ago 11/17/2022 12:50pm EST

re: fkkfkfkfkf

Wouldn't forcing yourself to run extremely slow alter your running mechanics and inculcate bad habits? Why not incorporate some cross training instead?

1 year ago 11/23/2022 7:27am EST

re: snowdays

snowdays wrote:
I have a 50.1 400m PR (from a decade ago) I've been avging 35mpw for almost 3 years now.
I don't train by HR, but I do see that my easy runs are generally in the 155-160 range. Lately this is ~7:40 pace easy mileage for a high 16s 5k.

A number of heart rate by minute means nothing if you don't know your maximum.

And this maximum does not depend on age like you sometimes read, it varies a lot from an individual to another. It is likely you have an high max heart rate, in which case you Z2 is higher than what you think.

That said, being myself a fast twich 800 runner, I runner slower easy pace than people of the same 5-10k level as me. When in 35min 10k fitness I usually jog at 9min per mile, sometimes even slower if tired legs.

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