How to Run in Zone 2/3

In the previous post on How to Run Slowly, I talked about training zones and that to get good at running in Zone 2/3 you just had to to “use a heart rate monitor and every time your heart rate creeps up into Zone 4, stop running and walk until your heart rate drops again”.

Here I talk about how you might go about that in more detail, what my personal experiences are, discuss some hints and tips and finally, hopefully, provide some reassurance that if you are struggling with this too that you are doing the right thing and to keep going.

Tools for the Job

I was always very against technology on my runs, my run time was about being free and communing with nature, it was visceral, animalistic, there was no place for phones and fancy monitors and all the rest of it. No, no, all that stuff was for work and that side of life I was trying to escape from for a little while. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, if that’s your thing too – carry on. I ran perfectly happily for years before I finally gave in and bought a sports watch.

Part of the problem was I didn’t like any of the sports watches available, not mentioning any names, but they all just seemed really expensive and total overkill for what I actually needed which basically amounted to route tracking, heart rate monitor and progress reports and when I read the reviews, they just didn’t seem that great.

Then I discovered Coros (I am not trying to sell you a watch here, this is not a sponsored article or anything, this is just my personal experience). In particular the Pace 2 seemed ideal. Reasonably priced, good, stable and fast locking onto GPS, really good heart rate monitoring, and the software for my phone and on the website looked fantastic.

Coros Pace 2 watch showing time of day and a few other parameters like heart rate number of steps etc.

Despite my modest requirements, I found other functions on the watch that proved invaluable and most notably for this discussion, the ability to set an alarm to alert me whenever my heart rate reached threshold.

Working with the Tools

It seemed all I needed to do, was every time I set off for a run, just set the alarm to activate if I go above zone 3 and use this to stop me from training in those higher zones all the time. Except, for me, it wasn’t as easy as that. I had to keep stopping running and walking way too much. I couldn’t even get up the relatively gentle slope on one of the easier sections of my run without walking.

I would run for a bit, my heart rate would go up to, and beyond threshold, so I would stop running and walk until my heart rate came back down again. This was okay, tedious, frustrating, but okay. I was doing the right things even if it felt a bit clumsy and wrong.

The breakthrough came when after a while I started to notice that there was a lag between what I was feeling and what the watch was telling me. This lag created an ‘oversteering’ effect, where I was running in threshold for too long, then walking for too long before the alerts. Instead of being a nice stable heart rate working at a regular pace it was ramping up and down too much.

I am a big believer in learning how you feel in different zones. Sometimes this can be quite subtle, but over time as I paid closer attention, I became sensitive enough to be able to predict when I was about to go over into zone 4/threshold before it happened. And on the other side, learn when my heart rate had reduced enough to be able to start running again.

This helped me pace myself and very gradually learn to reduce the ‘oversteering’ effect caused by sticking closely to what the watch was telling me and the lag in the watch’s heart rate alarm response time to my changes in effort.

Then one day it happened.

I ran, in zone 2/3, all the way up the gentle slope, the ‘oversteering’ problem had gone and I was just running, steady away.

To say I was delighted would be an understatement. This was the key to achieving longer distance runs. I had successfully trained my body to adapt to running over the exact same course, in a very similar time, but instead of puffing and panting my way up in a max effort bundle of stumbling stress, I was relaxed and calm; working, but with tons of capability in reserve!

The advantages of this are many. Not least the fitness gains, but also having reserves of energy is great for avoiding trips and accidents, of course the general risk of injury is reduced, and ultimately this is how we should all be running if our goal is distance.

What about you? Did you have a similar experience? Maybe it was different for you?

Until next time – keep running! (In zone 2/3)

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