ZONE 2 RUNNING | Why Pace IS NOT the best option

Zone 2 sessions make up a significant contribution to our training load and is ultimately where a big chunk of aerobic adaptation comes from. On we you know what your Zone 2 actually is, why is Pace not the best option for monitoring your intensity during these sessions and what are the alternatives that will provide a better quality session?

[@alanshrimpton6787]

Hey Nick, I have a few comments about this. I use both pace and HR. I run in undulating area and use pace for flat and downhill and HR limit for uphills. Reason is if you use HR or power down hills you have to run far too fast to get my HR up so I use pace to limit how fast I run down hill. Then up hill like you said you can't maintain the correct zone if you keep the pace so I keep the pace until my HR climbs then I slow so I don't go above the zone I am aiming for. For me I also find my HR doesn't change that much on how I am feeling. Sometimes I'm tired from work but if I run to the same HR I run just as fast so I have to just reduce my pace when tired. I don't think HR changes that much well it doesn't for me anyway and I do shift work so how I feel changes from shift to shift each week. I do wear a chest strap and have 2 actually so both behave the same.

[@NJSportScience]

Of course there is a few individual components to this. One point i want to highlight is the unnecessary desire to sustain a “perfect” intensity. If Power/pace/Hr etc lowers on a decent, it doesn’t mean you’re not obtaining the stimulus. In a 3 Zone system you would still be in Zone 1, and spending time lower isn’t really a negative impact on the session, which is why some coaches/practitioners actually don’t really recommend a lower limit to the zone. For example, I would typically find minimal overall differences between an athlete who ran exactly to 145bpm compared to one who allowed a bit of fluctuation/lowering of HR due to downhill sections. If anything trying to have exactly perfect intensity regulation may work against you form a peripheral fatigue side of things as you correctly mentioned in trying to run too fast downhills to maintain HR or Power which may place and added layer of fatigue post run.