Talk to me about Zone 2 running

Tigga · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 2:32 pm Post subject:

So it has been a long longgggg time since I posted here and my renewed mojo for faster training has been a learning curve for me to find my ‘oldman’ running training pace😊.
I do know my natural speed (in comparison to my younger days) is long gone. I’m now in my 40s and closer to 50 than 40… I’m still trying to figure out just how that happened!
I have always stuck to the same training principles:
• Most of my running is done at around 45sec/km slower than 10km race pace – On fresh legs this is easy peasy, on tired legs this hard graft, but I have found this pace to be easy on the body for recovery even if I am feeling buggered and it’s a struggle to hold the pace. This is an honest 10km predicted pace and it will get slightly quicker as I get fitter.
• I don’t train to HR and never have, and don’t see a point to it either personally – everything for me is about pace. If most of my running is done sticking to my 45sec rule… I find the ‘cardiac drift’ running at this pace improves remarkably. I’ve just come off a 5 week base building block, I have taken my long run from 16km to 28km (5 week build) and it’s quicker by 5sec/km and the average HR dropped by ~5bpm, my peak HR has dropped from 15bpm over my average to under 10bpm higher than the average bar the last 2km when I have cranked the pace up in the last 2 long runs.
• I don’t train to HR, but analyse data after to make sure the training I’m doing is making me more efficient and when I do get to doing some faster stuff I have the engine to make the most of it.
• Long runs pace vary a little depending on when I do my long run, it may be slower the day after a big training day but generally the target is 45sec/km slower than 10km race pace
• As I have got older, my natural speed has gone. In my youff… I could stick to that 45sec rule and my natural speed meant my 5-10km race pace would improve without mega fast intervals I could get my 10km within 3mins of my best. Now to get myself within 3mins of my peak 10km pace I have to toil with what feel like silly fast intervals. 30 years of training abuse to my body I feel like I am on a knife edge of injury all the time, partly because of years of training, partly because I've had a couple of serious altercations with vehicles and always come off second best
• I’ve got my 10km down to within 5mins of my absolute 10km pb (12-13 years ago) with little more than one tempo run a week at around 10km race pace but on tired legs – to get it faster… it will require 5km paced reps (up to 6-7km worth) with short recovery. I personally, do not see a point to running anything faster than that… if I can, my weekly training load is too light and I look to increasing the weekly loads. Ie rather than run intervals faster with longer rest, I reduce rest or increase volume depending on the ‘phase’ of training I’m in.
• For example mattsurf says his 5km is 19:30 that’s 3:54/km – running at 3:20/km is almost pointless if you’re aiming to improve running, I would say that pace is a pace to run when peaking for an event for a bit of leg speed, not when in any build phase (base endurance or speed endurance)
• My current weekly mileage 65-70km of running and 6-7hrs on the bike – I wouldn’t say I’m time crunched but If I am able to head out for 40mins of running then I build on this on a weekly basis and may end my 4 week block at 60mins. At my peak in my youth I may have got that up to 80-85km of running and 8-9hr on the bike… I may get there yet, but at the moment it’s small building blocks and far smaller weekly incremental increases in load than in my younger days. So far… injury free and getting faster.

twhat · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 1271 Location: London

Buzz_ · Joined: 19 May 2007 Posts: 453

gingerbongo · Joined: 21 Sep 2012 Posts: 1733 Location: Devon

mattsurf · Joined: 28 Sep 2016 Posts: 852 Location: Zug, Switzerland

Thanks all for the comments

I thought that running 50km per week was pretty good, looks like many of you are running a lot more than this. However, with my time constraints, I think that 50k is probably as much as I am going to, and I do worry about injury

I am back in UK this weekend and planning to run parkrun on Saturday morning, will be interesting to see how it goes.

I like the idea of running 45s/km off my 10km pace, this is pretty much what I have been doing

twhat · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 1271 Location: London

twhat · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 1271 Location: London

gingerbongo · Joined: 21 Sep 2012 Posts: 1733 Location: Devon

Poet · Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 10148 Location: Your Mum

twhat · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 1271 Location: London

Poet · Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 10148 Location: Your Mum

But define "decent"?

It's too woolly.

I'd say, as a massive general yardstick, that 75% of the World Record is "decent"

Distance, WR, 75%
5km 12:38, 16:51
10km 26:18, 35:04
Half Mara 58:18, 1:17:44
Mara 2:01:39, 2:42:12

It's what used to be classed as a "decent" club runner now means something else entirely. And it's not just sport.
A film scoring 6, or 7, from 10 is now "average"
Erm, no. That would be 5.

Quelle Surprise! But 5 is terrible!

Erm, no. That would be 3.

twhat · Joined: 28 Oct 2011 Posts: 1271 Location: London

errr.... if you run 75% of the world record you set a new world record, by some margin.
But looking at age gradings... 17.39 was when i was 42 and was an age grading of 79.13%. Looks like i actually improved with age as i ran 17.41 as a 44yr old last year which has an age grading of 79.55%

Like a fine wine..... and all off less than 50k a week Very Happy

Buzz_ · Joined: 19 May 2007 Posts: 453

When I look at race time prediction charts, my times line up pretty well from 3K to half marathon, but the marathon prediction is always too aggressive. I assume this is because my training tends to be lower mileage and you can't blag a marathon.

When I was concentrating on running, I arrived at pretty much the same 10K time off low mileage/high intensity including 2 track sessions a week, and then again off lots of LSD with hardly anything above race pace. So either worked for me. Now most of my running has to fit into a lunch hour, so I don't do many runs >1 hour, therefore go for the quality of quantity approach.

explorerJC · Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 16060 Location: Farthingstone

Poet · Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 10148 Location: Your Mum

Twhat - Yes. Bad wording. But you knew what I meant. Phew!
Age grading is “within” 75% of the WR (is that right?)
You run 79.55%, so yes, that’s proper decent.

eJC - 5 is the median and mean of a 0-10 scale.