Took what everyone said into consideration and slowed down my next 5k way down into zone 2 only.
Took me just under 40 minutes to do 5k at almost 8:00/km pace!
My zone 4 pace is about 5:15-5:20/km so not great either but jeez, that was painfully slow. Hoping to build up my cardiac fitness and VO2 max so zone 2 means a much faster pace.
Hopefully these zone 2 runs pay off and I keep my gym gains.
@sam1978 You're gonna feel much fresher lifting weights the next day. I used to do high intensity long runs waaaayy too much when I started lifting and resulted in me spinning my wheels trying to build muscle.
@sam1978 I'm curious in general how are you coming up with what zone 2 is for you? I run regularly and just run without much regard.
Basically, there seem to be a bunch of ad-hoc 'zone 2' things which give me different ranges and I haven't done a vo2 test to say for sure. Using some methods, the bulk of my running is in zone 2, in others I'm above.
@lanman87 So, this is tricky. For most runners, it's fine to have a general rule like "you should be able to talk but not sing"
For very strong runners, however (as in, you're a threat to win smaller races), Zone 2 is likely to actually feel very difficult. Killian Jornet, for example, does almost all of his miles in Zone 1.
I'm not on Killian Jornet level, obviously, but even I find that I have to be working pretty hard to get out of Zone 1.
@sam1978 Zone 2 running always feels painfully slow to me too, like it takes more energy to run slow than at a decent pace! Most of my runs are in zone 3, and I might get some zone 4 climbing hills, but it feels comfortable to me at that pace. I tried the zone 2 thing for like a month then said screw it, zone 3 is still an aerobic range
