The Running Thread - 2026

[GollyGadget]

Congrats on the PR!! Feel proud!!

I’m curious on the HR chart you shared, 50% in zone 5.. is it something that you (or anyone in this thread) usually see in your races?

I just started 3 yrs ago, with no previous fitness experience or exercise before, then I try to stay in zone 2-3, maybe a bit in zone 4 but when I see HR going to upper zone 4, I just take a step back to walk longer… In my head this helps me to keep energy available to finish… but at the same time I wish to have better finish times… am I holding back too much?

Thanks

First and foremost, the HR zones depend on you setting them up correctly. If you haven’t customized your zones, they aren’t going to be very useful. Even with the customization, I would only rely on them as a loose guideline. I personally prefer %hrr but there are other methods.

As for your question, yes, you are holding yourself back on race day. For easy training runs, your method is perfectly fine. If you do any speedwork, you should see your hr in the upper zones.

I just looked at a few recent races and the only one where I had considerable time below zone 4 was the wdw marathon.

1. Most recent half marathon


2. Half marathon PR - much better weather & training


3. WDW Marathon


4. 10K PR


All that said, some folks don’t like pushing their pace and are happy keeping it chill. That’s a perfectly valid way to run your races if that’s what you prefer.

 

[Zutroy]

I’m curious on the HR chart you shared, 50% in zone 5.. is it something that you (or anyone in this thread) usually see in your races?

I just started 3 yrs ago, with no previous fitness experience or exercise before, then I try to stay in zone 2-3, maybe a bit in zone 4 but when I see HR going to upper zone 4, I just take a step back to walk longer… In my head this helps me to keep energy available to finish… but at the same time I wish to have better finish times… am I holding back too much?

Thanks

Most of my races I’m in zone 4 or 5. Looking at my past marathon stats, I averaged an HR of 165 bpm. I spent 2:33:47 in zone 5, 35:17 in zone 4, and 1:40 in zone 3. This is fairly typical for a race pace. I absolutely ignore whatever zone I’m in and focus instead on my perceived rate of exertion to guide my effort. To race at this level you have to train at this level, so make sure you have threshold runs in your training plan.

 

[Fenway1970]

Congrats on the PR!! Feel proud!!

I’m curious on the HR chart you shared, 50% in zone 5.. is it something that you (or anyone in this thread) usually see in your races?

I just started 3 yrs ago, with no previous fitness experience or exercise before, then I try to stay in zone 2-3, maybe a bit in zone 4 but when I see HR going to upper zone 4, I just take a step back to walk longer… In my head this helps me to keep energy available to finish… but at the same time I wish to have better finish times… am I holding back too much?

Thanks

So, I've wrestled with the whole HR and "Zone 2" training concept for a while myself. Staying in what the app thinks is Zone 2 for me basically means I can't run at all. Even an easy jog puts me in Zone 3. I asked a friend who's a much better runner than I about it and what she told me was this, which she said came from her running coach:

If you haven't gone out and physically determined your max HR by running hard while wearing a chest strap monitor, then the default numbers on most apps aren't really all that reliable. One, watches are not accurate enough, and two, most apps use the 220 minus age formula or some variation of it which is only an estimate. So, you're already dealing with at least two sources of error. Throw in the natural variability of HR based on weather, elevation, fatigue, etc. and the number your watch is reporting becomes even more unreliable.

She says for most amateur runners (a group in which she includes herself) it's fine just to base it on perceived effort and that "conversational pace" should be just that. If you can hold a conversation while running without panting or gasping for breath, then that's your "Zone 2" regardless of what the watch is telling you. That pace will of course vary from day to day based on conditions, just like your actual HR will.

When I'm running alone on an easy run, I will test that by reading street signs aloud or singing Happy Birthday or saying the alphabet, and if that feels easy enough I don't worry too much about the watch telling me I'm in Zone 4. Allowing for weird looks from the neighbors at the crazy jogger talking to himself, it works pretty well.

 

[RuntheMouse]

A quick race report:

I raced a 10-miler yesterday with the intention of running for effort because often I do longer runs to “PR in fun.” The last few times I have tried to race a half marathon, I have had a panic attack around mile 9 because I get in my head. No panic attacks yesterday which was good!

I let go of some expectations before even crossing the start line because of the weather. It was in the upper 60s at the start with 80% humidity and wind and 77 when I crossed the finish line. So much for my hopes for a cool spring race! I am pretty bad in humidity/wind so the conditions weren’t in my favor. I did a Peloton meditation earlier in the week which had the mantra “let’s see what happens” so I decided to adopt that for the race.

I started off strong in the first half. I did 90 second run, 30 second walk intervals. My first mile was a little fast but I was getting out of the crowd and it started with a downhill. I got hot very quickly, and by the time I reached the turnaround I felt like I was struggling and changed my intervals to 60:30. There was a small amount of elevation during the run in short bursts (344 feet total), and I had to walk a lot of the inclines. I was disappointed that I was struggling but still finished.

For nutrition I ate a Maurten solid in the car, drank pre-workout and ate half a bag of gushers 15 min before, and then during the race had 2 scoops of Tailwind in my 18 oz bottle and tried to eat 1-2 noogs every other mile. I usually eat them every mile but it was hard for me to eat in the heat. I also ate a couple of Salt Stick chews. They had a few water stops and I had a cup of water at each (wish there were more stops tbh).

My finish time was 2:04:06 which was slower than expected but still a 15-minute PR (2:19:11 waaay back in 2015). So that’s something to be proud of! I wish the weather had been cooler so I could really see what I can do but I raced what was given to me.

View attachment 1062496
View attachment 1062497View attachment 1062498

Congratulations on your PR! I too am sensitive to the heat so I give you extra props for the conditions!

 

[sandam1]

Just a heads up to people who use some "less known" nutrition, hydration and other running products that are not made in the U.S. - you might want to consider stocking up. I recently found out that one of my favorite products - Xact Nutrition - is not longer going to be available in the U.S. due to duty tax issues. Thankfully, I live about 15 minutes from the Canadian border and can periodically make the 30 minute drive to the nearest Canadian running store that carries it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see other products become unavailable. These are such niche products with such a small audience that I can see a lot of small companies just decide that selling to the U.S. either isn't worth the associated costs or have the cost of these products go up exponentially.

(Please let's NOT turn this into a political conversation. I just wanted to share my experience.)

 

[The Expert]

I did a Peloton meditation earlier in the week which had the mantra “let’s see what happens” so I decided to adopt that for the race.

I love this. And congrats on your PR!

This was a 10-miler but your stats shot shows 9.93 miles. Was the course off? Or did you just forget to start your watch or something?

 

[PrincessV]

I love a good HR convo! Mostly because living in FL, it’s really, really hard to extract much from running HRs, so it’s fun and interesting to hear from people running in more normal weather locations. My HR is impacted SO much by not just heat, but specifically the sun: I can see (and feel) it spike in real time between shaded and sunny stretches of a run, when neither my pace nor the air temp has changed a bit. It feels like less effort doing sprints on the treadmill in 68º (and HR verifies it IS less effort in that regard - it’s hard to even get it up to 140) than slow run/walk intervals in 90º and full sun (where HR bumps quickly over 140 and doesn’t want to come back down). Doing anything with that data and adjusting for weather would require more math than I’m willing to expend, so I actually don’t think about HR at all while running: I just go by perceived effort… but I like being able to see HR when I’m feeling particularly rough at a slow pace in the heat, because I need that visual to remind myself there’s nothing wrong with me: “it’s just the heat, stupid.”

On HR zones, I can attest to how very wrong the 220-age approach can be. That calculation puts my supposed max MUCH lower than it actually is. I can hit that number just picking up the pace, nowhere near an actual max. I haven’t done an intentional test in a while, but got chased by a loose dog last year and if that wasn’t my full max, it was close enough to use as a basis to verify that the zones I edited are close enough to reality.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

This was a 10-miler but your stats shot shows 9.93 miles. Was the course off? Or did you just forget to start your watch or something?

The course was off sadly. I noticed most of the mile markers were off by like .1 from what my watch said and I guess it was about .05 short at the end (Christy hit 9.95 so her watch rounded it up to 10 miles).

Edit to add: I thought I included this in my story but apparently not. There was a guy in front of us the whole race and we were like let’s try to send it and pass him at the end. We weren’t going to make it until right before the finish line HE TURNED AROUND. I was like what?! and he said his watch hadn’t hit 10 so he was going to wait to cross until he did… you do you dude lol. I was like at least wait until after you cross to add the distance? I’ve had so many races over the distance that I’ll take one that is slightly short lol.

 

[Naomeri]

Congrats on the PR!! Feel proud!!

I’m curious on the HR chart you shared, 50% in zone 5.. is it something that you (or anyone in this thread) usually see in your races?

I just started 3 yrs ago, with no previous fitness experience or exercise before, then I try to stay in zone 2-3, maybe a bit in zone 4 but when I see HR going to upper zone 4, I just take a step back to walk longer… In my head this helps me to keep energy available to finish… but at the same time I wish to have better finish times… am I holding back too much?

Thanks

I can't speak for anyone else, but my heart rate is often focused more in the upper zones, even on training runs. My heart and lungs would prefer that I not be a runner, but the rest of my body does better when I do run, so I've informed my heart and lungs that they can just shut up and deal with it

 

[fatmanatee]

Bearing in mind that everyone is different, I was dealing with high HR (>180) awhile ago and I wasn't too thrilled about it, seemed to be due to recovering from covid and then higher temperatures. Still gets higher in the summer but not as bad now.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

In theory, the line between Z4 and Z5 is your lactate threshold, and you generally shouldn't expect to be able to maintain that for more than about an hour. However, I always think that Garmin's zones look a bit suspicious. Like, in my HM PR, I spent less than 15 minutes in Z5:


And in my 5K PR, I only spent slightly more time in Z5 (which is mostly because a 5K is much shorter, but still).


So if your Garmin says you're spending 45 minutes or 60 minutes or more in Z5...it probably has your zones wrong.

 

[avondale]

In theory, the line between Z4 and Z5 is your lactate threshold, and you generally shouldn't expect to be about to maintain that for more than an hour. However, I always think that Garmin's zones look a bit suspicious. Like, in my HM PR, I spent less than 15 minutes in Z5:
View attachment 1062683

And in my 5K PR, I only spent slightly more time in Z5 (which is mostly because a 5K is much shorter, but still).
View attachment 1062684

So if your Garmin says you're spending 45 minutes or 60 minutes or more in Z5...it probably has your zones wrong.

For at least some Garmin running watches, you can edit your HR zones. I have done this on my Epix gen 2. But that means you need to decide what your zones should be, which is a whole different conversation.

 

[Dopey 2020]

Apple lets you put them in manually
I laughed at my Dr years ago when he gave me the 220-age speech, said I guess we won’t be talking much about running.
At 54 I have no problem hitting 195, been over 200 on a couple outliers a few years ago. Your max is just that, what can you get to and hold a moment without dying and he agreed yeah one doesn’t fit all but makes a good average for people.

I use the Karvonen formula which takes uses heart rate reserve, that is the difference between your resting and max. Find your max, find your average resting, and math it for 60%,70%,80%,90%. Based on perceived effort levels my zones seem fairly accurate considering the accuracy of a watch while you’re bouncing around. Good enough for a guideline anyways to get some data points.

 

[KCO5988]

Congrats on the PR!! Feel proud!!

I’m curious on the HR chart you shared, 50% in zone 5.. is it something that you (or anyone in this thread) usually see in your races?

I just started 3 yrs ago, with no previous fitness experience or exercise before, then I try to stay in zone 2-3, maybe a bit in zone 4 but when I see HR going to upper zone 4, I just take a step back to walk longer… In my head this helps me to keep energy available to finish… but at the same time I wish to have better finish times… am I holding back too much?

Thanks

Zone 5 can only be held for a few minutes by definition. Think the last few minutes of an all-out-5k and how you feel like you're going to die or speed work. Most watches estimate your zones, so if you don't accurately set them up it will tell you that you spent an hour in zone 5 but that is physiologically impossible. You may be holding yourself back though if your heart rates aren't set up properly.

 

[PrincessV]

Another thing about HR reads from watches... they can be wildly wrong. My Coros this morning was reading 170bpm while I was doing a slow jog, not even remotely out of breath, and no question that my HR was nowhere near that high. Then it jumped to 128 and stayed between 120ish and 135ish the rest of my run, which matches the effort I was using (and manual checks verified this.) I never trust anything on my watch that is far off from what I feel!

 

[RuntheMouse]

My running is complicated by being on a beta blocker for an arrhythmia. So HR zones are messy for me. I tend to use RPE and have adjusted my zones on my Garmin to give me a loose idea of where I’m at. It’s messy but a lot of trial and error and I have a working system.

 

[lookingforsunshine]

In theory, the line between Z4 and Z5 is your lactate threshold, and you generally shouldn't expect to be able to maintain that for more than about an hour.

I am sure my zones are incorrect. But I also think I oscillate between Z4 and Z5 because I do run/walk intervals. So I’m not holding Z5 more than 90 seconds, and then during my walk break my heart rate goes down (slightly).

 

[eminemilie]

My running is complicated by being on a beta blocker for an arrhythmia. So HR zones are messy for me. I tend to use RPE and have adjusted my zones on my Garmin to give me a loose idea of where I’m at. It’s messy but a lot of trial and error and I have a working system.

I've been on and off a few different medications during the last year, and it is CRAZY how much medication messes with your HR. I've had resting HR between 60-90 and had easy runs that were in the 170s (I am not on this medication anymore for various reasons, including this)

 

[eminemilie]

Question for those of you who have been running a lot longer than I.

What would cause very tight/tender calf muscles pretty consistently? I've been dealing with this for a few months...tail end of Princess training and weekend. I then took about a month off to rest and recover some nagging injuries (include this). I'm started back last week with 4x2 mile runs at easy pace. During Princess, I wasn't sore until after I finished running, but now I'm sore while I'm running and it's slowed my pace.

Even on my off days they're both tender. I was shaving my legs and was shocked at how tender they were. It really was more tender than painful, if that makes sense. But it's driving me crazy. I do have an appt with PT, but not until the end of the month.

 

[RuntheMouse]

Question for those of you who have been running a lot longer than I.

What would cause very tight/tender calf muscles pretty consistently? I've been dealing with this for a few months...tail end of Princess training and weekend. I then took about a month off to rest and recover some nagging injuries (include this). I'm started back last week with 4x2 mile runs at easy pace. During Princess, I wasn't sore until after I finished running, but now I'm sore while I'm running and it's slowed my pace.

Even on my off days they're both tender. I was shaving my legs and was shocked at how tender they were. It really was more tender than painful, if that makes sense. But it's driving me crazy. I do have an appt with PT, but not until the end of the month.

Have you tried foam rolling or using a Theragun? My calves get tight every so often but the Theragun, even though super painful, works like a charm!