Easy Money$

First up in the training zones series; easy aerobic running, or as it's been commonly referred to as of late "zone 2." It's nothing new, but the term "zone 2" has gained a bit of popularity lately. This particular zone seems to be something a lot of athletes struggle with, especially newer runners. While there's plenty of good scientific data out there regarding the benefits of it, the practical application of this type of training is not always easy to understand. I'm giving a quick shout out to my guy, Jason. He was quick to see the ways of the easy run and seemed to grasp the benefits of this "zone 2" training he heard so much about rather quickly. It's extremely important to us as endurance athletes to utilize this type of training as it is the foundation of everything else we do.

So, I think it's important to realize that our body has three main energy systems; phosphagen, glycolytic and oxidative. I'm not going to go into detail on the intricacies of those systems, so we'll simplify their usefulness into three respective categories; quick power lasting a few seconds, sustained higher intensity lasting a few minutes, and long term output lasting several hours. All three systems are working at all times! However, depending on the needs of the task at hand, how much fuel those systems are producing at any given moment varies. For endurance activities, the oxidative system dominates the majority of the time, so as endurance athletes, we want that system working really well. Therefore, we need to spend a lot of time training at intensities that are going to produce the greatest adaptations for that particular system.

What are those adaptations? Again, I'm going to do the quick and dirty version here in no specific order. Beginning with increased cardiac output: the product of stroke volume (how much blood your heart pumps with each beat) and beats per minute. This is something very real we can see in a somewhat indirect way when we look at pace and beats per minute, which is also one of the best ways to see progress in fitness. I'll explain that more later, but the fitter you get the more blood your heart pumps with each beat, which means it takes less beats for the same output, which equals a stronger more efficient heart! Another extremely important adaptation is increased mitochondrial density and function. Basically, this means your cells will utilize fuel better, particularly fat, our main fuel source. I'm leaving a lot out here, but there are loads of benefits with this adaptation, not just fitness related, but overall health. It's worth a dig to see how vitally important this is for everyone. Last one I'll point out here is increased capillary density. Simply put, more capillaries to the muscles means more oxygen for those muscles. All these together help create more efficient, fitter athletes, but these things take time to develop. They don't happen overnight, this is why consistency and time in this particular training zone is so important.

Now to the fun part, how do you figure this stuff out and use it? It can be hard for people to do right, and just about every runner I coach struggles with it at one point or another. A common way to do it is by heart rate. It's not the only way, but until athletes figure out how it feels it's the easiest way to get them in the ballpark. There's a lot of nuance with heart rate, and a lot of factors come into play like age, environment (esp. heat!), current fitness level, etc. For the vast majority of people the HR should be below 150 for this kind of work, but there is a fairly wide range. Generally, most people will fall in the 130's-140's. For fitter, more experienced athletes, I usually tend to go with pace, but with all of my athletes I use some combo of pace, HR and RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion).

A lot of people recommend the talk test, which can also be helpful, but it looks weird talking to yourself running alone in your neighborhood... you might get a reputation doing that. It's not always practical in practice, and I have a lot of athletes that can talk A LOT all the way up into their tempo paces. However, it's great if you're running with a buddy, and I would say you should be able to talk in full paragraphs. As mentioned, I use a combo of factors; age, athletic history, current fitness level based on races or time trials, and I would note I never use just one factor to determine training zones. Heart rate zones can be calculated using heart rate reserve, as long as you know your resting heart rate and have an idea of what your max might be. I would avoid just using the old 220 minus your age, you need some indicator of fitness level to get a close estimate. Lactate testing is great if it is available to you. For the most part, you can set your zones relatively easily, but I think a multi-factorial approach is best.

How strict do you need to be with it? Not all that strict in my opinion. I separate easy days into a few categories depending on fitness levels; "recovery", "easy", and "moderate easy." For most people I only use easy and recovery. I give them a fair amount of wiggle room with "easy," but I want them within an 8-10 beat range which is generally where the "zone 2" will fall. Recovery will be below that, and as long as they stay below the pace or HR limit I set for the workout, I don't really care how slow they go. I want athletes to listen to their bodies on those days and recover when needed. For faster more experienced athletes, I narrow some of these zones down more, so I may only give wiggle room of 5bpm, or 10-15 sec range on paces, depending on what they are training for, where they are in a training cycle, how hilly it is where they run, etc.

How much of your volume should easy work be? Generally, 70-80% of your total volume/duration, for ultra runners it may be more (you should also be doing faster stuff too ultra runners!). This can vary throughout the year, but this is a pretty good guideline to stick with in relation to total volume. As far as minimal volume, that depends on the person and where they may fall in their race season/training cycle, for most people I try to keep 3-5 hours weekly.

How do you know it's working? Earlier, I mentioned you can see your cardiac output indirectly with pace and HR. Over time, we can establish baselines for ourselves. Most of us will let our fitness levels vary across the year, but we can use this heart rate and pace correlation to indicate our current fitness levels. I'm going to give some examples using my own numbers.

I've been in a volume build lately as I get prepared for some spring races and a 100k in May. I was working through some foot issues in the fall, so mileage wasn't very high for me, and my fitness levels were relatively low. Both of these runs above were "easy" runs for me. I do this route almost weekly, conditions were similar on both days. The one on the right, Jan 6th, was a great run for me. I rated it a "3" on effort (1-10 scale) and noted I felt fantastic. The run on the left was Jan 24th, same route with a little piece added on. You can see my legs were a little sore, I still felt good overall, but also noted it was "fast for the effort" meaning I could tell I was running noticeably faster and not working any harder than usual. You can note the differences in average heart rate and paces for the workout: 8:54/143 bpm compared to 8:37/139 bpm. It's pretty clear I gained some fitness since early January, faster pace and lower heart rate for the same perceived effort. Looking at all of my workouts over the past month you can see this general trend happening, and I'm definitely feeling it.

That brings me to my next point, which is hitting this zone intuitively. I don't really need to look at my watch to know if I'm in the right zone or not. Granted, I've been training and competing for 30 plus years at this point, but I think this is a skill everyone needs to develop. I can guess within a few beats what my heart rate is based on my own internal mechanisms when I'm out on easy run. One of the reasons I don't run with music or anything is, I'm simply paying attention to what's going on with my body; the rhythm of my feet hitting the ground, the effort my legs feel, how I'm breathing. I've always got this systems check going on in the background as my mind wanders while I'm cruising around. Periodically, I check my watch, more so to make sure I don't overdo it on certain days, and I tend to use the HR monitor to keep me in check more than anything. I like to compare where I'm at pace wise on certain sections that I run regularly too.

Easy is a mindset. For a lot of athletes I work with, it means getting past their ego, or the "grind," and "no pain, no gain" type of thinking. Enjoy the views, use it as your creative thinking time, or just zone into the systems check and the rhythm of your feet hitting the ground. Grab your buddy and chat it up, or hop into an easy run with a local group. Do what works for you, change it up when needed and find ways to enjoy it. When you do it right you get so much out of it.

I'd summarize it with this: be patient and learn to execute the purpose of the workout. For easy days, it's spending time in that particular training zone and doing it consistently. Use the tools you have to make sure you're working at the correct intensity. Once you can do that, work on the next level of competency which is, hitting that zone intuitively. Give it a shot when you're out there, see if you can guess what your heart and/or pace might be based on your effort. Make small adjustments till you find that right rhythm and effort level to be in the zone your want. As your fitness increases, you'll see those paces get faster for the same relative heart rates. You'll also see your resting heart rate drop. Your "quality" workout will improve and you will notice you can spend more time at higher intensities, and you'll feel much stronger on the back end of those types of workouts and races. The payoff's are huge when you get it right... Easy money!

Thanks for reading,

FF