HR Zones – Traditional cf TFTNA

Hmm

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the zones on your watch, or even the percentage-based heart rate zones in the book. Using heart rate to assess effort is really just used to determine what that effort is relative to your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds. Ie, at or below the aerobic threshold (most of your training should be here) between AeT and AnT (relatively little training should be here), and above AnT (some sprint and interval work here). The ratios of time you spend in each category will vary according to your goal (particularly the duration of the event and how variable your effort will need to be during that event).

For establishing aerobic threshold, the approach of using a percentage of your max heart rate is almost worthless because it assumes everyone has the same aerobic fitness. It’s much better to use the protocol listed on this website (https://uphillathlete.com/8-diy-steps-to-figure-out-your-aerobic-threshold-indoor/) to find your personal aerobic threshold heart rate. Once you have that, keep in mind that it is an approximate estimate and may vary according to training (recovery) status. The best measure of whether your workouts are aerobic is whether in general you feel recovered from them the next day. Another way to verify your workout is aerobic is to analyze heart rate drift: https://uphillathlete.com/heart-rate-drift/

Your anaerobic threshold is your all-out 1 hour pace/heart rate. It’s probably not immediately necessary to find this.

I’d recommend finding your aerobic threshold and estimating what percentage of the time you’ve been running with a heart rate at or below the threshold. If it’s much less than 80%, you may want to slow it down if your plan is to build a base for mountaineering objectives.