[running_postman]

First time post! Apologies in advance if this is not the place for this post.

After reading Training for the Uphill Athlete and doing the cardiac drift test, I found my zone 2 pace of 20:00 mph at 120 bpm. Not very fast I know. I also recently read Slow Jogging by Hiroaki Tanaka, which advocates for running at half of Vo2Max, a pace referred to as “niko-niko”. According to my math, such a pace would fall below zone 1 running.

My question is, would 50 percent of Vo2max pace be zone 1 intensity, or would it fall into a zone below 1? According to my math, I have the below intensities:

%
50-60 “niko-niko”
61-70 recovery
71-80 zone 1
81-90 zone 2 (AeT)
91-100 zone 3 (AnT)
100+ zone 4 (vo2max)

Topic

[Jane Mackay]

Jane Mackay on September 2, 2023 at 1:09 am #80706

Hi running_postman,
In the UA zone method, the top of Zone 1 is calcuated as being 10% below the top of Z2. so if your Z2 max is 120bpm, then top of Z1 would be 120-12 = 108bpm, in which case niko-niko would be in your recovery zone.
I’m confused about your list of intensities, since you say your top of Z2 is 120 but in the list you have it as 90.
The good news is, with regular training, your Z2 should move upwards quite quickly.
Jane