 So, suppose you don't have a watch, you don't know your heart rate while you're out running, you don't know your pace, all you know is how you feel. How then do you gauge how hard you're running? Because we have these different intensity zones, zone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 typically. And in my last video I talked about what easy running means, particularly in terms of what zone to stay in and what heart rates correspond to that zone and pace. What is an easy pace? What is a fast pace? In today's video though, I want to pretend like we don't have any of those objective metrics to go by and we're just going to go by feel, so I want to describe to you how the different zones feel and how to know whether or not you're doing the right intensity at the right time. So, if you think about it, humans, we are natural born runners. We are really born to run. We have it in us, it's just there are several aspects of our anatomy that is geared towards long distance running. We're not sprinters, we can sprint, but we're pretty slow compared to a lot of other animals. We're not born sprinters, but we are long distance runners. We can cover vast distances on foot at a slow pace, but of course we can train ourselves to run pretty fast too. Now, in training, it's very important to be in tune with your body. That's an essential sort of skill set that you have to develop as an athlete, knowing your body. And one of the benefits of knowing your body is that you can better gauge whether or not you're running easy enough on your easy days. If you're heading out on a recovery day, you don't want to run hard, you just want to accumulate some really easy time, get some blood flow to the muscles. But if you don't have a watch to go by, how would you know whether or not you're running easy? That's what I want to get into today. First of all though, I want to say that if you are serious about your training, there's no need to shun technology. I would recommend getting a watch, getting a heart rate monitor and actually tracking those metrics because it can be very useful. But today, we're going by feel. All right, so first of all, the relevant zones are zone 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, okay? So speaking, zone 1 is that super easy recovery run type of zone where your heart rate is like below 70% of your max, something like that. Zone 2 is that bread and butter everyday zone where you're running on your long runs and on your easy runs. It's an easy zone, typically something like 70 to 80% of your max heart rate maybe. That's zone 2. Zone 3 is that marathon pace type range in the middle. You're still aerobic, maybe between 80 to 85, 86, maybe up to even 90% of your max heart rate. It's below the lactate threshold. Then there's zone 4, which is really where the lactate threshold comes somewhere in there. Maybe lower zone 4 is just below threshold, higher zone 4 is just above threshold. And that depends a little bit on your fitness, where your threshold is, but somewhere around that 84 to 89% of max heart rate type range. And last but not least, we have the zone 5 range, which is like all out or not all out. It's hard running, also known as VO2 max pace, right? You're running at your maximum aerobic capacity. After that, we're getting into like paces where heart rate doesn't really matter. Things like sprints and stuff like that, we're not going to talk about that today. So how do you know if you're in zone 1? Let's start with that. Well, this is going to be subjective, right? Because I'm just going to be able to share my experience. But this is how I feel in zone 1. When I'm in zone 1, I feel like I am absolutely comfortable. Like there is no amount of discomfort. Like for an unfit person, this might be an easy walk, right? When you go for an easy walk, I think most people can relate to this. An easy walk just feels refreshing, relaxing, easy. You can think about all kinds of things. You're not at all in any amount of pain or discomfort. You're just smooth, you know, that's zone 1. When you're really barely breathing, okay? Barely breathing. You can notice that you are breathing more than when you're sitting still, obviously. But you're not working hard in any way, shape or form. It's super easy. That's zone 1, okay? And you've got to be strict. In the beginning, zone 1 might be a walk. Like I talked about in my video about easier running. I'll put a link to the video here. Next up is zone 2, which is also an easy zone. Both zone 1 and 2 is called easy. And in zone 2, I'm definitely steadily running. It's not like my zone 1 run, which is really slow. It's a steady, you know, effort, but it's very sustainable. And I would say that it's comfortable, and at times, towards the upper end of the range, perhaps it's just slightly uncomfortable, slightly. But it's conversational. And I'm sure you've heard that term before, conversational pace, talking pace. That means that you're able to talk, you're able to have a conversation with no issues. You can say full sentences, you're not gasping for breath in between words, that sort of thing. That's zone 2. So zone 2 is comfortable. I wouldn't call it relaxing like zone 1 is, but it is comfortable. You're fine in zone 2. Now, zone 3, that's when you're starting to work a little bit. You've got to put in a little bit of effort to stay in zone 3. And of course, a lot of beginners will actually head out on zone 3 runs almost on all runs, which is not a good idea. It's that zone where, to a certain extent, it is still conversational pace. You can still hold the conversation. But maybe you're struggling a little bit more than you did in zone 2. It's not in zone 2, if you're running with someone, you want to have a conversation. But in zone 3, it's probably a little bit more of an effort to maintain that conversation. You're struggling a little bit, but it is sustainable for a very long time. Marathon pace is typically within the zone somewhere. So when you're seeing even the elites running at marathon pace, they're in the upper ends of that zone 3. So they're not breathing like crazy. It's not like an all-out effort. It's a sustainable effort that you can keep up for hours. But you are working harder if you sort of get what I mean. It's sort of like an in-between zone. You would never call zone 3 easy. It's not easy to run in zone 3. But it's not hard either. It's sort of sustainable. Some people might refer to it as comfortably hard. Zone 4. Now, this is an interesting zone because this is where the lactate threshold comes in. And the lactate threshold also corresponds very closely with your ventilatory threshold. And your ventilatory threshold is the point at which you will start breathing more labored. You'll notice that there's a certain point where you're always breathing increasingly more and more harder you run. But at a certain point, your breathing becomes labored. You have to actually, you're pushing out and pulling in air like a machine. And that's usually around the ventilatory threshold, which is corresponding with the lactate threshold. I'm going to get into what the lactate threshold is in another video. But basically, this is the beginning of hard, I would say. Somewhere in zone 4, you will find yourself very uncomfortable, I would say. And at the upper end of zone 4, you're very uncomfortable. But you can sustain it for a while. You can technically run at lactate threshold for about an hour. That's the physiological limit to how much time you can spend around that lactate threshold intensity. So whatever pace you feel like you could sustain for an hour in a race, you know, when you're really pushing it and when you're well tapered and rested beforehand, that's your lactate threshold pace. That's your lactate threshold intensity. So again, in training, this is not conversational pace. You're not having a conversation when you're running in zone 4. You might, you know, throw out some words here and there to communicate with your other run training partners. But you're certainly not keeping conversation up. Some people say, this is where the conversation stops, zone 4. OK, so you're working hard, but it's sustainable, it's uncomfortable, and you're breathing heavily, zone 4. Now, last zone, zone 5. This is definitely not a conversational pace. You are not going to even really want to throw out almost any words in this zone. This is at your VO2 max intensity, which is close to your max heart rate, even. It's the type of pace that in a race, in an all out race, you could probably keep it up for like 8 to 10 minutes, maybe, 8 or 10 minutes. But in a training session, you would probably do intervals, and you'd probably do them for like 2 to 5 minutes in duration. So whatever pace you feel like, yeah, 5 minutes, that would be tough. That's kind of that intensity. You're breathing like a train, OK? You're just like breathing like crazy. You are working hard, you're pushing, you're not at all relaxed. It is very painful at times. It is very uncomfortable, and you're just dying to get it over with, sort of. That's the VO2 max intensity type of effort. So there you have it, zone 1, relaxing, zone 2, comfortable, zone 3, uncomfortable, zone 4, hard but sustainable, zone 5, hard and unsustainable, OK? That's your 5 training zones and how much time you should spend in each one of them. That's a topic for another video, but I'll refer back to that video I made last week about EC running. Now you have to get to know your body in order to learn this, and you have to get to know what types of heart rate correspond with what types of pace and intensity and effort for you. And the great way to do that is to use a heart rate monitor and to get objective data while paying attention to how your body feels. That will yield the best results. Thanks for watching, if you have any questions you can send me a message at the Loan Trail Facebook page, and I'll be sure to reply. Please subscribe of course to this channel if you haven't done so already, follow us on Facebook as well, and stay tuned for more content. Thanks, bye bye.