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Coach Greg half marathon plan - recommended pace vs heart rate

I’m currently in week 2 of coach Greg’s half marathon training plan and I can’t see a recommended pace for my runs as it said I would be able to. When setting up the plan, it asked my what my goal pace was and I entered that, but I now can’t find it anywhere so wondering if that’s something to do with it?

All it currently says is easy, medium or hard pace - which isn’t overly helpful! I don’t know if ‘easy’ correlates to zone 2 heart rate, but I’m really struggling to stay in zone 2, even when I’m pretty much walking. I read that my easy run should be 1-2 minute per mile slower than my race pace (5.45min/km), which is easy and comfortable for me, but my heart rate is up in zone 4.

I guess my questions are:

a) is there something I’m doing wrong/information I haven’t inputted to not be able to see recommended pace? And

b) should I try to stick in/around zone 2 with an average pace of 9min/km or stick to the pace 1-2 mins slower than race pace and hope my heart rate comes down as I get fitter?

Thanks in advance!

0 TIPSKU over 1 year ago

Hi. I'm doing a 10k plan with Coach Greg and I also find the easy run paces a bit too hard for me, 1-2 min per mile slower than goal race pace. When I ran in Z2, I'm more like 2:30-3:00 min slower while running in the prescribed zone pushes me up into Z3. I'm now considering to lower my goal pace to make the run paces more achievable, especially in winter when icy road conditions and the cold in general make it harder to run faster.

My plan gives me my sessions with pace recommendations, e.g. today was an easy run of 45 min, 5 min warm up without a pace, then 20+15 min at 8:05-9:05 min/mi (5:01-5:39 min/km) which is 1-2 min slower than my goal race pace 7:05 min/mi, 4:24 min/km. I have no problem hitting that pace in goal pace repeats but I find running longer runs too hard when I'm running under 9 min/mi or 5:30 min/km. Don't you get sessions sent to your watch? Which watch are you using? You should be able to see your Coaching plan on Garmin Connect, both on mobile and on desktop. There you can tap/click on modify your plan. This should take you to the settings you chose at the beginning.

Your HR zones may be wrong. I have my zones set to my LTHR, how did you set up your HR zones? If it's the Garmin standard method without any input from you, it's probably based on max HR which Garmin assumes to be 220-age. This can be 10 or more bpm wrong so your zones may be not appropriate for you. You should do a max HR test to see what your actual max HR is. If you're wearing your Garmin at night, you also get your RHR which you could use to set up HRR (heart rate reserve) which takes into account increasing fitness which you would see in your RHR dropping. If you choose HRR with an accurate max HR and RHR, your zones should make more sense.

If you want to do a LT test, there are also protocols for that. Garmin has one on the watch or you can follow the protocol from the 80/20 website. I prefer that to the max HR test because I find it not as stressful as doing a max HR test. Garmin periodically updates it if I do a harder session. Thus I make sure that I'm training in the right intensity zones. As a rule of the thumb, easy should feel easy and you should be able to repeat the session when you get home. After my truly easy runs, I get home and I could head out again and do it again if I had to. I can also talk without getting out of breath when running easy. The talk test is also great to determine if you are running easy or not.