Running Power Zones Names?

CRB said:

Or this is the Wattage Zone you can maintain for a short interval and likewise a Long Interval?

Hi, I suspect that's the answer. Does clicking the blue ? mark next to "Power Zones" give any additional info?

I'm a cyclist so I don't have these running power zones. At first glance I was going to say the top 2 were both anaerobic (long vs short sprints) based on my cycling zones, until I realized that yours has only 5 zones -- in cycling power there are 7 and the top 2 are anaerobic (note some use 9 zones). Here it appears like there's only 1 anaerobic zone and 4 aerobic zones. Is that conventional for running?

Clicking on the ‘?’ Tells you how Running Power is calculated and that you should train in a zone similar to your event, not what the zones mean.

Running Power Zones

Running power zones help you understand how much time you’ve spent training at different intensities during a run. They divide your training time into a series of zones based on the wattage produced.

Establishing Power Zones

Power zone feedback is available for running activities when they are performed with a compatible Garmin device. The boundaries between zones are based on default percentages of your running threshold power, which is calculated based on your lactate threshold pace, your running dynamics and your weight. You can use these default zones or edit them to meet your training needs.

Training with Power Zones

You can use power zones to both guide and assess your training runs. Easy runs, for example, will remain in the lower power zones, while more intense runs should be focused in the higher power zones.

Power zones adapt along with your individual fitness level. As your fitness improves, you should be able to train at higher wattages, but the time you spend in each training zone should stay fairly consistent. There is no single perfect distribution of time spent in each zone, but you should ensure that the time spent in each zone gets closer to the demands of your target event as the date of that event gets closer.

After completing a running activity that measures power, you can view your power zone charts and see the amount of time spent in each zone in your activity details.

This is what I don’t understand. I understand power zones in relation to cycling, they are self explanatory but not how these zone names relate to Running Power. The graph above is my heart rate in zones, which I do understand, for the same run but as you can see there is no correlation between the two.

Yeah I'm definitely not well-versed in this for running, but based on the bit I've read about it today, it feels to me like one of those things that device makers have pushed out into the market without there being great consensus yet on what it means and how to use it.

Hopefully someone else will come along with an answer.

When you go to the power zone settings on the device or in the app, what does it show as default for the zones? Is it based on something like "% of threshold running power"? What are the % values?

Regarding correlation between HR and power zones, it's pretty common that they don't always agree. Heart rate is significantly decoupled from power (and almost entirely when anaerobic). The same power can result in widely varying HR depending on the person's state (health, sleep, hydration, etc), ambient conditions (temperature, clothing, etc), and so on.

On top of that, "running power" specifically is not an objective measurement like it is in cycling, it's an estimate that's calculated from a variety of inputs and assumptions, and currently there seems to be no standard way to calculate it (or so I've read). With manufacturers each using their own proprietary methods, testers have found significant differences between their running power estimates. So I think this also increases the likelihood of seeing weaker correlation between HR and running power zones.

If running power zones are indeed set based on threshold running power, then I think about the only thing you can do to improve agreement is to make sure your HR zones are also based on %LTHR (and definitely not on % max HR or %HR Reserve). But still I would never expect awesome agreement between the HR and power zones.

Personally, as a non-competition cyclist, I use power as an performance gauge ("output"), but still very much rely on HR at the same time to know how well my body is doing on that particular day ("strain"). I don't expect the zones to "match" all the time (they often don't), and have become used to using both simultaneously.