Training plan and heart rate zones

If you are shooting for a marathon in September, I would be doing a level 1 Half-marathon plan at this point. You should probably set a marathon plan to end on your race date, half-marathon plan to end on the marathon plan start date, and then continue your current plan until you hit the half-marathon plan start date. The heart rate zones you use are a personal preference. When I was starting out I would use the MHR-RHR method. This works well until you build enough endurance and base to get a good LTHR number. Then I switched to using LTHR since it is a little more accurate for your individual fitness level. Now, I generally use LTHR pace rather than HR. Again, they all do the same thing it's just a matter of personal preference.

The default for your HR zones will just be a single range. The "sport" heart rates have to be set by you, only if you want to use them. The default will be that they are not set and not used by the watch. The purpose of them is for people to be able to set different HR zone ranges for different sports. I'm a triathlete, so I have zones set for swim, bike, and run. They are all different since my Max HR on the bike is about 10 bpm less than running, and swimming max HR is way lower than that.

You might have to walk initially when starting out while doing Z2 training. I would suggest an easy jog(usually described as conversational pace), with walking thrown in if you go over your Z2 limit in order to let it come down again. When you first start out, it might be incredibly hard for you to do this, as your fitness improves it will get much easier. I suggest switching to an actual run plan though because it sounds from your HR zones that you might not be at a Level 2 yet, and with a full-marathon only 6 months away, you should be more focused on the slow build to that. If you feel you need to do more exercise in general than what the run plans have scheduled, just supplement the run workouts with weight training or swimming cross-training focusing on core or upper body strength so that you give your legs enough time to recover. Your gains come from the recovery, not the exercise itself, and if you over-do it your muscles will just break down and you'll lose fitness instead of gaining.

There are two main ways for you to sabotage yourself here.
1. Get frustrated and give up.
2. Get too motivated and go all out when you haven't built a sufficient base yet. Injury's will then happen, followed by #1.

Best advice I can give is for you to "Plan to train and train to your plan". Take the time to look at your "A" race, Set a high yet realistic goal, do an honest evaluation of your fitness now, set a training plan to slowly bring you from where you are now to reach your goal. Then the last step becomes trusting your training plan and following through with it. It will suck at the start, just embrace the suck and own it. It will get better. If it was easy, you wouldn't need to do it.

thank you very much!