Understanding Training Zones: Zone 1, Zone 2, & Zone 3

Carrie Tollefson: everybody, welcome to the RunDot podcast. We are so excited to start a two week series where our coaches talk to us about all six training zones. What is actually happening in our bodies when they are in zones one, two, three, four, five, and six. This week and next week we'll find out. For this one, I have two coaches here to talk to us specifically about training zones one, two, and three. We're joined by run coach Ryan Tibball. Ryan has a BS in biomedical sciences from Texas A University, say that 10 times, and respiratory care from UT Health Center at San Antonio. Also with us is professional triathlete and coach Elizabeth James. She has been coaching runners and triathletes since 2014. And I'm Carrie Tollefson, Olympian, broadcaster, and your guide to the world of RunDot. We treat the show like any good workout. We'll start with a warmup question, settle into our main set conversation, and then wind things down by having our coaches answer an audience question on the cool down. Lots of good stuff today, so let's get after it. All right, you guys, if anyone knew what happens on a podcast before... Andrew Harley gets to the editing. They would have a secret on us, right? But we are going to not tell all of our secrets and we are going to start with our warm-up question. So thanks for coming on the show and what we want to hear from you is what music artist would you say has the most songs on your workout playlist? Elizabeth, let's start with you.

Elizabeth James: Okay, I love music and I love a wide variety of music. So this frequently changes. At the time we're recording, NF, so letters NF is actually the most frequent artist on my playlist right now. Think a combination of like gospel and rap, which is a strange combination, but It's fantastic and it has powered me through a number of run intervals recently. So yeah, not something that's frequently on there, but currently the favorite.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, I need to hear some of this stuff and maybe I actually I'm very like notorious to not know who's singing the songs and then I pick up on it so but I'm gonna reach out to you and yes exactly or that's what they're actually saying fun okay Ryan how about you

Elizabeth James: And then you're huh. Yup.

Ryan Tibball: Well, you know what, depends on my mood, I mean, know, workout type, right? I mean, at least for me, then again, I could probably work out to this one particular artist, slow or fast, it doesn't matter, Metallica. And, you know, I am a rock and roll guy from the 80s and I love Metallica and I think Metallica can go either way, but... I would prefer it more for the hard stuff and then you know honestly for the easy stuff I go to my yacht rock or some 80s playlist pop you know it's something you know just kind of keeps the mood more than anything else there is no rhyme and reason to my cadence or anything from the music because my cadence is pretty pretty staple for me so but yeah I think you know I know that wasn't the one answer but I gave three

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's okay. That's what podcasts are for to go off on all kinds of tangents. For me, I would have to say Lenny Kravitz. I love American Woman. They played that song during one of my best races indoors once and I couldn't like I can't get it out of my head when I think about doing workouts or out on a workout. If I play it, it's just like... I don't know, there's something about it. You think about the Olympics or you think about what you're trying to do in that workout. And so I like Lenny Kravitz, but I also love Eminem. Like who doesn't love listening to him get like everybody fired up. And I listened to that with the kids in the car and we're all just like, we're about, you know, ready to go and have our highest points in a game or whatever. So I'm kind of with you, Ryan. I kind of go way back. Like I don't have a lot of current tits. I like them, but when I make a playlist, it's usually old stuff, Alright, let's get into the main set everybody. I'm excited about this podcast. This is great because 1, 2, and 3, zones 1, 2, and 3 are always kind of like, am I in 1? Am I in 2? Am I in 3? So here we go. So to set the stage off for this conversation, why is it important to find the zones that we're training in? I think we're just gonna go with that straight up with that question. Who wants to take it first?

Elizabeth James: I like both of us are like, you go, you go, my hands up. Yes. So I think as we start at the beginning here, just this foundational knowledge about the fact that there are different zones and they have different purposes is really important. And the main reason for having all of these different zones is to really optimize the training benefits.

Ryan Tibball: Ladies first. Ladies first, go for it.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, nice.

Elizabeth James: So staying in a particular heart rate zone or an effort zone, like a pace zone, what that does is it targets different fitness adaptations. And staying in the right zone really just makes sure that you're working on the specific goals for that session. So whether it's building endurance in some of these aerobic zones or developing speed and power in some of those upper zones that we won't get to today but are gonna be covered in the next part of this series, It has a different purpose. so making sure that we understand what those zones are and the intent of the workout really helps maximize an athlete's performance. And ultimately, like this is making sure that we can enjoy the sport for as long as we want to. So training the right way allows us to enjoy the sport, continue to progress, stay injury free. I mean, we can just keep going on and on for the list of benefits about staying in our particular zones.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, but Ryan, think what's interesting is like you guys don't always know your athletes and probably a lot of times the majority of the time you don't know them. You've never met them. You're you maybe just online or whatever. So how do you start a new athlete in their right zones? How does that work?

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, you know, obviously having that starting that conversation off with, you know, understanding where they're coming from, right? Where have they, what is their history, especially their most recent history? I mean, we can all talk about, yeah, 20 years ago, I used to run, you know, two, three marathons a year. but what have you done lately, right? And that's important to find out where the athlete is at right now. know, first thing I do with my athletes is exactly that, find out where they're at. Specifically ask, you know, what have they been doing in their most recent training and also looking at their data. So I generally connect up with them on their garments and get them into the RunDot system and I can get all their metrics there as well. And I even go into their social media under Strava and I learn a lot more about them too. But getting their assessments done, I think right then and there, it sets the stage, it sets the foundation to move forward and train appropriately, like aptly put by E.J. there. mean, the teacher came right out on her and I loved hearing it. I knew she would have that answer. And that she explained there's a purpose and a rhyme and reason for every single zone we do. also, let's talk about you know, asking the athlete, what equipment do you have? What are you using right now? What equipment do you need? And that's where we need to start. And so we can start measuring things appropriately, whether it's your Garmin watch, Apple watch, Sun Toe, what are all of those different various watches? But then let's talk about our heart rate straps and measuring utilizing the proper equipment. I believe in utilizing a chest strap over just relying on the optics of a Garmin watch or any other watch that has optics, because it's a different, it lends to different data. And usually that data is inappropriate from those optics. you know, going into that, you know, I really want, you know, to impress upon those assessments, just getting the assessments done. For beginners, what I love about RunDot is it has a 12 minute assessment. It is perfect for new athletes coming in. into RunDot and they just run and do run as hard as they can for 12 minutes strategically run as hard as they can for 12 minutes or they can do a 5k for your more experienced or even so super experienced athletes and do up to a 10k but it's important that we set that foundation and get that done right and then we can get it their zones appropriate their pacing zones, their heart rate zones, and if they run by power, they can get those set up too, which is really nice. So I think, given all of that to say, that conversation can be long at the start, and that's the fun part about coaching. That's what I love about it. I just get to learn about my athlete from the get go.

Carrie Tollefson: You Yeah, what if you have an athlete that's kind of more of a walk run or really very new to RunDot, very new to the world of endurance? How do you guys do those assessments then?

Ryan Tibball: I'll answer that Elizabeth either way. I'll take that, you know, that 12 minute assessment and that's what we ask you say, hey, you know, Jim, Jane, whoever it is, go out and do your best at 12 minutes. Give us your best effort. But make sure you're measuring the distance and your heart rate throughout. And that has proven to be a very, very effective way of getting their zones set up. And you know, once they progress through like several weeks of training and going forward, maybe several weeks to a couple of months, they'll find themselves running more consistently. And then it's time to do, try to redo those assessments and update them because chances are they are going to get, see some really significant improvements beyond then.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, okay. Well, we're gonna start with you, Elizabeth, on this. And sounds like your coach, EJ. That's how most people know you. Yeah, Ryan, do you have a nickname?

Elizabeth James: Yes, yeah, I mean, Elizabeth, a lot of my athletes do know me as Coach EJ.

Ryan Tibball: Uh, you know, lot of people call me Tibball, you know, it just like coach Tibball, you know, it, I don't know. That came from way back when I was even in school myself. Even the coaches called me Tibball. Hey, Tibball. I don't know why it's so it just stuck. Yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, EJ, we want to talk about, you know, those zones one, two, and three. So let's start first with zone one. Let's talk about it. Just give us kind of the 101 of zone one.

Elizabeth James: Yes, yeah. So zone one is often known as the recovery zone. But one of the things that I kind of want to go back and touch on a little bit that that Ryan mentioned was just, for people that are starting out and I think one of the things that I love most about RunDot and the programming is that it does not matter where you are on your fitness journey. I mean, the programming is going to meet you where it's appropriate. And so, when we're talking about zone one, for a number of the athletes that I'm coaching right now, zone one is what they're gonna hit in their warmup, maybe what they're gonna hit in between a couple hard intervals, and what they're gonna hit in their cool down. But there is also a place where zone one might be most appropriate for an athlete that's just getting started. That their workout that day might be, hey, we're gonna run and walk and we're gonna do this in 30 second intervals. And most of the time, they might be in zone one. And that's very appropriate for them. And that's fantastic. It may also be that somebody is coming back from an injury. And so zone two might not be appropriate yet. We might be just testing the waters to see, are we able to move effectively? And we want to establish good movement before we start putting any specific parameters around an effort with that. And so this is where I don't feel like zone one gets enough credit because if we're talking about the super scientific things that are happening within the training zones, mean zone two, and we're going to talk about this, is like where the magic happens. And we can get super scientific and be like, yeah, this is where we're making all of these aerobic gains and we're looking at what happens with the heart and man. and the mitochondria are just getting stronger, but we don't look at like where zone one might be most appropriate. And so I love that we're starting this podcast with zone one and we didn't just jump into like zone two training right away because there is a time, there is a place that's appropriate for zone one. And it's not just as the warmup, it's not just people coming back from injury. There's a time and a place for it that is appropriate for a number of athletes. And yeah, I'm. I'm again just excited that we get to start with this. As Brian said, I think sometimes the educator comes out in me. I'm like, yes, yeah, let's dive in and talk about all of this. But that's cool too because some athletes wanna know. and they want to know what is the why behind all of this and others are like, hey, just tell me what to do today. And if you tell me I'm going to run walk, great. I will trust that you have the scientific background to understand what's going on. Others that will want to know why. So we get to touch on both here.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I too think that... it's nice to know why you're supposed to be in zone one because so often times we kind of skip over it because it doesn't it's it does feel easy or it is super conversational pace and some people are like i'm not doing anything i'm not you know burning enough or i'm not getting fit off of this so i think it's important for us to kind of really zone in here on zone one and Ryan why don't you tell us what is actually happening inside of us when we are staying in that zone one when we're supposed to

Elizabeth James: Mm-hmm.

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, you know, hopefully not a whole lot. But you know, it should, you know, as EJ said, it's there to promote sometimes recovery, coming back from illness. And so, and even so when some of the cruise intervals, for example, in between those things are zone one, it's meant to be a full recovery. In order one, it helps you set you up for success in that particular workout that has higher zones in it. take advantage of that zone one to recharge the battery is like what I like to say. And so it also again just promotes blood flow anyways. If like zone one was all you're going to do, just get that blood flowing to help, you know, maybe you just came off of running a marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, just get out the door. I'd almost to a point where I've said sometimes to athletes, which I hate saying this, but take off the watch and just go out the door and enjoy yourself in the sunshine. That's pretty much going to be zone one, I hope. But, you know, again, it's just, you know, there to just keep the circulation of blood going and it really does really does help push and it should be relaxing. It should be like you should notice everything. The birds, the trees, everything instead of being zoned out in something else, you know, right. So you should be enjoying yourself. Absolutely. Metallica is not the choice of music typically in that one. Just I want to put that out there. So, but yes, but if it relaxes you, like me, then maybe Metallica's good for you.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I know this is a loaded question because everything is so different between, you know, one day to the next. But how often are you like, I think every single time we start a run or workout, we hit zone one at some point, whether that's right when we're starting or as we're coming out of it or whatever. But how much do you typically prescribe for the athlete to be in zone one? No matter what, I guess, day it is, if it is just a easy recovery day, you might be there longer, I guess. But if you are starting a hard workout, like, how do you guys figure that out? How does how does RunDot figure that out?

Elizabeth James: One of the things that's interesting is that zone one isn't often prescribed. I would say that zone one is often kind of either a ramp up or a ramp down from the workout, or it is a specific adjustment that has been made by the coach to really elicit that recovery response. And so most of even the recovery runs, the easy runs that an athlete is going to see on RunDot are going to be zone two. Now, I mean, there will be a range there. so depending on how they're feeling during the day, you know, maybe it's maybe it's the lower end of zone two, if they're a little bit more fatigued. But I would say that, you know, zone one is kind of that ramp up that ramp down. recovery between intervals or you're coming back from something. As Ryan mentioned, maybe it was a hard race, maybe it was an illness, maybe it was an injury. Because as we mentioned, there's not a lot of fitness adaptations that happen in zone one. So we really do want to kind of try to get to zone two for those fitness adaptations when it's appropriate. Now, when it's not appropriate, coming back down to zone one might be our best option. But that's why you're really not going to see a lot of zone one within the training plan.

Carrie Tollefson: So somebody that's new and I'm asking a lot of questions that more thinking of a new newbie, right? But when they are actually, you know, very much on their way, but they're still a newbie. Do you kind of think of zone one is like those initial steps before you really get into your run? Like I keep thinking like it keeps coming back to me. Like people are so fatigued after a long day of work. And zone one for me as an athlete, if you said, I just want you to get out there, go to zone one for a little bit, just shake out, shake off the office, right? Or shake off dealing with kids or whatever. that to me is where zone one is because then once you really get into it, feels like, know, okay, I've got my shoes on. I'm actually a block in now I'll get into zone two, you know? Like, how do you guys explain, is that kind of what you're thinking too? Almost like walking down the driveway to get your first steps. That's kind of. of how zone one can be thought of.

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, I could almost describe that as a mental breaker. know, like get over the, that mental fatigue you might've been experiencing in the day just by lacing up the shoes, getting out the door and just kind of like just breathe and get the blood flowing. And then, okay, coach said, go ahead and do some zone two versus zone four today. I'll get to it, but Hey, great. You know, or At the very end of your run, know what, you know what, you're finished with your run, finish it off in zone one at that point and even walk it out in zone one. Obviously that can be a good place and it just can serve multiple purposes. Mental treatment, so to speak, or you know, a little bit of that physical too.

Carrie Tollefson: I don't think we spend enough time there, to be honest. And I am like the first person at 545, I meet my group and I am like probably zone three. Maybe even zone four. I am like out the door just get it done. I have you know 30 minutes to do it and so I think there's a lot of people like me at this stage in life where you are you're busy you got kids like the quicker you can get home the better but you still want to get your workout in like no matter if it's 20 minutes or not you're still gonna kind of hammer that 20 minutes and and do your deal. So I do think it's important for us all maybe it isn't even in that workout but like to have zone one go for a walk with your dog like let the blood flow like you guys just saying like the There's so many different reasons why we should be in zone one and it and yes, we will hit it in our workouts, but it might be just a separate zone one workout too for the day, which you could call if you want to call your walk with your dog or to go get your mail down the long stretch of driveway if you live on a farm or whatever that can be your zone one day or zone one period for the day. Let's move on over to zone two. So Zone 1, ultra easy, picking up the pace of zone 2, kind of that I would say maybe the most normal pace that we all that conversational pace that we all kind of do our easy runs at or our recovery. So talk a little bit about zone. How about EJ you start here. What do you think of when you think of zone 2?

Elizabeth James: Yeah. So zone two, I do think of this as like our easy runs. These are really the aerobic sessions. A lot of times these are supporting sessions. Depending on what an athlete is training for, some of their long runs might be only zone two. Sometimes they do get into a couple other intervals, which we'll touch on as we go up the pace scale. But yeah, I think of these as really just the aerobic supporting sessions. And as I mentioned earlier, I mean, there's a lot of great things that happen with zone two. I think, you know, the coaches and us, we say, this is like where the magic happens. And this is an exciting thing for athletes to just watch. watch their aerobic efficiency increase. And I think one of my favorite things is, you know, having an athlete that starts off and isn't maybe accustomed to zone two training and they're looking at like, okay, you need to stay within this heart rate range. And they're like, but it's, it's like, 13 minute miles and sometimes I have to slow down and I have to walk and like is this really doing anything? And then six months later, they're like, man, you know that same heart rate range like I'm running 10 minute miles or now I'm down to like 945 pace and just watching how their pace can progress within that same heart rate zone and just how much more efficient they've become as a runner. Like there we go. That's the magic right there. And so there's a lot of great adaptations that are happening in the body. in zone 2 and it's supporting the hard work that's done in those upper zones as well.

Carrie Tollefson: So you said a big word. You said the aerobic zone, kind of. So tell us what aerobic means and when you as coaches, not only as athletes, think of being in the aerobic zone, what does that mean?

Elizabeth James: Mm-hmm. Yeah, great question. And I think this is one that a number of athletes asked. So I'm glad that you're bringing this up too for us to discuss. So we've got aerobic and then we've got anaerobic. And kind of just the probably easiest explanation for this is like, Okay, where are we kind of getting this energy from and what energy system are we tapping into? And so the aerobic system, okay, we're really thinking about like the oxygen utilization. And I mean, respiratory therapist Ryan can probably explain this even better than me. But then, you know, when we get into the anaerobic stuff, this is where we're more breathless. And it's like, you know, we're going to the zones where you are not having a conversation, you are not speaking, you're gasping for air a little bit. And so it's just a different energy system in the body. And then we're able to kind of make different adaptations based on those systems.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, Ryan, piggyback on that. What would you add to that?

Ryan Tibball: Yeah, you know, think EJ's really hit it really well right on the head there. I mean, you look at that zone two, their aerobic base, yes, for that fat burning ability to metabolically, we're looking at that from that perspective of your body using gets to use a lot of oxygen to break down that fat for energy. And those little powerhouse molecules of ATP get produced, your mitochondrial density, a denticine. No, adenosine triphosphate. Yes. No. Thank you for clarifying.

Carrie Tollefson: I knew it wasn't anaerobic because we're in aerobic, but that was all I could think of. But I should have thought of aerobic threshold pace. I don't know. I was just throwing out words that I knew.

Ryan Tibball: But you increasing the mitochondrial density, which you turn, it helps burn that fat and burns for energy and produces a ton of energy in that zone, zone two. I always tell athletes, you know what? This is your foundation. This is your foundation. In other words, if you bought a really expensive vase, vase or vase, whatever, however you say it. But if you bought one, Would you put it on a little pedestal in the middle of the room or would you try to put it on a really nice big foundation base in case it falls over? You're going to have time to catch it and you put it right back up at what you know, it's like, so I want you to be my very expensive face and I need you to build that foundation. And, and so that's what I do. And that's how I tell athletes like this is so, so important. EJ said earlier. You may be walking before running. It's okay. You may be crawling a little bit too. Who knows, but keep that heart rate in zone two. Be intentional, be deliberate, you know, be productive because that's what it is. It's very productive and, and not to cheat it. Don't say, I need to push up in a little bit. feeling good today. No, be intentional and stay right there.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm. And I mean, we've talked about it. It is kind of that... pace that you really can have a conversation. You could talk a lot about what happened on the weekend or tell a story, talk about your recipes. It is a pace where you could get a lot of information out. The next zone, maybe it's more short answer kind of type pace. So let's talk a little bit of how long you stay in zone two. And that's kind of a loaded question as well. But if you can sort of break that down, EJ. Or also why you go to zone two maybe on the recovery between intervals, those kind of things.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, great question again. So the amount of zone two in a training plan is really going to vary athlete to athlete. And some of that is going to be based off of just the number of hours that they have available to train. And I think that this is one of the things that, you know, maybe is a surprise to some run out athletes when they open up their training plan and they're like, wow, like some of these sessions look like they've got intensity in all of them and like this looks really hard. But if they've set their preferences so that they have, you know, five hours a week available to train, we're really going to maximize those five hours that are available. And so you're not going to see as much zone two running as somebody that's a professional runner and running 25 hours during the week. I mean, that professional runner running 25 hours during the week, they're going to have to have a larger majority of their time at zone 2 just because of the distribution of intensity and the distribution of hours across their week and their training plan. And so, I mean, the importance of zone 2 is really paramount. And as Ryan said, you know, it is foundational. But we don't want to discount, you know, what happens in those upper zones too, especially for an athlete that doesn't have much time available to train and is looking to progress their pace. So that's one of the things I wanted to start off with because I think that you know we often harp on like yeah zone two like this is awesome this is great and then athletes are like but wait like I thought I'd have like three or four runs at zone two and some may some may not just depending on how many hours they have available to train and kind of what their preferences are for that. Now, in terms of like where on their plan they'll see that or why we want to, you know, be in zone two for the recoveries, one of the things that is fantastic about RunDot is just the way that the intervals and the rest periods are distributed. Because as we go back to the very beginning, like this, this is purposeful. It's designed with intent. and the way that the workouts are structured do have a very specific purpose, not only in terms of pushing that threshold pace up. but also making sure that we have good recovery in between and we're forcing the body to actively recover in between intervals too. And so if it says to jog at zone two in between intervals, or if it says to walk in between intervals, or if it gives you 30 seconds or a minute, that's not just arbitrarily thrown in there. It's not like, yeah, run a little bit, rest a little bit, you'll be fine. specifically calculated for you to be at these specific zones for a specific training adaptation. And so yeah, if it is a zone two run. Stay in zone two because you're not getting the benefit of it if you're trying to push the envelope and you're flirting with zone three. If it says to be in zone two for your recovery, like, yeah, we want to be in zone two. It might feel hard. You might really want to walk or be at zone one, but you're not going to get that same adaptation if you do that versus zone two. So, yeah, very, very purposeful. Lots of great things happening.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Well, I like that you said that because I think a lot of athletes too, they just well and if they're in this that middle. age group where you know you are working full-time maybe you have children maybe you don't but you're putting hours in like we when we're younger and in college sometimes you do have time to do other things train different ways but once life kind of gets real busy it's tough to just get in extra mileage here there so i think that's what's really kind of cool about RunDot and try dot is that it is sort of It asks you how much you want to train, but also it makes everything purposeful. Every day, it isn't just like, just go and run. There are recovery runs, but it's not just like, and just get in junk miles. There's a purpose for it. And I think that's what's so important for us to be reminded of. Like, I think I sort of run, you know, before RunDot came into my life and I haven't even fully committed to actually getting myself to, you know, put goals on the list of things to do. But. I sort of run that way. I only run 20, 25, maybe I'll hit a 30 mile week if I do a long run. But a lot of my stuff is probably easiest to zone two, but a lot of it is up in the higher end of zone three because I do, I don't run very much. And a lot of people say, you don't get hurt. Well, I don't run very much, you know, and I don't run super hard either. So I'm not seeing performance benefits at all. I'm just maintaining. And so I do think it's interesting that we can get work done and we can be purposeful. running like you said five hours even two and a half hours which is probably what I run a week so that's what's cool about rundown are we done with zone 2 or do you have any more Ryan that you want to touch on because we can go to zone 3 which I think a lot of fun happens in zone 3

Ryan Tibball: you know, I, I think EJ hit a lot on the head right there and, know, I'll just kind of basically reiterate, say RunDot is not static. It is a very dynamic program. And, and that's what, you know, EJ has already said that, you know, your workouts are very deliberate for your goals in mind. You know, when you have races put in your calendar and then on top of that, it, which This is one of the coolest things. It's measuring the loads and the stresses, the residual stresses. What other system in there does it? None. RunDot will measure that residual stress and so from those stresses of zones one through six and so again it's going to put that zone two in there appropriately based on what you're doing or what you're not even doing for example. So I think I just wanted to mention that really good particular piece because again you know we talk about the foundation it's so important and doing the right training right.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm Let's go to zone 3 and Ryan will stick with you What the heck's happening in Zone 3?

Ryan Tibball: Well, you know, your body is changing internally and you usually can feel it. But this is actually is one of my favorite zones from the, the, from the space of it's kind of telling me, Hey, Ryan, you must be training for a particular race. And many times it's usually training for like a half marathon or a marathon or even an ultra at that point. And either way, again, this zone is very Very particular towards that zone 3 is particular towards those kinds of training. There's a lot going on here. Names for this, which I have to say is the tempo zone or the sweet spot. And some may have heard gray zone, which I, you know, it is kind of got a negative connotation to it. And I'll explain that too. But metabolically, your body is transitioning. It is transitioning from major fat burning zone number two. You're pushing it into zone number three. Now your body's going hey Listen carbohydrates need them. It's time. We're gonna start burning those too and so your body is now got a little bit of a sweet spot combo of Burning a little fat burning some carbs at the same time. So you got to be feeling yourself a little bit here and I think everybody's probably experienced this that little burning feeling that starts to happen Well, that is your body transitioning a little bit. It's starting to change. You're producing a little bit more CO2 as well. And so it is a good zone to train in when you have very specific races or goals. know, and again, it's something that we'll dive, I imagine, dive a lot deeper into it here in just a moment. But, you know, again, is your body does need that time to adapt into that zone three, start to feel it. Mentally as well and going hey what it was happening here. It feels weird feels different. It's comfortable but You're starting to feel that little bit uncomfortable Feeling and you get into that sweet spot and you can hang out there for a little bit. So It's fun. It's fun. Don't get me wrong. It's definitely fun

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Yeah, it's like a little bit of a toothache. You're like, is it there or no? there I feel it when I drink something cold. that's what zone three because we know we wake up in zone four and we know next week we're going to talk about zone four, five and six. We know something's really going on in zone four, five and six. But yeah, I think Elizabeth, tell us like tell us some of the workouts that are prescribed in zone three.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, so I think one of the most common that runout athletes see are like the marathon repeats. And so you have a nice warmup and then you are doing specific intervals at your zone three pace. And as Ryan mentioned, a lot of times this is prescribed for an athlete as they're training for a particular event because most of the time athletes end up racing kind of in this zone three area. Now, I mean, it depends on the athlete. It depends on the distance of the race. But I would say a lot of times like a half marathon or a full marathon This is where athletes are gonna be on race day And so it does take that time to get used to what that feels like Not only from like the mental and physical perspective But also like what do I need in terms of fueling here to keep myself going at the sustained effort? So we've got marathon repeats. We've got some progressive runs where you do Spend a while in zone 3. I mean you are going zone 2 to zone 3 to zone 4, but you do have a prolonged period in zone 3 that's prescribed as well. And then, I mean, we have things like our race rehearsal days and tempo runs. And so when you are gearing up for that race, like we do want to practice what that feels like. So you might have, you know, a 30 minute tempo and it's all zone 3. So those are a couple examples of where we would see that an athlete would encounter it on the training plan.

Carrie Tollefson: So when you talk about tempo though, like when I was training without, you know, RunDot and coaches from RunDot. My coaches say tempo pace is no slower than half marathon pace, but maybe a little quicker than half marathon pace. But now given I was strictly a 1500 meter 5k gal, I wasn't coming down from the marathon and I really wasn't training this hard for my marathons that I ran. I was just kind of having fun doing whatever. So would you say that when you guys prescribe tempo runs, there's a certain pace or is there no pace at all with this zone? like is it just strictly knowing your heart rates or do you ever talk about okay we know you want to run four hours for the marathon and this should be at zone three but also 830 pace or whatever you're trying to hit to run the marathon in. like do you guys ever talk like that?

Elizabeth James: Yeah, definitely. And I would say... very often for zone three. When I talk with athletes about their training program, most of the time zone two is based primarily off of heart rate. And we want to make sure that they are staying really under a heart rate cap more than anything so that we're not tipping those scales into, I mean, what Ryan was saying, like where we have that transition into the need for more carbohydrates. It's like, we really want to keep this at the fat burning, like We want to make sure that this is an easy effort on the body and the way that we're gonna monitor that best is by what the heart is doing. So zone two heart rate. Very strict about that. Now when we go up to zone three, zone four, zone five, zone six, which you'll get to, you know, in the next series, zone three, yeah, I'm very specific about the pace for it. Certainly we still want to look at heart rate. We want to make sure that that's tracking as we would expect it to, but much more often I'm telling athletes zone three, like we're now using pace as the driving metric here.

Carrie Tollefson: Ryan, do you ever say I want you at the low end of zone 3? Or do you not really go that specific?

Ryan Tibball: I you know, I will you know, especially if it happens to be a long, you know, it could be one of really long runs, for example. I mean, you know, if they're, you know, going off in it, you know, they're expecting to run a, you know, say a 130 or under two hour half marathon, you know, asking them to start off strategically. This is from a strategic standpoint. It's like, hey, don't fire off. High end zone three, a little bit of zone four. No, no, no, no. You know, got a long, you got 13 miles in front of you or, you know, potentially here. So let's start off in our low zone three and start to progress it up internal of zone three only. And at the same time, I'm glad EJ said this is that you monitoring your heart rate at the same time, just watching it because it's your tattletale. On your body. It's telling you hey, you know, what's up? You know, you're you started off this run dehydrated Why you know or you know, do you need to get more fluids today? It's warmer outside, you know a lot of things can change and so You know, I kind of getting a little granular on this question, but just saying hey Yeah, start off in low zone three monitor your heart rate But stay in zone three pacing low end and then work yourself up finish stronger from a strategic standpoint. And you're gonna race the same way. Love for athletes to negative split, which means getting faster on the back end of a run or a race. And it teaches them, you get to practice it. And then on race day, they get to execute it. So there's some benefit, absolutely.

Carrie Tollefson: It's so fun. I do like breaking it down though zone 1 zone 2 zone 3 like if you guys had just one or two words for each zone. I'll start with you Elizabeth like when you think of zone 1. What do you think of? Ryan?

Ryan Tibball: Chill. Hahaha!

Elizabeth James: You

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, zone two. EJ, what do you think?

Elizabeth James: I think I'm going to steal Ryan's word here, like foundation. I love that he said that. I've got a new favorite word for zone two foundation.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. That's probably Ryan's, huh?

Ryan Tibball: Well, I mean, I can keep that one or I can add another one that I hadn't mentioned was, you know, kind of a little bit of bread and butter, you know, I know it's two words, but, you know, it is bread and butter. If you like bread and butter, then it's great for you.

Carrie Tollefson: Well, and a lot of people think of base training, but base training can have all kinds of different meanings. mean, I used to do a lot of zone four work in base training, but it was different. was maybe a little bit longer and it was fast, but it was longer intervals that were got me up to zone four. So like you can't really just say base. I like foundation better because for me, I can at least visualize that a little bit better. How about zone three? What is that? What's your word, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth James: For me, I think of race. And maybe that's because I come primarily from a longer distance approach. know that shorter stuff, yeah, 5K, we wanna go beyond zone three. But I think my long distance perspective tends me to skew that toward race is my word.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Nice, Ryan.

Ryan Tibball: I'm going to again, I'm going to break the rule. It's not just one word, but it sweet spot. I mean, I feel like when I'm out there, it, just feels so, it feels like a good sweet spot. Like I can hold onto this for a while and you know, you're metabolically, I can feel those changes happening. It's just kind of interesting. It's just a, you know, it's probably what helps give you the high at the very end of your day, your long run or long race. Right. So yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm Yeah, it doesn't tire you out so much that you are like dragging at the end. It's kind of like I can hold this for another however long coach would prescribe it. What is the difference, Ryan, between threshold and tempo when it comes to the world of run-dot? Because it is a, it's definitely, tempo especially is a word that some coaches are like, I don't like that word at all. It's got too many definitions. It's too broad. I loved it, but I knew what my coaches meant when they said tempo. So what do you think? What's the difference for you? Do you think threshold is met in zone three or is that more in zone four? Okay.

Ryan Tibball: I lean towards zone four. know, I think threshold is now you're talking about being uncomfortable at that point and there's very little comfortable in there. There's some, but not much at all. You know, so I think threshold definitely has more of a connotation towards being uncomfortable.

Carrie Tollefson: Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, you agree Elizabeth?

Elizabeth James: Yeah, definitely. And I think that, you know, when athletes do an assessment and we really break down, you know, what those zones are for them, we do see their threshold in zone four and we can understand like where kind of that tipping point is for threshold. And yeah, I would associate that with zone four as well.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, well before we get into our cooldown question, I gotta ask you guys as athletes, you both are endurance athletes. We know Ryan's getting ready for a half iron man. Elizabeth, what are you getting ready for? The marathon? you are.

Elizabeth James: think the same one. think we've got a head-to-head competition coming up.

Ryan Tibball: Oh boy. I did not know this. Uh oh.

Carrie Tollefson: But Elizabeth, are you getting ready for a marathon too?

Elizabeth James: Yes, I- No, I'm not. I mean, I'd love to, but I decided to not go ways of the marathon this spring and I put my name on the start list for 70.3 Dallas. So yeah, that was maybe a recent shift, but training's going well. So I'm going to hold on the marathon a little more and put my name on a couple 70.3 start lists.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, maybe that's it. Okay. Yay. Okay, okay, that's awesome. So exciting. I am not going to join you people on that 70.3. to break it up. I just I am definitely afraid of clipping into bikes. I really am. I am definitely afraid of clipping into cross country skis or downhill skis. Like I need my feet. I just need them to be on the ground. So I'm going to just cheer for you people and pray for you both to have a great day.

Ryan Tibball: you

Elizabeth James: Yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: Thank you guys so much for doing this and we still have this cool down question which is super fun and I think interesting for all of us. If you watch elite racing you see it happen in the elite world and if you're in the masses and seeing that as well. So we had a question from our audience. Frank sent in a question and he said, I've seen more and more fitness influencers and even some professional athletes wearing breathe right or breathing strips in workout photos on socials. Is there benefit for runners to use these in some way during training or racing? Or is it a social media fad? What do you guys think? Ryan, you want to start?

Ryan Tibball: Hmm Yeah, I'll kick it off I think you know great question Frank I you know some you know I kind of question whether those influencers just wear them as like some sort of you know stylish fashionable thing, but I The answer is it depends yes, and no they are beneficial Or not and I want to break it down first. I wanted to use the yes part So yes, it can be beneficial, especially for those athletes who have some sort of nasal obstruction or resistance. So, you know, maybe you have a deviated septum, maybe you've got some really just, you know, maybe you need to go see an allergist at some point in your life and you get those holes drilled out in your nostrils. So using the Breathe Right strips may definitely help for sure be able to improve the airflow through your nose. and you know, especially since we're talking about zones one two and three today that's appropriate, you know to do and But for those that don't have any restrictions whatsoever. There's the no it no they're not gonna help you any it might look I don't know you arguably you think I look really good in that or really funny. But I think when you get to a point where you're just working out super hard no matter what At some point, you're not even going to be breathing through your nose anyway. So what's the point there? So, but, now on the no side, you know, I think some athletes have thought that maybe it improves their VO2 max or something like that. And the answer is no, it doesn't do that. I wish it would, but that's too bad. And it does not raise your oxygen levels. Sorry, the air on our planet is 21 % period, 21 % oxygen. doesn't increase it to 28 or 30. So don't think of it that way. But again, if you do have some sort of obstructive process going on in your nasal passages, yes, it definitely can help for sure. And they're not, it is functional. So. Use them as needed. I think if you feel like, I do want to touch on this, if you feel like a superstar wearing it, then by all means, put it on, put two on, I don't care. Put one on your forehead too while you're at it. But use them if it mentally helps you too. Why not?

Carrie Tollefson: Yep. Yep, yep, For sure. EJ, you have anything?

Elizabeth James: I mean, I think Ryan covered it right there. The only times that I've had athletes that have used them are one guy had a broken nose from a whole bunch of years playing basketball. And he said, it just feels like I actually can get airflow through if I use a Breathe Right strip. And for him, there's probably some structural damage there that it was helpful. I had another athlete that was coming off of a cold and they were just like, I just have some congestion and this feels like I can air through my nose when I'm congested. Now, she wore it just for one race. It wasn't something she consistently did. And so that could also be something that we're seeing. Like, I mean, you might see it pop up here and there on somebody that, you know, is fighting a little bit of congestion. Yeah, as Ryan said, like... Really, there's not a lot of benefit if structurally things are good. Unless there's a placebo effect that you feel on top of the world and you're gonna crush your race, then hey, I'm all for it. know, breathe right strips, polka dots, socks, whatever's gonna make you feel good. Let's go for it.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. You Yes, I just wonder if most, I mean I'm not saying you guys, I have a huge snog and I wonder if that's why I was a good runner. I had a lot of airflow coming through these nostrils. So in these big glasses, my big reading glasses, definitely they only accentuate it. Like I look like I just need that mustache. That's all I need.

Ryan Tibball: I'm gonna have to investigate that on myself.

Carrie Tollefson: thank you guys so much. This has been fun and also so informative. It's really cool to hear that all zones are important, especially those lower zones. And can't wait to hear what everyone has to say next week about four, five, and six as well. Good luck in your races. We'll see you soon. Keep getting after it.

Ryan Tibball: Thank you, Carrie.

Elizabeth James: Thank you.