I spent hours researching and tweaking my Garmin’s HRZ’s in my first year of running. It was the most important metric for me to follow and I think it helped me build a nice aerobic base.

As I’m only an amateur I won’t share anything specific but anecdotally, I found that once I dialed in where I “thought” (through many different self-test options I found online) my lactate threshold was and could start to identify that space between zones 3-4 I could then pull back and find my comfortable zone 2 space. After that I started manually adjusting the zones. I will say now I don’t use it as more than an occasional reference. I think a lot of folks (maybe?) migrate to using a combo of HRZ and RPE.

I’d say now I think I know what it feels like when I’m pushing past my lactate threshold and what comfortable and sustainable feels like and try to trust that.

Good luck in your running!!

Oh. Well, maybe I should remove this. That sucks. :-/

Thank you for this!

I like the idea of 12mi runs split into 4mi segments. Any thoughts on how quickly to do each lap, i.e. faster with more break time vs slow with less break.

The 8+ lap goal was just to hit the 50k mark. I hadn’t even begun to consider what it would mean to run into the night. Does the structure and forced pace equate to being able to do more laps than one planned?

I’m curious what the race looks like for more seasoned backyard runners. Does their pace just wane until they don’t make it around in time or do they quit when they can’t hold a specific threshold. Probably not an across the board thing but just wondered.