Heart Rate Zones — What They Are and How to Set Them

The five zones

Most coaches use a five-zone model, expressed as a percentage of your maximum heart rate (or, more precisely, your lactate-threshold heart rate). The exact boundaries are individual, but the shape is standard:

• Zone 1 (~50–60% max HR): recovery — walking, very easy jogging.
• Zone 2 (~60–70% max HR): easy aerobic, conversational — the bulk of your training, building the aerobic base.
• Zone 3 (~70–80% max HR): moderate, "comfortably hard" — marathon to half-marathon effort.
• Zone 4 (~80–90% max HR): threshold — sustainable ~20–40 min when fit; tempo and threshold work.
• Zone 5 (~90–100% max HR): VO₂max and above — short, hard intervals.

How to set your zones

The "220 minus age" formula for max heart rate is only a rough population average — yours can be off by 10–20 beats, which throws every zone off. Two better options: anchor your zones to your lactate-threshold heart rate (estimated from a hard ~30-minute time trial), which ties them to your physiology; or get your true max from a maximal effort. However you set them, treat the numbers as a starting calibration and refine them against how efforts actually feel.

Where most of your running lives

The big-picture rule outranks the precise boundaries: roughly 80% of your running should sit in the easy zones (1–2), with hard work a smaller, deliberate dose¹. The most common error is letting easy runs drift up into zone 3 — the "gray zone" — which costs you on the hard days without the aerobic payoff of true easy running.

A caution on trusting the number

Heart rate lags at the start of a run, drifts upward as you tire, and rises with heat, dehydration, caffeine, altitude, and stress — so the same zone can mean different paces on different days. Use zones as one lens alongside pace and perceived effort, not as a verdict. When the number and how you feel disagree, ask why before obeying the watch.