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Well I thought this was a really great video. Lots of practical advice :) that is heaps

zone 1 basically to me is just fast walk, so that means i shouldnt run at all? hmmm

Most people are too narrow minded to understand what your saying

Please , send the paper link

Cuz can you Taylor something 20 weeks out?

bro running in zone 1 was amazing, i sleep on zone 1

I highly doubt the scientific studies on zone 1 training. You're already at stimulus throughout everyday activities while on....zone 1. For most runners they're already operating at zone 1 for 23+ hours a day. EDIT- Just from this video alone, I'm going to stop watching this channel. Absolute QUACKERY

Hey guys just wondering i set myself a challenge to run a sub 3 hour marathon next October. I’m 29 can already run a sub 20min 5k I’m training 1 month. have never ran a marathon before the marathon I do run will be my first. Is it possible ?

I ran a half at 1:19:30 at 294 watts. Is sub 2:40 something I should shoot for?

Any thoughts about using a full marathon as a B race with a shorter A race later in the season?

I’ve just ran a 3h05’38 in NY at my first marathon (also 1h25’ at a 2023 half). I was already so happy about it but at the same time one hour later I was thinking about going sub 3 at the next race 😆 I am thinking as you said on taking time to raise my anaerobic threshold and in around 9/10 months to crush that 3 hours in Sydney or Chicago 2025 🚀

Professor Tanaka preached slow jogging which is in zone 1. It works folks. Slow yourself down, breath deeply from your diaphragm and smile! Don't worry about miles, work on time on your feet. Don't time yourself don't do anything modern. Just stay on your feet for time. This is what Lydiard taught. Eventually you can move into time based.

I don’t want to spoil the party but elites spend little to no time focusing on heart rate runs as a guide. Lactate testing is a more common tool and time trials to assess current fitness levels. For the weekend warriors you are over thinking it..just get your butts off the couch with more regularity and you could probably increase your fitness greatly by simply increasing your easy run volume. The marathon is 99% aerobic anyways. This video seems misguided in terms of who this information would best be applied to. It’s not a one program fits all solution and this program is certainly mediocre at best.

Last month i decided to give it a try. I did the talk test on a stationary bike and it seems my zone 2 is at 145-150bpm, i"m 40 btw. I used it for my easy run but guess what? My easy run pace 10min/km is at 170bmp 😂. I didn't lost hope though and just stick to the pace for about a month. My 10min/km pace is now at 140-150. The only problem is, it starts to drift with +10bpm per km added to 5km. Still not losing hope because it makes my tempo run stable at 170bpm for 3km at 7:30min/km. I'm new to running.

1:21 5k 18:27 in the first year of training? wow

Am 63 yrs Run 42km in 4:15 Don't think will clock 3 hrs

Dear Dr. O'Connor, I set up my 16-week running plan using your model and have been following it each week. Three weeks before the event, I completed a 30 km practice run at a pace of 4:08. My goal was to break 3 hours, but I finished with a time of 3:03. I encountered a couple of issues during the race. First, my Garmin watch showed a different pace than I expected. I aimed to run at 4:10, and I felt confident I was on pace, but I actually ended up running at a 4:15 to 4:20 pace in the second half. Second, I didn’t fully analyze the course for the event in Chengdu, China. It was a city run with several highway inclines that affected my performance. Thank you for your fantastic approach to marathon training! I've saved my plan in a Google document and am planning to run again next year. I’m 54 years old, which might also influence my performance

New to marathons! First one is entered, I have 6 months. I say sub 4 hours. Done a half in 1:53 which felt conservative. This is a great video for me given I’ve not decided on a goal time yet!

On 5 zone "zones": Zone 1 for me would be walking, Zone 2 would be brisk walking. I want to enjoy running, else i'd just ride my bike. Zone 1 walking isn't fun.

Completely agree with the idea of replicating a week of training 2-3 times (4:32). Doing the same workouts a few times makes it easier to perform them at the right intensity, and makes it easier to measure progress over the 2-3 week block. I've found this especially useful while cross-training (due to stress fracture), because the stationary bike and elliptical give such exact control over intensity. My running routes make this difficult, with more stops and hills than I'd like!

You forgot to mention that simply signing up for your coaching program makes building and adjusting these phases of training around running and life events in Training Peak makes this process a lot easier.

Thanks, Dr. Will O'Connor​ for teaching me everything i know about metabolic fitness and adaptation. I followed your plan for my marathon training (running this Sunday). I am hoping it goes well!

The final step is definitely something i have never considered, to my detriment. I can almost guarantee some kind of niggle or injury a few weeks out from a race, due to pushing past my reasonable limits in training.

Always appreciate the videos and you sharing your knowledge, thank you! One production note: Your camera (either auto or manually) is focused on your microphone, so you are a bit soft and out of focus. You can tell you have solid gear, and it may have been a random issue, but wanted to let you know. To get around this, especially if the camera is on autofocus, just select Manual focus and focus behind the microphone on something at approximately the same plane as your face/eyes when you're seated and presenting. Keep up the good work!

Do you adjust HR or pace for weather, eg when training in the summer for a fall marathon?

Do you think it is possible for someone that has just started running 3 years ago to get this pace and goal.

Thanks for a good video. I dont do the double treshold intervals, but quite often have days when I bike at or above treshold twice a day. Happens when biking 45 minutes to work, and 40 minutes biking home. I dont always hit treshold on the homeride because I might feel like its better to go easy. These double days with some zone 1-2-3-4-5 has raised my lactatetreshold to a good level. A comment to the word "Fartlek". Fartslek is a Norwegian word containing "fart" and lek". "Fart" means "speed" and "lek" means "play". The original meaning of this term is playing and having fun at different speed. Compared to intervals its more playful and less systematic. My zonesystem is 1-easy, 2-talking easy, 3 tempo, 4 treshold,5- full power anaerobic up to max heart rate.

If I were a beginner runner, I would completely ignore "zones". Instead, I would focus on progressive volume, technique and cadence, and using the "talk test" to assess effort level. If you can talk in a full paragraph while jogging or running you are below lactate threshold, regardless of your HR or what the fancy watch on your wrist is telling you.

So if im training in the grey zone and recruiting anaerobic energy instead of mitochondrial... what happens when i'm racing? How does serobic energy kick in?

You know nothing about running

Rabbit hole, rabbit hole, rabbit. Loved this one. So many questions........I look forward to digging deeper and learning more.

Hey would you ever consider turning the music down a bit. I find it hard to concentrate on what you are saying.

I do my long runs at zone 3 (HR 153 - 163) All my other runs are zone 2, 3 times a week (HR 143 - 153). I have a Spartan Ultra race Morzine (50k) in Jul 2025. My first ever! I am currently running around 43k. Enchancing this every week by 10%. 40% long run and 3x20% zone 2. In Januari I want to incorporate some trailrunning and hills aswell. Any recommendations?

please stop using unscientific mile scale and revert to km only. Why do elite runners train most of the time in their easy zone? Because they train a huge amount of hours and they just couldn´t uphold those hours with more intensity. It is different for an amateur that has a 9to5 job and trains 3 times a week. They can run higher percentage of their time in hit zones like 2 out of 3 days. When I was 17 years old without any knowledge or coach I started running without prior sport experience like soccer or so and was always running (apart from warm-up and cool down for 5 min) almost as fast as I could and never longer than 30 min. Then I did 10 k in 40 min without ever having run more than 10 km on a single day in my life.

Thanks a lot! I'm at 1:43 half marathon. Working on getting the number down to 1:30, it's different from running marathon, but I found this video very infromative

Very Bad video, he writes down what not to do. But what to do instead he just say it without writing it down

I started back running 10 months ago. Have a training background in climbing so understood that too much high intensity breaks the body. So started in with Zone 2 for the year, almost exclusively - with only one single session per week that I think runners call Threshold or Intervals - and a maximum of 8 hours per week training (which included one hour in the gym also). Those zone 2 (for me in mid-40's puts it around 130-140) runs meant walking hills, etc - whatever had to be done. But as the year went on, the amount of walking has been steadily declining on lower incline hills..... The outcome was finishing with a 19 minute 5km 8 months later and a 110km ultra in 19 hours (which was well within limit and not killing myself to the end). Neither are amazing but they're not terrible times either. I CANNOT recommend enough to everyone to dial back their pace for lots of their runs. Give it six months and see how you get on!

Great video. Lose the music, please.

I loved seeing clips of NZ!

Hey, This video is not applicaple for those who lives near equator in hot and humid areas where while you walk you hit zone 2 easily..

This is very useful! I actually went back to a few of my marathon workouts of my sub-3 prep this year, and the decoupling was 4.5 / 4.8 on most sessions, but with 15-20k of a single marathon pace block. Definitely something I will keep an eye on for the upcoming block.

Excellent tips...agree 100%. As a sub3 runner and coaching experience and passion understanding physiology is so underrated. Great video 🎉. Cheers legend.

This makes a lot of sense to me and it's great content condensed in just 7 minutes. I was guilty of being fixated on an arbitrary number in my early attempts to break 3:30. I stuck to sub 5 min/km pace ignoring the conditions. It was warmer than what I had trained in. My HR was at half marathon level at halfway so there was no way I could hold that for another half. I didn't crash as badly as I could have, finished in 3:36 with a 1:45-1:51 half-half split. Still, the second half sucked and I had to walk the smallest inclines because my calves were cramping. Running slightly negative splits gives you a much better race experience, the process is a lot more enjoyable. So yes, focusing on the process and not the outcome is key. I'll pass that message on to my runners.

Dr will - I need you to help me here rather quickly. I have a maratjon in 12 days time and my head is wrecked with the decision to attack sub 3 or hold back and aim for where I feel I am and thats sub 3.10. Heres my stats. My garmin watch says my V02 max is 57. However, I dont believe I have lived up to a 57 v02 max from my times. I am 6 foot 2 and weigh around 80 pounds. My PBs are as follows Marathon (2023 - 3 hours 27 - with no clue what I was doing in training and around 60 to 80k weekly mileage. 400m - 1.13 (thats all out) 800m - 2.42 1k - 3.23 5k - 18.52 10k - 39.40 Half marathon ( no clue as my last one was way before last years marathon and i got 1.39) Now, my garmin keeps telling me my fitness is " productive for the last 4 weeks " and my estimated times are 5k - 17.41 10k - 38.02 Half marathon 1.23 Marathon 3.02. Now, probably all guns blazing and with the right specific work ye I could maybe at a push get around 17.58 but I cant see these times in me? I can hold 3.58 pace for 10k but no idea after wards. Now, my "max heart rate kept getting adjusted down every dam run" - does this mean im getting fitter or worse? My new max heart rate is 193 which for any sort of tempo run puts me all in zone 5 lol even though I am not falling around the place, but yet v02 max keeps going up??? My zones are calculated 90 to 100% for z5 80 to 90% z4 70 to 80% z3 60 to 70% z2 And the balance below. What does someone of your exepertise think I could achieve or go for in this marathon in 12 days? Please help will! Cheers

Would this be the case for a half Marathon?

Commented before seeing min 6-7min. Couldnt agree more. Cheers legend.

Great video. Going into low to mid Zone 4 is 1 of the biggest dramas many budding marathoners experience. Running above 95% of lt2 in the 1st 15km pretty much guaranteed disaster 😊. Ps well done on the epic 2:37.

But yeah you are a legend. I need to watch your videos about 3 times to fully understand them lol

You have a program that i can follow. Im mostly doing all by myself and looking for a coach

2:47, oh the horror!