Zones, Carbs, and "The Blower"

 

Zones are on a scale of 1 to 5.  If you know your LT, there are online calculators that can tell you your zones.  Zone 1 is recovery and just barely moving forward, (but feels good!), Zone 2 is faster than that, but slower than when you start huffing a little for breath, Zone 3 is huffing for air but not really straining, Zone 4 is straining, Zone 5 is sprinting for your life.

 

The huffing for air in Zone 3 is interesting.  What's happening there is your body has outreached its potential to convert potential energy (fat and some carbs) into motion on its own without outside help.  The huffing for air is like a race car turning on it's blower to fan the flames to make them hotter.  When you do that, you're now turning on the carb turbo-burner and eventually going to overheat the system and wreck it in the long term for short term gains if you leave the blower on too long.

 

The blower effect aids in the burning of carbs.  It gives the body extra oxygen which helps burn carbs in a chemical reaction, like fanning a fire to make the flames hotter and higher.  It also feels really good - and that's the trap.  That chemical reaction releases endorphins, which makes you want to do it more.  Average athletes train in this zone all the time because it feels so good.  But then they burn through their carbs and also over-work their bodies so they never get the chance to recover enough to make any real improvements.  What works best is to do lots of Zone 1 and 2 to work on form and base fitness through volume, then small doses of zones 3-5 to stress the body just enough to make it grow back stronger when resting or just doing zone 1.

 

The big takeaway?  When you're huffing at all, you've got your blower on and just turned up the heat and are burning through carbs like crazy.  It feels good and fast, so your perspective on what is going on gets skewed and you think that it's fine and want to spend more time in that zone than you should.  As Admirial Akbar says, "It's a trap!"  Besides, you're burning around 600 calories per hour in zone 3 and you can only digest 200-400, so you have limited fuel for this kind of behavior.  You eventually bonk, and then the body starts eating muscle for fuel and that REALLY hurts and takes weeks to recover from.  Not smart.

 

If you are supposed to be out on a recovery or Zone 2 run and you start huffing for air, don't fall into the trap. That's why Zone 2 is also known as "conversational pace."  You can't talk when having to interrupt yourself to huff for air.

 

Stay safe and keep the rubber side down.

Brett Blankner is a USAT Certified triathlon coach that specializes in making you faster and stronger through D3 Multisport.