Heart-Rate & Pace Zone Calculator
Five zones, from the one number worth testing.
Zones tell you how hard each session is meant to be. Most calculators build them from a max heart rate you have never actually measured, which is why so many people end up training every session in the same grey middle. This one anchors on threshold — the number you can measure in a 30-minute effort and that moves as you get fitter — and tells you how much confidence to place in the result.
Derived from your measured maximum
Your endurance zone is 135–149 bpm and your threshold zone is 157–166 bpm
Your zones are derived from your measured maximum. That is a reasonable estimate, but threshold sits anywhere between about 85% and 92% of max depending on the individual, so treat the edges as approximate. The rule that matters more than the exact numbers: most of your hours belong in zone two, a small share in zones four and five, and very little deliberately in zone three.
Your five heart-rate zones
View as a table
| Band | Score |
|---|---|
| Z1 | 100–134 bpm |
| Z2 | 135–149 bpm |
| Z3 | 150–156 bpm |
| Z4 | 157–166 bpm |
| Z5 | 167 bpm and above |
| You | Threshold — 167 bpm |
Anchored on a lactate-threshold heart rate of 167 bpm. Zone five is open-ended — the upper figure is where the chart stops, not where the zone does.
Heart-rate zones in full
Copy these into your watch. Most devices let you set five custom zones by beats per minute.
| Zone | Heart rate | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Z1 Recovery | 100–134 bpm | Active recovery and easy aerobic work. Conversational throughout. |
| Z2 Endurance | 135–149 bpm | The aerobic base. Where the majority of your hours belong. |
| Z3 Tempo | 150–156 bpm | Moderately hard. Useful in small doses, easy to overuse. |
| Z4 Threshold | 157–166 bpm | At or just under threshold. Raises the ceiling you can hold. |
| Z5 VO2max | 167 bpm and above | Short, hard intervals. Top-end aerobic power. |
Your run-pace zones
Built from a threshold pace of 5:00/km. Pace zones beat heart-rate zones for short intervals, because heart rate lags the effort by 30 to 60 seconds.
| Zone | Pace per km |
|---|---|
| Z1 Recovery | 6:27/km and slower |
| Z2 Endurance | 5:42–6:26/km |
| Z3 Tempo | 5:18–5:41/km |
| Z4 Threshold | 4:57–5:17/km |
| Z5 VO2max | 4:56/km and faster |
How to actually use them
Roughly 75 to 80% of your weekly training time belongs in zones one and two, and 20 to 25% in zones four and five. Zone three is the trap: hard enough to cost you recovery, not hard enough to drive the adaptation you were chasing. If every session you do lands in zone three, fixing that alone will change your season.
Heart rate lags effort by 30 to 60 seconds and drifts upward on long or hot sessions. Use it for steady aerobic work, and use pace or power for anything shorter than about five minutes.
Retest threshold every eight to twelve weeks. Maximum heart rate barely moves with training, but threshold does — and stale zones quietly turn a threshold session into a tempo session as you get fitter.
Tri Alliance sessions that close these gaps
- Coached pool swim squad Zones are only useful if the sessions are built around them. A coached squad session is prescribed in zones by default.
- One-to-one coach consult A coach will run the threshold test properly and set the zones from the result rather than from a formula.
- Coached run squad Run-pace zones land fastest when someone is watching you hold them. Squad sets are written to these numbers.
Heart-rate zones are a training guide, not a medical assessment. Anyone new to hard exercise, returning from illness, on heart-rate-altering medication such as beta blockers, or experiencing chest pain, unusual breathlessness or palpitations should get medical clearance before doing a maximal or threshold test.
The short answer
Training zones are best anchored on lactate-threshold heart rate (LTHR), not maximum heart rate, because threshold responds to training and can be field-tested reliably. Using Friel's threshold-anchored scheme, the five heart-rate zones are: Zone 1 recovery below 81% of LTHR, Zone 2 aerobic endurance 81–89%, Zone 3 tempo 90–93%, Zone 4 threshold 94–99%, and Zone 5 VO2max at 100% of LTHR and above. Run-pace zones use threshold pace instead: Zone 1 slower than 129% of threshold pace, Zone 2 114–129%, Zone 3 106–113%, Zone 4 99–105%, and Zone 5 faster than 99%. LTHR is measured as the average heart rate over the final 20 minutes of a 30-minute all-out time trial performed alone. Age-predicted maximum heart rate formulas carry a standard deviation of about 10–12 beats per minute, so zones derived from them should be treated as a starting estimate rather than a prescription.
How to use this tool
- Choose what you actually know. If you have done a 30-minute threshold test, use that — it is worth far more than any estimate.
- Enter the heart rate figure for the method you chose, plus your resting heart rate if you know it.
- Enter your run threshold pace — near enough is your best one-hour race pace per kilometre.
- Read your five heart-rate zones and five run-pace zones, and copy them into your watch.
- Book the threshold field test if your zones came from an estimate, then run this again with the real number.
Common questions
How do I find my threshold heart rate?
Warm up thoroughly, then run or ride as hard as you can sustain for 30 minutes, alone and on flat ground or a steady climb. Your average heart rate over the FINAL 20 minutes of that effort is your lactate-threshold heart rate. Do it alone — racing someone else turns a threshold test into a race and inflates the number. Retest every eight to twelve weeks, because threshold moves with fitness while maximum heart rate barely does.
Why not just use 220 minus my age?
Because it is wrong for most people. The 220-minus-age formula has a standard deviation of about 10 to 12 beats per minute, meaning roughly a third of athletes sit more than 12 beats away from their predicted value. At that error, a zone-two ride can easily be a zone-three ride, which is exactly how athletes end up doing every session at the same moderately hard intensity and wondering why nothing improves. Tanaka's formula (208 minus 0.7 times age) is a little better, and that is what this tool uses, but a measured number beats both.
Why are my cycling and running heart rates different?
Running heart rate typically runs about 5 to 10 beats per minute higher than cycling heart rate at the same relative effort, because you are supporting your own body weight and using more total muscle mass. Set your zones per discipline: test threshold on the bike for bike zones and on the run for run zones. If you only test once, test on the run and subtract roughly 5 to 10 beats for the bike as a starting point.
How much of my training should be in each zone?
For endurance athletes the usual pattern is roughly 75 to 80% of training time in zones one and two, and 20 to 25% in zones four and five, with very little deliberately spent in zone three. Zone three feels productive because it is hard enough to hurt, but it is not easy enough to build aerobic base and not hard enough to drive top-end adaptation. If most of your sessions land in zone three, that is the single biggest thing to fix.
My heart rate drifts up on long sessions even though I am not going harder. Is that normal?
Yes. This is cardiac drift, and it is caused mainly by dehydration and rising core temperature reducing blood plasma volume, so the heart beats more often to move the same amount of blood. Expect a drift of around 5 to 10 beats per hour on a long, warm session at steady effort. Pace by effort and power rather than chasing a heart-rate number down in the back half of a long ride, and treat a drift of more than about 10% as a signal that your fluid intake is short.