Looking at my running power zones, my threshold power (CP) is set at 352 W and VO2max power at 430 W. Running power Zone 5 spans from 390–441 W, which roughly corresponds to ~110% of CP up to ~100% of VO2max power.
However, when looking at the Running Pace Profile and the corresponding speed zones, threshold pace is 4:10/km and VO2max pace is 3:21/km. Yet pace Zone 5 is only defined as 4:05–4:25/km and does not extend anywhere close to VO2max pace.
So this confuses me a bit:
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For power, the upper limit of Zone 5 seems to align with VO2max power.
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For pace, the upper limit of Zone 5 is actually close to threshold pace and far below VO2max pace.
Why is there this difference between the way power zones and pace zones are defined?
Shouldn’t the upper limit of pace Zone 5 also correspond more closely to VO2max pace, just like the upper limit of power Zone 5 corresponds to VO2max power?
The Athletica help article also describes Zone 5 as extending up to vVO2max, which seems inconsistent with the actual pace zones shown in my profile.
https://support.athletica.ai/hc/en-us/articles/21647845411227-Zones
