Zone 2

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I stumbled across a running account on Instagram this week. Fifteen minutes later down the content rabbit hole and I was thinking about how I live my life.

Image: I ended up watching my best friend’s dog last week along with her daughters while she was on a work trip. The house was chaos with all the kids and our cat hiding from this cute, curious pup.

Many of you know I’ll be running the marathon in November. I registered for a weekly running group that prepares you for the big day. With each practice, we work on different techniques that prepare us to run our 26.2. I’ve written about my experiences in this group before. I’m in Group Five, which means we run a 10:30ish mile over an extended period of time. Ten and a half minutes isn’t effortless for me but it’s also not that hard. When we train, our coaches often ask us to run at a seven and a half effort, which is a tempo pace. A tempo pace is a comfortable hard and for me that’s about 10-minute pace. But, sometimes after the coaches make us run at a surge pace, which is a bit faster, I find myself recovering at a roughly 11-minute pace. This past week, one of the coaches yelled “Let’s go, Petrushka!” And I got confused because I thought we were in recovery. I don’t think I was going fast enough for her. She knew what I was capable of and I think she thought my recovery should have been faster. Maybe it should have but it was easy for me and that was the point.

When I was watching these running tips about how to train (I realized later that they are AI generated, but the content is good), they expressed that the slow pace (the Zone 2 pace) is where you get stronger; it’s where you build your aerobic base allowing you to sustain continuous effort. I think my recovery pace is my Zone 2. I’m a recreational/occasional hobbyist kind of runner so I didn’t know about the power of running in Zone 2.

And then I thought, what if I live life in Zone 2?

Image: Shot from an impromptu community event that we agreed to participate in. I wanted this little girl’s outfit. She’s the cutest!

I’m out here living life at Zone 5 (VO2 Max), which is a maximum effort workout. You can’t get faster or stronger living at this pace all the time.

In March, I wrote about my “portal” day when I was making content for our Women’s History Month pint series campaign, going to a networking event, prepping for an on-air segment like I was the food stylist and then being the talent for said segment before visiting my restaurant concepts at JFK for observation before getting on a flight for a national indoor track race that I prepped one of the kids to attend that morning at 5:30am.

I have these kinds of days where I’m at once wearing multiple hats of my identities—business owner, mother, wife, friend, neighbor. Just last Thursday, I worked through what felt like a head cold, sent an Uber for two of the kids who were sleeping over at a friend’s house (the parent escorted them home) so they could get ready for their sports banquet, helped them get ready, prepped for a shareholder meeting for our co-op apartment building where I serve as the Board Secretary, sent them with a babysitter to the banquet only to meet them 45-minutes later. I was able to attend the first half of the banquet and then had to retreat into the backroom of the venue to participate in the meeting.

So I started thinking about life or at least 80% of it at a Zone 2 pace. What does that look like?

It’s 80% easy so that the 20% of the day’s sprints are manageable.

There’s a part of me that feels like a Zone 2 life starts with having a good stretch and some quiet time with God in the morning and then a small bite to eat right before helping my kids get ready for the day. Then there’s a transition to work with a break for a high-protein lunch and a cup of warm chai at 3pm before the kids get home and transition into homework and after school activities. Who’s making the dinner? Not sure. Maybe we all eat girl dinner (no stove, just a smattering of charcuterie board-like snacks from whatever’s in the pantry), then take an evening walk before bedtime where we fall asleep after 30-minutes of reading. Maybe Zone 2 also has an aperitivo hour?! Zone 2 also has fewer non-critical things to do; I don’t take on multiple major projects, just one.

This is not my life in this season.

This month, I started audio journaling my year to get a sense of what we did at work, what was going on in my personal life and how I felt during each month. My goal is to have a better log of the routine and spontaneous activities of 2026 so that I can enter 2027 with more strategy and hopefully more Zone 2 living and more focus on what the Zone 5 priorities need to be.

Image: A beautiful view from the stairs at Riverbank National Park. What a beautiful day Sunday was.

Now that it’s August and the summer rush is pretty much behind me, I have more time to think about what a comfortable pace that trains me for more looks like.

I truly don’t have the answers for this kind of living because I’m easily vacillating between Zones 4 and 5 before I pass out from exhaustion almost every day to do it all over again.

So, my biggest question right now is what a Zone 2 to-do list looks like.

Do you feel like you’re living in that Zone—easy paced activity for most of the day so you can attack the high stakes 20% of your day with strength?

If so, tell me your secrets!

Have a great week ahead,

Petrushka

Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach