Is HR zone 2 usually that high?

Question

I have been running for nearly two years and this year (beginning 2022) started to do it more regularly, like 4-5 times per week. Distance on average per week aroung 50km. By mid-year I go a HR strap and a new watch and started to see a couple of things I had seen't before such as the lactate threshold moving and the HR zones changing as well.

After, let's say 6 months of training I have a VO2Max of 50, I'm 38 years old and I have the HR zones as follow:

Yesterday peaked a max of 190 and that's why I have this new max. My question is, are they normal HR zones? I mean, a lot of my friends have a zone 2 up to 130 bpms and max of 177 and things like that. They don't wear strap and they may be a few years older (around 6-7 years older) but to me - unless I'm completely wrong - it seems a bit strange having a zone 2 up to 156 bpms?

As I say I'm fairly new to do this and I have been reading about the zones etc but I haven't seen examples with real life people showing and describing their zones hence this question.

Answer 1

Are you and your friends using different devices to measure your heart rate zones?

It looks like you are using Garmin, which is estimating your lactate threshold heart rate and defining different zones relative to that. Whereas traditionally, heart rate zones are based off deciles of estimated maximum heart rate. Your friends' examples of zone 2 being up to 130 bpm and a max heart rate of 177 is pretty consistent with the traditional approach, which defines zone 2 as 60-70% of maximum heart rate.

In any case, these zones are pretty arbitrary, not particularly meaningful, and are only being estimated, not precisely measured. You shouldn't read too much into them, and shouldn't worry if other people are using zones that have very different heart rate ranges to yours.