English is fine, there's nothing to apologize for
Thanks for your detailed post and thoughts. We are aware of this problem and we have a ticket at Github:
https://github.com/Runalyze/Runalyze/issues/1726
So far, we did not decide how to store these values in the database. The detailed analysis of how much time someone spent in a specific zone during an activity requires the complete data array to look at. For a single activity, this is not a problem at all, but talking about hundreds of activities, it's too much to process 'live' each time a user wants to see this analysis.
Our main problem is how to set these zones. It's a big overhead to store the exact histogram (e.g. 130bpm: 67s, 131bpm: 14s, ...), but how to set these zones? For pace: how large should these zones be? 0:15/km? What's with people using min/mi instead of min/km? They won't get the same 'nice' zones. Talking of heart rate, it's even worse. Should it be every 5bpm? Every 10bpm? Every 20bpm? Or should they be based on %HRmax instead? Or even %HRreserve? The latter ones are not consistent over time.
In addition: these zones are not the same for all sport types. For cycling and running there are clearly different speed zones required.
Using something that's not consistent over time or configurable by the user requires a complete recalculation of all these values if the user decides to change his settings. So far, we are not prepared to run jobs like these in the background.
The 'suggestions' I made for this issue, so far, are:
- heart rate zones are probably valid for all sport types
- power zones are valid for all sport types (only relevant for cycling, I guess)*
- pace zones should be individual for sport types
In addition, definitions for these zones and respective limits should not be overcomplicated. Long-term analysis is thought to give the 'big picture' of long-term changes in one's training. It does not matter that much whether a zone ends at 4:00/km or 4:05/km (or at 90%HRmax or 92%HRmax). It's just important to use enough zones.
* That's what I posted at the issue, but I think they are different for running than for cycling.