Heart rate zones and perceived effort

If you run without music and have done many zone 2 runs, your RPE should be fairly accurate.  No one indicator is the "bible" (yes, not even watts on the bike) but the utilization of all indicators available to you and an awareness of how your body feels/responds to the training your doing.

There are some workouts where even if my RPE is at 90% effort my HR doesn't get out of zone 1 and other workouts where the opposite is true.  Both of these indicate something different is happening, my body is telling me something different in both of these cases.

Experience and monitoring your indicators will allow you to become the best judge of what's going on.  Even my coach can't  "predict" how I will react to a workout on any given day, but he simply provides me with weekly workout schedules and if I end up having to pull the plug on a workout because of 1 reason or another (injury creeping back to the surface, etc.) then he relies on the fact that I won't be stupid and just power through a workout because that's what he "told" me to do.

You're doing the right thing by trying to figure out what's best for you to do as well as understanding the importance of endurance building workouts...however, only guidance can be found in others and only your own experience can provide you ultimately with the correct solution.

"You have snatched the pebble from my hand, so now it is time for you to leave. "

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

I was concerned that by running with higher HR, I would move out of the aerobic zone and undermine my goals for the run. Seems that I shouldn't worry and if the perceived effort is light and typical of z2... so it is.