Warming up!

Warming up

It’s important and can make your racing much more pleasant.

I was pinning on my bib number when the gun went off this morning at the local Thanksgiving 5k that my daughter and I run each year.  I had just dashed over from parking my car in a space that was questionably legal because I didn’t have time.  That was my warm up.  Not the quality warm up I should really be getting in before a 5K on a cold day.

Sure enough my body never warmed up enough to race well.   I managed the first mile but towards the middle of the race my legs started to protest as the cold muscles refused to be abused at race pace and couldn’t get enough warm blood to keep from seizing up.

I slowed way down and muddled through the rest of the race with a tight gate and a bit of a grimace, but it was miserable for the most part.  Not a positive experience from a runner’s point of view.  Of course it was a wonderful experience from a Dad’s point of view to have this tradition with my daughter.

Today I’m going to talk to you about the importance of the warm up.

If I really wanted to perform well in the race this morning I should have left time to warm up.  In a morning 5K on a cold and windy day a good warm up could be worth 20-30 seconds a mile to me.  A good warm up also would have made the whole thing less painful and stressful.

What is a warm up?  What is it that you are warming up? Why do you want to warm up for a race, or even for a hard workout?

First, you want to warm up your muscles and tendons and all the connective tissue that drives your running.  By warming up you are literally oiling the mechanical parts of your machine.  The warm up opens up pathways that bring blood and nutrients to your muscles that, especially for a morning race, have been dormant.

A nice easy warm up also begins the flow of natural lubricants to your joints and the fascia that sheaths your tendons.

Second, you want to warm up to get your cardio-vascular system prepared for the effort of racing. You heart, your lungs and the entire venal system that you are asking to transport oxygen and fuel to your muscles has to be given a chance to get ready for that effort.

I’ll give you a couple metaphors to help you visualize.

The most popular metaphor is that your body is like a car.  On a cold morning you have to give your car a chance to warm up.  That cold oil has to be warmed up and moved through the engine to lubricate the pistons before the car can perform.  Cold metal parts need to heat up and expand to function properly.  You heart and lungs and muscles are the same way.  Racing a cold car can result in damaging the engine!

Another example would be a rubber band.  Have you ever tried to stretch a cold rubber band?  It’s stiff and non-flexible until you warm it up by stretching it some.  Your tendons are the same way.  Racing on cold legs drastically raises your chance of pulling or tearing something.  The connective tissue is cold and hasn’t been lubricated well.

The older you get the longer it takes to warm up and the more important it becomes.  When I was young I could jump into a race and basically ‘warm up on the fly’.  My muscles and systems were resilient enough to survive that first hard effort, recover in the second mile and work at full potential in the race.  I can’t do that now.

What does a warm up look like?  If I was smart and had all the time in the world what kind of warm up would I have done for this 5K?

First, I would have gone out and run the entire course at a zone 2 heart rate effort.  This is an effort level that is super easy, low heart rate, slow and easy pace.  For me this would mean 20-30 minutes of easy jogging prior to the race.

Second, I would have rubbed some ‘warm up’ cream into my major leg muscles after I got out of bed and before I drove over to the race. I use a product called FlexAll, but any menthol or capsicum based warm up cream will do.  What this does is create some chemical heat in the muscles that draw blood in and begins opening up the blood flow pathways to the muscles.

There is no special magic here.  On a cold day like today, before I put my tights on I’ll take 10 minutes and pre-heat the major leg muscles.  Squirt a little glop in your hand and massage it into your calf and hamstring, then so the same for your quad, then the same for the other leg.  Put your tights on and enjoy the nasty wintergreen fumes while your muscles warm up and you drive to the race.

Third, I would have stretched.  I would stretch only after having done the warm up jog.  It’s much better to stretch warm muscles and connective tissue.

I would do my stretching routine which consists of wall leans for the hamstrings, anterior Achilles squat stretch, hurdler stretch for the hamstring/calf and standing quad lunge type stretch for each quad.   I hold each of these for at least 1 minute.  I self massage while I’m doing it and use relaxation breathing to let them release.

Finally, in the minutes before the race start, I would do some short pick ups.  This is a 25 – 50 foot strider.  You find a patch of road and accelerate into race pace and form for a few seconds then wind it back down.  You can do 2 to 5 of these depending how amped up you are.  It’s a great way to burn a little pre-race anxiety and put your system on notice that it’s ‘go’ time.

If I had managed to do that warm up routine this morning I would have executed a much higher quality race and enjoyed it much more.

You probably have some questions.  Like do I really have to run for 30 minutes before my race to warm up?  It really depends on the conditions and the type of race and what kind of shape you’re in.  I recommend at least 10 minutes of warm up jog before any race.  The shorter the race the more important it is to warm up but I will warm up for a marathon too.

I have the heart rate data to prove my warm up assertions.  On a cold day, starting a marathon wearing my heart rate monitor, it takes at least 10 minutes for my heart rate to come down and start behaving normally in a marathon.  Sometimes it will take as much as 3 miles before my HR stabilizes.

I am currently training for and racing a marathon a month so adding in a 3.1 mile warm up to a 3.1 mile race is no big deal for me.  You might be at a different level, but everyone should warm up for a race, even if it is just 10 minutes of brisk walking.

The warm up is also important for hard tempo or speed workouts as well.  You shouldn’t just drop into a set of 800’s at the track without doing a similar warm up to what I have described.  A good warm up will allow you to get the maximum performance and benefit from your hard tempo and speed workouts without hurting yourself.

One summer I was training for a qualifying marathon.  I was running a local Thursday afternoon race series every week and treating it as one of my weekly tempo runs.  I’d go over and run the course first, then maybe even do some 1600’s.  Then I would run the race hard.  People thought I was crazy to run the 3.4 mile course before the race as a warm up but it allowed me to go all out and get a great weekly work out in without hurting myself.

Warm up my friends.  And I don’t mean snuggling under the covers with your dog.  I proved once again this morning that that is a really bad warm up for a cold 5K!

Chris,