Warming Up

Did 12 miles on Sunday at slightly slower than 9min/mile pace. I decided to take a different more hilly route than i would normally do. I managed to do the last .3 miles at about 6:40 pace which got me thinking about warming-up. Being able to crank out an elevated pace (albeit short) at the end of a 12 mile run had me realize that my having had such a touch time right from the start of the race on Saturday may have been a result of not being properly warmed up. Due to the nature of the airport setup, I did the race with zero warm-up.

Today, I did 6 miles with 4 at LT pace. I wanted to try and keep the mileage low this week so I decided on 6 miles top. I did the less than one mile jog to the shopping mall and started into it, but the pace was really feeling tough. I managed the first mile in 7:16 and then did the second in 7:29. My HR was spiking. I decided to take a 2 min rest break which caused the HR to return to normal. Then was able to do 2 more miles in 7:04 and 6:47. It's remarkable the difference in effort between the two 2-mile repeats. I do know now that one mile is not sufficient for me to be warmed-up for LT type pace. In the past, I've usually done at least 2 prior to an LT run.

So, it looks like I'll be trying another 5k race this Saturday. It's by the lake. I've done the 10k there before and will try to get a decent warmup prior to that.