How fast do you run your warmup for a race?

bump.

I don't. I show up and stretch a little. I don't run a step until they fire the gun.

With my NCAA team, about 7min pace. On my own (in better shape than NCAA days) about 8min pace.

At the 1989 Boilermaker I passed Jon Sinclair on my warm-up. Wasn't I cool!!! Sinclair then won the race.

Just fast enough to get warm.

5-7 min easy, stretch, 5 more min with a few strides...

Anywhere from 1:40-2:15/mi slower than my 10k race pace. Then change into race shoes, and run a few strides at my goal race pace.

I run ~5:00 pace for 5k, and usually start around 7:30ish and work my way down to a little under 6:30ish or so... that's all at a guess, I don't pay too close of attention to it.

who cares. run by feel quit worrying about pace. it's a warm up for crying out loud!

I was wondering because me and other teammates run our 15 minute warmups around 9:30 pace. Our coach told us this is to slow and we need to go as fast to race pace as possible, without fatiguing ourselfs.

Us guys that warm up at that pace run from 25:30 to 26:30 for 8k so we're not fast or anything.

7:00/mile.

I would do what your coach suggests and see what results you get. Try it a few times, and then discuss the results with him.

I did a warmup prior to a 5k last year with runners faster than I am, and I was a bit out of my comfort zone - it was longer (5k warmup versus my normal 1.5-2mi) and faster (6:50-7:20 versus my normal high 7s/low 8s) than my normal warmup pace. I ended up running well and got a new PR.

I do think it's worthwhile to do SOME running at around race pace during the warmup. Daniels suggests somewhere that doing a nice lengthly portion at goal race pace can actually help avoid going out too fast at the beginning of the race.

Anyway, don't be afraid to experiment. Good luck.

sorry, by "lengthy" I believe Daniels mentioned something like a Cruise Interval-length segment (3 to 8 minutes?).

Easy jog at a comfortable pace for 10-15 minutes. Can be at 9:30 if you like. Then a couple strides to loosen up. Then 1 minute at sub-5k pace to get the engine turned on. Then just enough moving to keep everything limber (slow jog, walk, strides) until the race starts.

I'm of the opinion that you can easily do more harm than good if you run a warmup too fast. Therefore somewhere from 7:30pace to 10:00pace is probably about where it should be. Then some strides.

You could perhaps practice about what race pace is going to be like but just do this during the strides at the starting line. You of course do not want it to be at all taxing. Save it for the actual race.

I jog around very slowly for about 1/2 hour and throw in some wind sprints of about 50m. Nurmi was the king of warmups. Eye witnesses say that he did a 2 hour warmup before his 5000m Olympic race.

i know a lot of elites (especially the ethiopians) like to warm up starting very slowly and eventually building up to just about race pace at the end. they do this before races and workouts so that when the race/workout begins the pace doesnt come as a shock.

Again, I don't post on these things very often. However, when I was racing competitively, I found that doing a warmup that would simulate the "feel" of racing would make me more relaxed when it came to the race. So, about 1/2 hour prior to race time, after an easy warmup, I would run maybe 1/2 to 1 mile at race pace to assimulate myself to what it feels like. Then, I would take it easy till race time. When the gun went off, It felt easier or whatever, and I could mentally and physically get into to race pace better. It worked. This developed initially from when I was in High School and had to run the Mile (1600 now) very quickly, and then had a little time to rest and prepare to run the 2 mile(3200). The 2 mile always felt so relatively easy, and I came to realize this was because I had run so hard and warmed up by doing the mile earlier. I realized the importance of almost shocking your system into being ready for racing.

However, as a totally Contrary approach to what I stated above, when I was in college, along with my Team, I entered this Major race, that happened to occur on Nov. 1st, the morning after Halloween. As I had partied all night on Halloween(my favorite holiday, what you gonna do) the night before, I was hungover and down for the count, but rode the bus to the meet anyway the next morning. Being so hungover, I didn't and couldn't even walk a step to warm up, so I sat under a tree until race time, and slowly walked to the starting line. Bang! When that gun went off, I proceeded to run the best time I ever ran on that championship race, without a step of warmup. And, to add flavor to this whole deal, even as a shoe contracted seriously trained pro runner in the next 3-4 years, I was Never able to match that time or place in following years, that I ran in that initial race no matter how I trained or warmed up.

So, considering those totally discriminate approaches to warm up with successful results, I don't really know what it takes for the best warmup. Maybe it's just your specific biorhythms on that particular race day. Who Knows? Maybe just drink more the night before.

I ran in the sub-elite corral at the Bay to Breakers last year and in this corral you are allowed to warmup in front of the start along with the elite athletes. I do my warmup runs for about 20-25 minutes of maybe 8min/mile pace (I am a fan of the long, slow warmup) and throw in a few strides. I can tell you that I was passing groups of Ethiopians and Kenyans at 8min/mile! They picked up their warmup pace as they went but never really ran too fast. But when they did their strides - a little faster to say the least.