In praise of warmup miles
Those slow miles can tell you a lot, when you listen
It doesn’t matter if you’re super-fit or just starting out, the first few miles of any run tend to be the toughest. If you're anything like me, your body feels tired and sore at the beginning of a run, while your mind fills your head with all kinds of negative thoughts and discursive feedback.
With experience comes the understanding that the rest of your run will usually go just fine once your body warms up. The blood will start flowing and your anxious mind will be pacified. At least until that next hill.
It would stand to reason that if the first few miles are the hardest you’ll run all day, you ought to make an effort to make them just a touch easier. Yet, many runners routinely burn through those first few miles, putting undue stress on what’s already a stressful activity. (I know from experience because that was my default mode for years.)
Show of hands: How many of you include warm up miles during your run?
Let me ask it a different way. How many of you make your car go from zero-to-60 every time you find yourself behind the wheel? I don’t mean when you’re merging on a highway. I mean, right out of your driveway with the pedal to the metal, burning fuel and cranking RPMs like your engine can take whatever punishment you inflict upon it.
Since I live in New England, I’m quite sure some of you do drive that way, or did when you were younger. But I’m willing to bet that most of us recognize that operating a vehicle in that manner is unsafe, both for you and your car. It’s wasteful, inefficient, and potentially dangerous.
So, here’s a final question: Why would you do that to yourself when you go for a run?
