5k Warm Up Process
By Coach Matt RussA 5k requires a very intense effort at, and often over, your anaerobic threshold as you sprint for the finish. Knowing what heart rate correlates with your AT, and pacing accordingly, can help smooth out those anaerobic spikes and keep you from going into oxygen debt. Debts, as you may know, have to be paid back. Once you are anaerobic (without oxygen) and using mostly anaerobic pathways you are on borrowed time. This is the point where breathing is no longer rythmic but raggad, and you feel like you can not get enough oxygen (which is exactly what is happening). You may find yourself gasping for breath and the legs feel heavy and on fire.
In order for your blood to re-oxygenate you must slow down and recover- just like as you would for an intense interval. The well paced athlete will skate right along this threshold without tipping the scale too far into oxygen debt. This will mean holding back on the hills and pushing harder on descents. Too many spikes and you will be spending your race pushing into debt and then paying it back but slowing down, creating a stochastic pace and harder effort. A highly conditioned athlete may be able to go anaerobic for over a minute; but you want to save that for the final sprint to the finish.
A sound pacing strategy will pull the most out of you but a proper warm up process is also critical for short/fast events. Many athletes do not warm up properly and the result is increased oxygen debt in the first part of the race. It takes time to open up the metabolic pathways for intense efforts and you will be essentially using the first mile to warm up. Hit the starting line already "open" and ready to race and you will not only be faster you will be less likely to get injured. Here is my recommended warm up process for a 5k race...
- - Run 10-15 minutes at a low to moderate effort. Perform several 10-15 second pick ups at race pace.
- - You will now perform 6-8x 100 meter run strides. Strides are simply running with perfect form. The first one should be relaxed. Each subsequent run stride should be just a bit faster but should not exceed an effort of 90%. Focus on form and feel. Walk for 10-15 seconds between strides.
- - You will now run a ladder spending at least 3 minutes slightly below your AT. The total time of the ladder should be 6-8 minutes with a goal of sustaining an effort slightly below race pace for 3 minutes.
- - Spend the next 5 minutes running at a low intensity. You are now ready to start the race.
- - Timing your warm up is important! Don't allow yourself to cool down. You will notice the fastest runners continue to warm up until just prior to the race. While waiting for the gun continue to move in place, high knees, small jumps, etc..
Do not make the rookie mistake of going out too fast in that first mile. Now go out and run right along that anaerobic threshold and you are on your way to a new 5k PR
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