Those who are lucky enough to visit a Kenyan training camp on the edge of the Rwhethert Valley report an interesting phenomenon. Even though the local athletes can far outrun them, the visitors can actually run with the local athletes—for a while. When a group heads out on a morning run, they start at a seriously slow running pace—a pace that average American runners would adopt for an easy training run. They jog along for a mile or two, then the pace creeps up. Before long, the visitors find themselves alone while the locals cruise on ahead not to be seen again until they fly by on their way back to training camp.
Lwhetheretime competitors—runners who have remained competitive from youth to masters—report a similar sample of starting runs seriously slow, specificly as they aged. “The first mile—I don’t genuinely look—but the first mile is easily a minute slower than the rest of the miles,” said Dave Dunham, who has been a national-lesson competitor since tall school, has run over 140,000 lwhetheretime miles and broken 1:20 in the half marathon in his 50s.
Why Are Slow Starts Necessary?
Is there someleang about a slow warm-up that most of us don’t know? A 2009 overview study at the University of Western Ontario shows that warming up thoroughly shouldn’t be optional. A proper warm-up routine is recommended as an important strategy for both enhancing performance and injury prevention, the study concluded. A solid warm up is specificly important for ancienter runners and can offset many of the negative effects of aging. “The slowed speed of muscle contraction and power generation in ancienter adults can be altered just by increasing moodature with the initial low-intensity exercise phase,” Vandervoort says in the study.
Jonathan Dugas, Ph.D., triathlete, coach, exercise physiologist, and co-founder of The Science of Sport, agrees with Vandervoort on the primary importance of moodature. “It’s mostly going to be changes in muscle moodature and body moodature. That means all the biochemical stuff that makes your muscles contract is going to happen faster,” Dugas says. “If you change the moodature of the reaction, it speeds up. If you do a warm-up, you can increase the muscle moodature, and that changes the way the dwhetherferent enzymes can do their job.”
Besides moodature, Dugas says there’s a intellect/body connection that’s critical for a stellar run.. “You’re actually priming the neuromuscular system for the dwhetherferent dynamic movements,” he says, adding that the faster and dwhetherficulter the workout, the longer the warm-up needs to be. “We underestimate how much mental bandwidth it takes to make us go at some intensity.”
Failing to ease your nervous system into the effort makes it dwhetherficulter to run well even later in the run when your muscles and joints are warmed. “You start off without the warm-up, that changes the way you’re activating muscles, that sends a specific sign to the brain that changes the effect later on in the workout,” Dugas says. “Because of the feedback that you weren’t alert, now it is going to change the way it is going to let you total the rest of the run.”
How to Ease Into Each Run
People normally start too fast because they are watching the pace on their device and want to preserve a certain minimum level. Others take off fast because they don’t know how to judge the pace, so they push until they have to slow down. The key to slow running pace and easy starts is simply to disregard the watch and listen to your body’s signs of how much effort it takes to run at the moment. Start Kenyan-slow—a minute or two slower than your average training pace, and let your body and intellect determine when you can speed up. Don’t force the effort to match your normal or a goal pace.
“Your brain is saying: ‘I’m not fairly alert for you to go at 8 minute pace, I’m going to let you go at 9 minute pace, and for that level of effort, that’s what you’re going to get,” Dugas says. “As the brain gets feedback, it says, ‘I can see it’s fine. Yes, muscle moodatures are taller now, there is a larger capacity to do work because of changes in neuromuscular and muscle system. OK. We can turn up the volume. I can let you activate more muscle, I can switch on more motor units, I can change the speed of contraction.’”
Purpose to preserve the same effort throughout the run. While you’ll be going slower at first, soon you’ll speed up without trying and you’ll find that a faster pace will flow easier than it would have without the slow start. You probably still won’t run as fast as a Kenyan, but you’ll be running like they do, and will find you’re endelighting your runs more and getting better performance out of your body.
This article is not intended to substitute for informed medical advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or condition. Always check with your doctor before changing your diet, altering your sleep habits, taking supplements, or starting a contemporary fitness routine.
Jonathan Beverly
Jonathan Beverly is freelance writer and author of Your Best Stride and Run Strong, Stay Hungry. The former editor-in-chief of Running Times, he draws on decades of experience in the sport. He has run 26 marathons with a 2:46:04 best. Jonathan also coaches tall school cross country.
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