Forums >General Running>How long do you warm up / cool down for a Tempo run?
I'm following the Hansons Plan training for my marathon and they suggest 1 to 3 miles of warmup and 1 to 3 miles of cool down for their marathon pace training runs.
I've been doing 1 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down and haven't had any issues or problems. Should I increase this?
Any reason to other than adding some miles? What if I did a 2 mile warm up and a 1 mile cool down?
My marathon pace is far from fast so not sure if it doesn't matter as much for me as it would for someone running much faster. My goal marathon pace is 8:45 and my easy pace is around 10:00 right now.
Age: 50 Weight: 224 Height: 6'3" (Goal weight 195)
Current PR's: Mara 3:14:36* (2017); HM 1:36:13 (2017); 10K 43:59 (2014); 5K 21:12 (2016)
I usually do at least a 20 minute warmup.
Runners run
Interval Junkie --Nobby
2mile warmup (16-18mins), 1mile cool-down. At the very least. Works for me.
You're probably not going to know if a 1-mile warmup is too short unless your first mile of your tempo is harder than the rest of the workout, or you get injured because of cold muscles.
2021 Goals: 50mpw 'cause there's nothing else to do
Chief Unicorn Officer
2mile warmup (16-18mins), 1mile cool-down. At the very least. Works for me. You're probably not going to know if a 1-mile warmup is too short unless your first mile of your tempo is harder than the rest of the workout, or you get injured because of cold muscles.
Same.
Mile 5:49 - 5K 19:58 - 10K 43:06 - HM 1:36:54
Joggaholic
My warmup is random. I just start running slow and gradually pick up my pace, at some point I would "feel ready" and I just hit my garmin's lap button and that would be the start of my tempo run. Sometimes the warmup part is a mile, sometimes is never.
I warm up for 15-20 minutes, which works out to be somewhere between 1-2ish miles. I don't think about it more than that. Depending on what I'm warming up to do, there may be some drill-like stuff in here. Or not. Definitely not for a tempo run.
I do "warm up" via running for a longer period of time than I "cool down" via running.
I do 2-3 miles up and usually 1 down, though sometimes I'm lazy about cooling down and do less than this (like half a mile).
At least twenty minutes, here, too. I run for time, not distance, so this makes the most sense in my head. I find that anything shorter, and the tempo will be much more difficult for at least the amount of time I shorted the warm-up. It's been the difference between a tempo being 20-30 minutes "comfortably hard" and 5 minutes of "JESUS CHRIST I AM GOING TO DIE" followed by 15-25 of "comfortably hard," which I have always taken to mean my warm-up was too short.
I cool down for the same amount of time, but more because I like symmetry than anything else. Sometimes I cool down longer if I ended up farther from home due to being in to zone (zoning out?) on the tempo portion. Sometimes I cool down longer if I'm feeling great.
I almost never cool down for less time because I don't like to stay too close to home for the whole run.
"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Emil Zatopek
I'm usually a 2-2.5 up and 2-2.5 down guy...
BUT
What matters is that you do enough before your workout that you feel warmed up and enough after your workout to feel cooled down. That's all it is, a warm up and a cool down. If you're warmed up after 1 you don't need to add more and if you're cooled down after 1 then you can keep it at 1.
Pace Prophet
I do a two mile warm-up, and I do some strides during the second mile. My cool-down is whatever's left after the tempo miles to get home. For example, I have a 6.3 mile loop I like, so that might be a 2 mile warm-up, a 3 mile tempo, and a 1.3 mile cool-down. Or a 4-mile tempo and a .3 mile cool-down. Or I might do the 9.7 mile loop instead and have 3.7 miles cool-down. Whatever.
I am currently doing the Pfitz 12/70 plan. The tempo runs call for 5 miles of w/u and c/d so I have been warming up with 3 and cooling down with about 2.
Kevin Allen
Fistmaster General
following hanson here as well, on week 6. I did tempo today and did 7 miles total. 2 w/u, 4 tempo, 1 c/d. It felt about perfect. If you're trying to add miles this is a great place to do it. I'd only warm up as much as you need to hit the tempo pace consistently but you could put an extra mile or 2 on the cool down. I felt like I had a few more miles in me today but time was a factor so I bailed.
"I... am a fucking moron." - MattM
Fast is better than long
Rather than a time or distance, and I do not always adhere to this, the simple answer is that it should be enough. And that could very from workout to workout and day to day.
The rest is my opinion, ymmv.
Why do you warm-up?
I warm up to avoid injury. The goal is to get your muscles ready to go for the presumably harder work that is ahead of them. Over time I feel that I know when I am and am not ready to increase speed/tempo. You should make sure that you are ready, not the risk of too much is tiring yourself for the workout itself, so there is some balance.
Why do you cooldown?
I cooldown to avoid injury. Here my goal is to shed any lactic acid that may have built up. I also want to get my respiratory system back to normalcy. I don't ever want to stop/end the workout right after the significant speed, because I just tightened up everything and I don't want it to feel ok or get used to that tightness.
2017 Goals: Give up goals; they're stoopid
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm the rest of the night;Set a man afire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
What in the Jehu?
Why is it sideways?
This is the thing: when a book says 1 to 3 miles warmup, they are leaving it vague for a reason. Not everything has a precise answer. And in fact, some things are BETTER understood when understood vaguely.
One to three miles is about all you can ever recommend to someone you have never met, someone whose training background and experience you don't know, and especially for someone who may be feeling chipper that day or may be feeling flat or who may have a doc's appt in 90 minutes or who wants to extend their workout for as long as possible because they just fought with their spouse.
One to three miles of w/u, one to three miles of c/d. A workout in the middle.
I want to write a screed on behalf of the vague.
Not everything has a precise answer. And in fact, some things are BETTER understood when understood vaguely. [...] I want to write a screed on behalf of the vague.
Not everything has a precise answer. And in fact, some things are BETTER understood when understood vaguely.
[...]
Just felt like this bears repeating.