Running races with a Garmin (Read 1131 times)

Ha -I am with you, I thought this WAS a less competitive race! Pretty small field. Mmm. What is the strategy for finding slow 5k events? Maybe a nice little 5k walk/run that is part of a marathon..

One of my goals is to place and get a trophy or medal. I've placed several times, but they handed out clothing and the like. If I'm really determined (and desperate), I would look for race results from the previous year, and get an estimate of the time required to place. For example, a female in the age group of 20-39 can place in the Long Island Marathon with a time of 4:30+. Of course, someone fast might show up on the day of the race, so there are some luck to it.

I ran/jogged/sprinted for about a mile just prior to the star. I thought that was a good warm-up, especially since my normal warm-up is to walk to the start line after a few quick stretches.

How much you warm up depends on the distance of the race, and the distance of your long runs. I don't do 5ks, but for 5 milers and 10ks (which I also don't do often), I would run over a mile, with the last several hundred yards faster than race pace. For halves marathons and up, I don't warm up. It's OK for me to lose several minutes in the beginning and pick up the pace as I go along. If your long runs are 5 miles, and you're running in a 5k, then you can't run much as a warm up because you will tire yourself out. But if you regularly run longer distances, then you can run a mile or 2 as warm ups. I find that it takes me some 3-4 miles to get fully warmed up these days. Also, the longer the race, the shorter and less intense are my warmups. If you are determined to place in a 5k, you can try taking a GU 10 minutes before the race. It's amazing how much of a kick you'll get a mile into it. Is that considered performance enhancing?