Have you ever started out with a group of runners and they “take off” right from the start and you find yourself breathing heavy and struggling to keep up? Eventually the pace slows down but at this point it’s too late and your body has already burned excessive glycogen, utilized the wrong muscles fibers, and basically wore you down for the rest of your run. For a distance runner this can mean accelerating to goal pace or faster we placing the hard part of the workout at a pace you may not be able to maintain.

According to Sean Wade, 1996 Olympic Marathoner for New Zealand, every single run or workout should be a negative split. The first mile of a distance run should be super easy and as we naturally warm up we should get quicker. Even for harder intervals or tempo runs we should be easing our ways into them.

The benefits of warming up are:
-Increased respiration
-increased circulation
-improved flexibility
-reduced chance of injury

Going out too fast overtaxes our bodies causing us to inevitably finish too slow.

Portions Borrowed from Running Times.