Warm up for a race - how long till it's lost waiting around?!

[Bigbananabike]

Hi.
I'll warm up for a race start(trundling up and down the road) in tights, jacket etc and try to time my arrival back for the start with minimal waiting time but invariably there is a longer wait and I cool off.
It then seems like the warm up is a wasted effort as I start to cease up before the 'off' and usually someone will push with pace for the first few kilometres and I'll drift off the back - for find it really hard to stay with them.

What is the story?
Was the warm up wasted?
Is there a time limit to it's usefulness?

Please help...

 

[zaskar]

Hi.
I'll warm up for a race start(trundling up and down the road) in tights, jacket etc and try to time my arrival back for the start with minimal waiting time but invariably there is a longer wait and I cool off.
It then seems like the warm up is a wasted effort as I start to cease up before the 'off' and usually someone will push with pace for the first few kilometres and I'll drift off the back - for find it really hard to stay with them.

What is the story?
Was the warm up wasted?
Is there a time limit to it's usefulness?

Please help...

I dought it has anything to do with your warm up,unless you are going hard warming up. maybe it's your fitness or position in the pack.

 

[RapDaddyo]

I may be at one extreme, but I warm up for only ~6-7 minutes starting at 150W and increasing ~20W per minute to ~250W. I see people warming up on their trainers for ~30 minutes and I have always wondered what their purpose is. All I want to do is warm up my leg muscles. Anything beyond that is just using energy that I would rather conserve for the race.

 

[Eden]

I may be at one extreme, but I warm up for only ~6-7 minutes starting at 150W and increasing ~20W per minute to ~250W. I see people warming up on their trainers for ~30 minutes and I have always wondered what their purpose is. All I want to do is warm up my leg muscles. Anything beyond that is just using energy that I would rather conserve for the race.

*Beware I have no science to back this up*, but I've always been told the shorter the race effort the longer the warm up you want to do and its worked for me so I haven't questioned it. The purpose that I've been told for warming up is to not only get your muscles warm, but to start your body generating and clearing lactic acid. Supposedly it takes some time to get your muscles ready to start clearing out the lactic acid that you produce and warming up to the point that you can feel the burn then backing off and recovering gets the process jump started. Do a few hard efforts with some recovery in between and the next hard effort doesn't feel as hard, so you won't feel he burn too soon in a race and fall off the back so easily.

As far as how long is your warm up good for? I've heard 1/2 hour.

 

[frenchyge]

I dought it has anything to do with your warm up,unless you are going hard warming up. maybe it's your fitness or position in the pack.

I agree it sounds more like a fitness issue than a warmup issue.

OP: does this only happen during cold weather races? If so, maybe you're just not dressing properly for the race, and would be better off trying to race a little on the warm side rather than a little on the cool side.

 

[cheapie]

*Beware I have no science to back this up*, but I've always been told the shorter the race effort the longer the warm up you want to do and its worked for me so I haven't questioned it. The purpose that I've been told for warming up is to not only get your muscles warm, but to start your body generating and clearing lactic acid. Supposedly it takes some time to get your muscles ready to start clearing out the lactic acid that you produce and warming up to the point that you can feel the burn then backing off and recovering gets the process jump started. Do a few hard efforts with some recovery in between and the next hard effort doesn't feel as hard, so you won't feel he burn too soon in a race and fall off the back so easily.

As far as how long is your warm up good for? I've heard 1/2 hour.

agreed. i can't go from standing still to riding just below my LT. i need to get the engine warmed up for 20-30 min.

 

[RapDaddyo]

Supposedly it takes some time to get your muscles ready to start clearing out the lactic acid that you produce and warming up to the point that you can feel the burn then backing off and recovering gets the process jump started. Do a few hard efforts with some recovery in between and the next hard effort doesn't feel as hard, so you won't feel he burn too soon in a race and fall off the back so easily.

But, I warm up only ~5mins before any of my high-intensity efforts except L7s. So, why is that different?

 

[Spunout]

But, I warm up only ~5mins before any of my high-intensity efforts except L7s. So, why is that different?

What do you do for L7s?

What about a race? We're talking about racing and not training.

What if it is a crit and it starts with a hard L7 climb? Or a CX race with a 1 minute L6 effort that settles into 59 minutes of hell?

 

[RapDaddyo]

What do you do for L7s?

~10mins.

What about a race? We're talking about racing and not training.

It's the intensity, not the event.

What if it is a crit and it starts with a hard L7 climb? Or a CX race with a 1 minute L6 effort that settles into 59 minutes of hell?

I'd still limit my warmup to 10mins. All I need to do is to warm up my muscles and it doesn't take long to do that.

 

[musher]

Hi.
I'll warm up for a race start(trundling up and down the road) in tights, jacket etc and try to time my arrival back for the start with minimal waiting time but invariably there is a longer wait and I cool off.
It then seems like the warm up is a wasted effort as I start to cease up before the 'off' and usually someone will push with pace for the first few kilometres and I'll drift off the back - for find it really hard to stay with them.

What is the story?
Was the warm up wasted?
Is there a time limit to it's usefulness?

Please help...

Hi,Warm up is not a wast of time
Check this : www.roadcycling.com/news/article458.shtml ,Musher

 

[Pendejo]

Hi,Warm up is not a wast of time
Check this : www.roadcycling.com/news/article458.shtml ,Musher

That article is a good one, Musher. My racing consists primarily of 10K TTs. My warmups have never been good, because I've had to make sure I'm standing in line about ten minutes before I go off. Then I try to get up to speed as quickly as possible, and within one minute I'm in critical condition and hanging on for the rest of the race. Now I know why. I've been doing some experimenting on the stationary bike in the gym (shows heart rate and power). And I'm finding that even when warmed up, if I take it easy for about five minutes, it takes me at least a couple of minutes to "comfortably" work myself back up to TT effort. And now I realize that if I could only hit the start line "hot," I could beat my main tormentor who has been about 30 seconds better than me in the 10K.

The answer would be, as the article suggests, a trainer positioned right at the start line. However, you'd have to have someone there to keep an eye on it while you were racing, or else it could get swiped.

 

[musher]

That article is a good one, Musher. My racing consists primarily of 10K TTs. My warmups have never been good, because I've had to make sure I'm standing in line about ten minutes before I go off. Then I try to get up to speed as quickly as possible, and within one minute I'm in critical condition and hanging on for the rest of the race. Now I know why. I've been doing some experimenting on the stationary bike in the gym (shows heart rate and power). And I'm finding that even when warmed up, if I take it easy for about five minutes, it takes me at least a couple of minutes to "comfortably" work myself back up to TT effort. And now I realize that if I could only hit the start line "hot," I could beat my main tormentor who has been about 30 seconds better than me in the 10K.

The answer would be, as the article suggests, a trainer positioned right at the start line. However, you'd have to have someone there to keep an eye on it while you were racing, or else it could get swiped.

The shorter the race the harder the warm up ( try it during training session).Buy a chaine & a lock ,put your trainer as close as possible to the start by a tree or a post and chaine your trainer ,that way you won't have to worry about it, Musher

 

[whoawhoa]

Hi,Warm up is not a wast of time
Check this : www.roadcycling.com/news/article458.shtml ,Musher

I agree that warmup is not a waste of time. However, that article was long on opinion and very short on any evidence. I agree with above posters, warmup has two goals: get leg muscles and core temperature up. In fact, the latter is probably unnecessary and even detrimental during hot weather.

 

[frenchyge]

My racing consists primarily of 10K TTs. My warmups have never been good, because I've had to make sure I'm standing in line about ten minutes before I go off.

What makes you stand in line that long? The TT's that I've seen have the starting list and times posted in advance which allows one to check his starting position and synchronize their watches with the starting clock, then continue to stay warm until about 1-1.5 minutes before take-off. Then you roll up to the front of the line tell them your name, and get ready to go. That just seems to be the norm around here.

At the very least, you should be able to see that there are (eg.) 15 riders starting in front of you, and at 30 sec per rider you have about 7.5 minutes before start. I would not recommend just standing in line all that time.

And I'm finding that even when warmed up, if I take it easy for about five minutes, it takes me at least a couple of minutes to "comfortably" work myself back up to TT effort.

Not trying to pick apart your post, but I've been in several road races which have had more than a few minutes of taking it easy in between hard efforts, and I can't say it's ever seemed that people had a problem getting right back on the gas.

 

[Pendejo]

The shorter the race the harder the warm up ( try it during training session).Buy a chaine & a lock ,put your trainer as close as possible to the start by a tree or a post and chaine your trainer ,that way you won't have to worry about it, Musher

Good suggestion, Musher. I'd like to find a smallish, self-contained, no frills or gizmos, trainer to use for this purpose. If anyone knows of such, please post.

 

[Pendejo]

What makes you stand in line that long? The TT's that I've seen have the starting list and times posted in advance which allows one to check his starting position and synchronize their watches with the starting clock, then continue to stay warm until about 1-1.5 minutes before take-off. Then you roll up to the front of the line tell them your name, and get ready to go. That just seems to be the norm around here.

At the very least, you should be able to see that there are (eg.) 15 riders starting in front of you, and at 30 sec per rider you have about 7.5 minutes before start. I would not recommend just standing in line all that time.


Not trying to pick apart your post, but I've been in several road races which have had more than a few minutes of taking it easy in between hard efforts, and I can't say it's ever seemed that people had a problem getting right back on the gas.

Frenchy, to answer the first part of your post, the problem has been two-fold. In most of the TTs I enter there is no list posted with start times. They just tell you to line up in number order starting at 8 AM, or whatever. Secondly, once the race starts you can't continue warming up on the course, and in most cases there have not been suitable alternatives in other directions for fast riding.

For your second question. In a road race, even during your lulls you are still clipping along pretty good. When I say that even after a proper warmup if I take it easy for a few minutes it once again takes me a couple of minutes to get back up to my limit, by "taking it easy" I mean basically doing nothing or soft pedalling very slowly - in other words, a reasonable facsimile of standing at the start line of a TT for several minutes.

 

[musher]

Good suggestion, Musher. I'd like to find a smallish, self-contained, no frills or gizmos, trainer to use for this purpose. If anyone knows of such, please post.

Try :www.Damonrinard.com, & try Bicycles shops &bicycles- Misc., Musher

 

[CTR]

I'm not sure if this is really the same but before a wrestling match, I have to blow out my lungs and really work my ass of and start to sweat or within the first 30 seconds, I'm cooked. I find that if I warm up hard and take a few minute breather before the start I do much better.

 

[Bobby Lex]

Most of us are familiar with the phenomenon known as getting your "second wind". It's somewhere within the first 1/2 hour or so of physical activity where increasing fatigue is reversed and we suddenly feel refreshed.

When I warm up for a crit, I try to warm up until I get my "second wind" and then I know I'm ready.

But different methods of warm ups (lengthwise and intensitywise) work for different people. Some folks I race with are awesome, while appearing to need virtually no warm up at all.

You should experiment to determine what works best for you.

I've also heard that some of those "warming lotions" that you rub on your legs are useful. A former pro I know swears by them. But I have no personal experience with those.

Regarding how long a warm up lasts, I have heard that it lasts about 30 minutes. I usually saunter over to the starter's table from time to time to check on the estimated start time. If it's going to be over 15 minutes to start time, I'll go out and do another "jump" or two to maintain my warm up. One or two jumps every 15 minutes should suffice to hold your warm up.

Bob