I like to wind up my season with a fall marathon. I would like to try and set a PR this year (under 3:12). Do you warmup with an easy jog before your race or do you conserve energy and use the first few miles of the marathon (but lose a little time)? What’s the consensus?
Doc -
I do almost no warmup jog before a marathon. I am up for at least 3 hours prior, and usually at the site for at least an hour walking around and doing some light stretching. I’ll jog a few hundred yards in the last couple minutes before the start once I take the sweats off. But in a marathon you don’t want to use up too much.
Having said that, I don’t at all consider it losing time by “warming up” the first few miles. I go out at my planned average pace from the word go. This isn’t a 5K. If you’re going fast enough that you need to be warmed up more than that you’re going to be in trouble later.
I would say do a lite warmup, even a longish walk…do some quick strides (when warm, not dead cold) not too long before the gun goes off and yes, use the first few miles as an extension of the warmup. Not being totally and completely warmed up at the start will help you hold back a bit at the beginning as well. (This sort of thing is what I did before I ran a 3:06…not breathtakingly fast, but decent anyway…)
Read an article about the guy with the most sub 2:20 marathons (Can’t remember his name: He was in Michigan I think, he had run dozens of sub 2:20s, the article was 8 to 10 years ago). He used to do 2 mile warmups but gave it up. He said he didn’t favor them anymore. So there’s one fast guy’s advice, coming 3rd hand from me 
Light streatching, walk around to calm the nerves, and then race pace at the gun. I need to save every ounce of energy for the race.
Dave
I do a 2-3km jog (10-15min) before. (my PB is 2:50h)
If you want to go fast, you have to warm up your muscles!
ride easy 112 miles before 
.
“I do a 2-3km jog (10-15min) before. (my PB is 2:50h)
If you want to go fast, you have to warm up your muscles!”
Remi - what would consider fast though? This is a relative term. I’m about where you are - I’m typically around 2:50 these days, so roughly 6:30 pace. If you can run a marathon at that pace, then I’m guessing your 5K pace is probably close to 5:30. That would be what I would consider fast for us. If you can run 5:30’s, then 6:30 is pretty slow really, for a race at least. I don’t think you need to be more warmed up than a bunch of walking around and light stretches to start easily at that pace.
Not trying to tell you not to if that works for you, I’m just saying I don’t think it is necessary for most of us to use up a couple miles of energy to be ready to go at our marathon race pace.
No warmup for me, light stretching if anything and trying to stay relaxed to conserve as much energy as possible. Take it easy the first few miles and then settle into your goal pace.
Thanks for the input everyone. In the past I haven’t done any formal warmup. I may experiment this time with some easy jogging 15-20 minutes before the race and see what happens. FYI - my best marathon times came after I began training for triathlons.
please let us know how it worked…
Will do…
I’m a creature of habit and always have to do some type of warmup prior to the start. No warmup makes sense if you are in a huge marathon where you’re stuck shuffling or jogging lightly for the first mile anyway but I think a short warmup should be done if you’re going to start running right from the start. I always try to run my first mile 10 or 15 seconds slower than what I want my overall pace to be and I need to be warmup up to do that. My brother and I did a small race on Oct. 2 and as we were heading out on our warmup (a very slow jog) we noticed the 3 Kenyans that were there were doing the same … and Kenyans seem to have marathoning have it figured out
Couple of minutes of light jogging and a few strides are about it for me, but only if I’m not going to be in a corral for a 1/2 hour, in which case I do nothing but stretch. Generally I think less is more for the marathon, although temperature plays a factor for late fall races
stretching reduces the muscular tone, but you need it to go fast.
Sorry didn’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t stretch. I always stretch before races.
Well… I did a 15 minute easy jog as a warmup to my marathon. The results: New PR by 5 minutes! 3:07!! Can’t say if the warmup did the trick but it surely didn’t hurt. In fact my first 13.1 split was @ 6:50 pace which felt great until I developed a cramp in my calf causing me to slow down. I’m thinking the warmup helped because I’ve never been able to go out at that pace and feel good doing it. Thanks everyone for the input.
I wouldn’t run a warmup, but I would walk around enough to get your legs really warm and ready to go. Any miles you run, you’re burning off precious glycogen that you’ll need later on in the race.