Should your warmup and cooldown count as mileage?

Warmups and cooldowns before a race or speedwork are a tale as old as time, but does slow mileage “count”? A tweet by an American running coach elicited much debate, asserting that warmup, cooldown and recovery miles should not count toward your weekly mileage.  

As a coach and runner, I would suggest you absolutely count all of your weekly mileage, as every step you take while running is beneficial in some way. There is no such thing as trash miles.

There are miles that are more efficient at building your aerobic engine (such as tempo runs), and there are miles that are more efficient at building an endurance base (long runs). But even slow miles can actively stimulate your heart rate and get your muscles ready for a higher intensity activity.

Most runners will use a warmup or cooldown to prepare their body physically and mentally for exercise. But in a 2007 study, researchers from the University of Sydney found that a warmup jog performed immediately before a run produced a small delay in muscle soreness, but a cool-down after does not.

Besides delaying onset muscle soreness, warming up also increases your heart rate, which enables more oxygen to reach your muscles through anaerobic exercise. The point of a cooldown is the opposite, bringing your heart rate down to a lower level to enhance recovery and build an endurance base. 

Although some studies have proven that recovery runs do not speed up the recovery process, they are still beneficial in flushing the buildup of lactic acid in your muscles. Once the lactic acid is gone, the soreness will also decrease, allowing your muscles to heal. 

If you are running a race under a mile, previous research notes that a light warmup can slightly increase oxygen consumption during a short anaerobic exercise. 

posted Friday March 4th
by Marley Dickinson