I’ve been doing Couch to 5K and I’m up to week 7 at which point I run for 25 minutes straight. My average pace is about 9:45/mile and I have completed 5K in about 31 minutes.
I’ve noticed that every time I run, the first mile is hard and my brain is telling me I should stop now. I feel every muscle in my body struggling to get with the program. Then, something happens in the second mile. I stop feeling my muscles, my breathing becomes easier, and my pace naturally picks up. It suddenly feels like I could keep running all day. Then, of course, I hit my limit and it becomes hard again in third mile until at the point where I’m ready to finish up and get home.
So, what’s happening? Physically, I mean. And how can I make the first mile feel like the second?
Basically what’s happening when you get your “second wind” is your body switches from carbs to fat.
Your body normally burns carbs. And when you start to run it continues to do so. But after you do it awhile, your body says, “Hey this is stupid, why burn carbs when fat is a much better fuel”?
So your body switches from burning carbs to fats. Indeed a gram of carb has 4 calories while a gram of fat has 9 calories, that’s more than twice as efficient
The carbs/fats thing is a factor, but I think the main thing is that your muscles have finally warmed up. You should warm up before running, or start out slowly in order to give your muscles a chance to come to “operating temperature”.
Huh. I don’t think it’s my second wind, as I’m not quite halfway through the run when it hits. I do feel a second wind at the end of my run when I know I’m getting close to the end and I’m tired, but I can kick it in high gear anyway to finish stronger. Or maybe I have a third wind?
Basically, the body makes changes to improve efficiency as you run. Blood flow to the digestive tract lessens, the muscles warm, blood pressure widens between systolic and diastolic. Sprinting at the end is just adrenaline and switching to the anaerobic system.
Oh, yes I know and I do. I start out with a brisk five minute walk before I even start running. I make sure I’m getting my heart rate up a bit during the walk.
I don’t think that’s enough to really warm up the muscles and make the changes that runner pat is talking about. Before a race you’ll see most runners doing some pretty significant running to get the body into operating mode, otherwise their first mile or so will be inefficient. For a training run I just expect the first 1-2 miles to be slower and a bit awkward, but I’m not really concerned about overall time.
I’m skeptical anyone experiences a “second wind” 9 minutes into a run. In my experience, a second wind occurs much, much later into a run–at least 45 minutes or so, if ever.
I just think it’s a matter of your muscles getting warmed up, and your heart rate getting stabilized. I experience the same thing, and I’m a relatively experienced runner. The first mile almost always feels a bit rusty and sluggish as my body comes up to speed.
I think, although I have no citations, that so much of running is mental. When I was doing it a lot, it didn’t matter how fast or how long I was running - there was a point when my brain realized that, no shit, we’re really going to do this and you need to shut up. It could be affected by a good song on the iPod, for pity’s sake. (Unfortunately, a different one every time.) I think the physical parts are a factor, obviously, but the brain has a huge deciding vote.
Zsofia, absolutely! The body is lazy, it’s the mind that gets you up in the morning and out on the road or drives you to the finish when every fiber of your being is screaming for relief.
“Mind is everything: muscle-pieces of rubber. All that I am is because of my mind”-Paavo Nurmi
“I don’t race to see who’s fastest, I race to see who has the most guts”-Steve Prefontaine
“The five S’s of sport training are; strength, stamina, speed, skill and spirit but the greatest of all is spirit”.- Ken Doherty
It’s this. Back when I was cycling competitively, this very situation happened every time in a time trial. The first three minutes were very hard, even if I had a good warm up session. It was a mental game for me, I really wanted to quit in those first three minutes, but after that, the body was resigned to 'OK, I guess we’re in this for good". So the first three minutes was one type of mind challenge, and the other 55 or so minutes was a different type of mind game.
In fact, bike racing was sort of an odd hobby - I knew that every single race was going to hurt. Not just slight discomfort, but real pain. And people signed up for that. It was fun. I’m sure competitive running is the same. Do it wrong and it is going to hurt. Do it right, it is still going to hurt.
Well, with what limited brisk walking that I’m doing, and expect to do more once my body re-situates itself, the increased breathing is expelling mucus from the trachea, and the general inertia slowly starts shuffling to work.
I’m convinced that you’re not really warmed up when you start your run.
This is OK for a get-out-of-resting-mode and preparing your muscles, tendons and joints for physical activity. It’s not, however, even remotely sufficient to get your body up there in maximum performance mode. To be really warmed up, need to use 20-30 minutes and you need to get your heart rate up to max at least a couple of times before your body is up to max performance.
What you’re experiencing is just your body reaching full performance mode. The first mile is just the real warmup
The warmup period is also generally going to take longer and longer time as your body ages.
I’m glad to see other people have this problem. Mine starts even before I run. When I know I’m going out for a run my knees will start hurting or my old ankle injury will start acting up or any number of old man aches and pains will announce themselves. They disappear a few minutes after I start, to be replaced by real pains.
The problem with starting a new running program, for me anyway, is that it takes weeks to work through this painful period to get to the point where I can run that first mile and get comfortable. The warm up period is always a mile but, for beginners, the run doesn’t even last that long. Even when you get up to two miles you still have to suffer the pain and awkwardness for half your workout.
In my running/racing days it always took me a couple of miles for things to really flow. Even racing took a good mile at pace even with a solid warmup.
I’ve been wondering about this because I must be a weird exception. I always feel best for the first mile. During that first mile I can run faster and am not out of breath. With my runs (which are aways 3 to 4 miles long) I always push myself to my maximum effort the entire time. I never warm up.
Back this past April, I couldn’t run 5km. But by running 3 times a week as described above I managed last week to run my very first 5km race in just a few seconds over 20 minutes. What was weird to me is during that race I zoomed ahead of everyone at the beginning, I didn’t realize what was going on because I knew some people should be much faster than me (and they were). But I just settled into my usual pace and kept it. During the race I was passed only after we’d run the first mile, but I know my pace is pretty consistent for the entire race. Other people seem to have a reserve to call upon which I don’t get.
Sounds like you’ve blown your reserve right out of the gate. I’ve been shooting for negative splits, but I only get it in my second mile. I’m probably blowing mine early as well.
