don't read too much into your warmup

This post is more along the lines of advice for anyone else who trains for performance in some sort of race or competitive event. Since high school I've usually felt some degree of nervousness or anxiousness before a race or time trial, which can amplify any sensations about my readiness that I perceive based on how the warmup feels. Usually, if the legs feel heavy on the first step, or I'm doing some pickups to race pace and they feel much harder than anything I could maintain for the duration of the race, a certain level of self-doubt will set in. It's only been through repeated experiences that the warmup has very little to do with race performance that I've been able to ignore these feelings.

Case in point was yesterday. I did a 1.2mi swim (half ironman distance) for time in the pool. I also did this 2 weeks ago so I had a recent time to compare. My warmup for these time trials is always the same, 200 yard swim, 200 kick, 200 swim, 200 pull, 200 swim, then 4x50 build, and 2x25 sprint. Those 200s didn't feel great at all, and were slower than 2 weeks ago, but the actual time swim was faster! I think what happens during heavy training is that, while we are getting stronger, it takes a bit longer to warm up and those first few miles/1000 yards in the pool will seem a bit slower, but once warmed up everything feels fine.

Once I start tapering, I notice that the warmups start feeling really easy and I actually have to be careful to keep it easy early on, because it is easy to go out too hard based on previous impressions of how the first part of the race "should" feel.