When I Come Around. . . later & later

Here's something I've noticed recently, don't think I've mentioned it yet: It's been taking me longer & longer to warm up. Over the last few years I've incorporated "my plan" to begin each workout with some easy running. Usually one mile; sometimes two. Prior to that I would always just launch right into whatever pace I felt like.

Well lately I've been feeling tired & sluggish at the beginning of a lot of runs. But then I feel more comfy after one or two miles. . . then really feel ready to crank it up after the third or forth mile is complete. I hope this doesn't get stretched any further because then I'll be doing like a 5 or 6 miles warm up! WTF?!?!

I'm not sure if this could be a bit of over-training in the immediate cause, or maybe just plain getting older in a broader view. Maybe combo. What other reasons come to mind? Maybe all the months of marathon LSd (with hardly any speedwork) has somehow reset my internal engine to need the long warm up/?

Today's plan was 5 easy to moderate on the treadmill at the Y. The first 3 were at 8:30 pace, tread set to 0.5 incline. Was feeling blah & achey just until I came around to the end of 3rd mile, then started feeling much better. Increased speed so that mile 4= 7:50 and then #5= 7:25. At this point I was feeling so good I wanted to rip into a really fast final mile, and planned to tack on something for a cooldown. Mile 6= 6:50 with the final 1/4 being an ever increasing pace. Very easy last mile, total today 7. That's 26 so far this week. Shooting for 2x5 to finish week with 36.

Next week will have to be a drop-back week in mileage. My knees & feet are feeling some general discomfort. But I'm having a great mileage month!