Except for marathons, where you don’t need much more than some easy jogging and stretching, use your standard hard workout warm-up for races. Time things so that you finish your striders about 10 minutes before the start. Then do this: Run for 60 to 90 seconds at your tempo run pace. Finish this run about five minutes before the start; jog and move lightly as needed and possible to stay loose.
That little burst at tempo pace will prepare your body to work at a higher metabolic level, which will mean that launching into race pace won’t be such a shock. This little trick picks up on the observation most runners make that the second repeat of a hard workout often feels much easier than the first one.
If you’re properly trained, you should have no concern that warming up fairly aggressively will detract from your race performance.