Newbie question here. I am going to be recording some weightlifting events where, i'm only recording for 3 minutes for the lift, not very much time. What does that do to tape/heads??? to keep stopping and starting for say
a 5 hour period (of course i switch tapes when needed)... are there issues
with pausing or do you stop and then press record... is there a lag time??? when you hit record again..... are there issues with keeping it in pause mode.... (dropouts?) etc...

When the heads are spinning in contact wit the tape, whether recording, playback, or in pause, there is head wear (and tape wear), and battery use.

Generally speaking, sitting in pause more for more than ~5 minutes is discouraged due to wear issues, especially the possibility of wear to that spot on the tape. But this is not the problem now that it was in past times with less robust tape formulations. If the lifts are several minutes apart in time, and there is adequate warning to restart before the next lift you intend to record, put the camcorder in "lock" mode (see page 28 of the manual) between lifts to save battery and head/tape wear.

The lag going from lock to recording is not as great as going from power off, but it is real, so try it out to see what works for you.

excellent advice

If you have to do this a lot, then a PC solution like Canon Console or DVRack (or whatever Adobe renamed it) would work better; you can have the camera on all the time without a tape and record direct to disk whenever you want with no wear on the tape mechanism. There is also a pre-shot buffer which means you can miss the start by some seconds and still not miss any action.