Trashcan Annie

Criminy, you train faster than I do!

I'll officially welcome you to the blog. Remember, keep your language "family-safe" or the language-czar will get you. ;-) Heh heh.

Welcome to the blog! I don't think I even knew that you had two kids. Of course, I only met you that one time. Good luck with your training.

Okay..dumb question...your name is Annie...your a woman running those times!!! Before I noticed your name I assumed you were a very fast man who was a stay at home Dad. True about the language czar....especially since he is Russian (I'm his wife) but I think he'll find your blog name hilarious...he is a runner you know who happens to be European and have a odd potty humor..especially when it has to do with running because it is so true. Anyway, welcome to the blog. You are the superwoman that I compare myself to when other people tell me I'm amazing for running at all with kids (we have 5).

Welcome to the blog! Yes, as Paul and Sarah noted, I am very particular about the language on the site. So while we do have to mention at times about doing business in the woods (in fact, I rarely have a run without it), it does not look good when this becomes a focus of the discussion, and this will happen if this appears in the name of the blog, or the nickname.

Regarding your training. Unless you are a sub-2:20 marathoner, your aerobic runs have been too fast.

There is nothing in your profile - did you run into technical issues? If yes, the easiest solution is to use Firefox. If you do not have it, you can get it from the button on the right of this comment.

Ohmigoodness! I feel overwhelmed by the welcomings! Thanks guys!

Stacy: I think the boys were at my In-laws when we met! Since I act like a big kid I can see where you got confused ;)

Sarah: Thanks that made me feel good!

Sasha: No I can't add anything to my profile. I'll try firefox. As for Pace, I run on effort. Easy days are to be a gentle effort, the pace is a result of I don't know what? I'll say that my aerobic runs are aerobic according to my heart rate, and my body doesn't seem to mind it either. I think people get way too wrapped up in pace anyway. It's EFFORT! I haven't run a marathon in 6 years so I don't know what I'd run!

Annie - how often do you get injured?

I suppose you answered my question in your profile. Now this does make sense. You appear to be a very energetic person. So what probably happens is that your judgment of easy pace errs on the high side.

For a comparison - I can run 5:40 pace on a perfectly flat course at 4500 feet in a marathon, 5:30 pace for the half, and 5:20 for 10 K. On the same surface and at the same elevation the pace stops being truly easy for me at around 6:50. I will only run 6:50 if I am alone and bored, and have nothing to think about except my current pace. I am perfectly happy to run 7:20 or even slower if I am having a conversation. Yet I can speed up by as much as a minute per mile, and I would still not hit my marathon race pace.

Your "easy" runs are only 40-50 seconds per mile slower than your 10 K race pace, so for me this would mean 6:00-6:10. This is definitely a sustainable pace, and I could trick myself into calling it easy, but it is not truly easy. It wears down on the nervous system, muscles, and joints while providing no extra benefits in comparison with 7:00 - 7:30 pace. If I were to do this, it would negatively affect my ability to run hard on the hard days, and I would be flirting with injury as well.

You can try an experiment to see if this applies to you - consciously back off on your easy runs, just try to wind down. Maybe throw in a couple of strides, that would calm you down. Then see if this makes a difference on you hard days.

Sasha you are right. I am a bit, shall we say, Hyper. I will run slower if in a group, but even then I can be a bit like the squirrel "Hammy" from "Over the Hedge". I can try it. I was hoping that returning to speed work and tempo's would slow me down a bit... so far no luck though! However, I don't remember having serious injuries of any kind until I had my first son. In high school I frequently ran 7:00 pace and wasn't that "fast".