Fraser Darcy

Checking out the course has made this trip eerily similar to a climbing trip. I finished off the last section I needed to scope out and get the beta for by running from Innsbruck back to Gotzens this morning.

Before I started I took the time to also scope out the hotel I’m staying in with the other Australian athletes and the other peripheral event comings and goings. Pretty spiffy. The hotel is 500m away, on the banks of the river Inn and the event starts right next to a very picturesque art gallery. After soaking this all up I made a quick change into my running clothes, shoved them in my vest and started running back ‘home’.

The trail heads through the ‘old’ town of Innsbruck where I had coffee the day before and then crosses the Inn. From here, uphill through some backstreets and then onto a nice moderate steep uphill. Fast start is likely. Plenty of room to jostle for position too thankfully. Wonder if they’ll close the road though? About twenty minutes in the trail kicks up a gear to become steep and very rooty. I make a wrong turn at a nice little building and figure I’ll slow to a power hike to practice hiking a bit more. Turns out though that the nice little building distracted me from taking the right trail and that’s pretty much where the uphill ends. A nice feather in my cap to know I ran up the steep first hill without walking.

An interesting traverse on a very rooty singletrack follows this uphill and it’ll be a challenge to overtake here. The obligatory downhill comes after this, again, some roots and technical-ness but not too bad. The rest of the run really backs off the intensity here as it’s a mixture of roads, bike paths, a couple more hills and then hey, I’m back in Gotzens and I’ve gotten all the beta.

When that happens in climbing, getting all the beta, it feels like 50% of the work is done in ticking the route. You know your body is capable of executing the route, you just have to do it all in one go. Visualising that can help, fitness helps, but psychologically being in a race or on a redpoint go helps too. This redpoint go will probably last 4-5 hours. A long time but a good challenge. I can use the climbing metaphor like I have done previously to focus on my own race, visualise performing well etc. etc. but climbing activities are rarely 4-5 hour adventures so I can’t draw on them for inspiration from a physiological point of view. What does go for 4-5hrs though is best of five set Grand Slam tennis which is occuring right now in the French Open WHICH is what I’m enjoying listening to every day. There’s ups and downs in tennis matches just like there’ll be ups and down in the race. For a tennis match to go five sets and become a ‘classic’ the eventual winner must lose two sets along the way. Perhaps I’ll fall over or run out of water or go through a ‘bad patch’. The key is to continue playing my best game and try and turn the tide back into my favour. Keep searching and keep digging, 45km is a long way to run and a lot can happen. Hopefully my forehand doesn’t go missing.

Quick transition to how the body is going following two days of not much activity into three days of lots of activity and I’m pleased to report that anecdotally and data-wise things are good. Anecdotally my legs feel a bit sore from the descending I’ve been doing but I feel aerobically fresh and otherwise in good shape. Data wise, the past three days have been similar to a big Saturday-Sunday into a big Monday, or, like a Tuesday-Thursday normal schedule for me just with the volume turned up a bit. So it’s not too out of the ordinary. The evidence of this is the famous Chronic v Acute Training load graph which shows a neat little spike in the past few days (after the trough of Monday/Tuesday) not too dissimilar to previous spikes. From here, I’ll continue to use the data and my own personal feeling to simmer down a bit. Tomorrow is expected to be a short 45-60 min run with some strides and maybe some mobility work. Sunday and Monday might involve using the cable cars to get to two seperate spots on course and running the ‘top’ parts of the course a bit more. These won’t be big days. As long as I get the body feeling fresh and the data showing the same (the red line dropping down) then I’ll be confident in my preparation.

The preparation is not all about checking out the course and keeping an eye on the data. Another underrated part is also about adapting best to the conditions of the area. Adapting to the trails is the reason I moved to Quorn in the first place. Now I’m living in Innsbruck though and I have to port over some of my Quorn adaptations into European alps mode. Yes doing this on course is an easy way to tick the box but also integrating myself into the area, town and it’s people is a bit of a deal for me. It’s a reason why I chose to stay out in Gotzens to start with. I’ve been documenting my experience with the wood man, keeping an eye on his progress and am glad to report he’s turned the logs into usable timber today. I also integrated myself a bit further by making a second excursion to kick the footy at a basketball court on the edge of town which was pretty awesome.

While soaking it up in the sun afterwards I spotted the local pool and a soccer pitch where a match was happening. Quick stroll down, chat to an old fella who helped showed me the entrance and there I was sitting in the crowd of an Under 14’s soccer match before the seniors played. Very cool. The complex had some other sports going on too so the place was a bit of a buzz and I felt very relaxed amongst my Austrian compatriots. This relaxed feeling is exactly what I’m after so that I can draw on it when I’m 16km’s into the race next Thursday and I’m rolling through Gotzens. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m racing in Belair National Park, running around Dutchmans Stern and the wider surrounds of Quorn. Soon I’ll be able to add Gotzens and Innsbruck to the list after a bit more time invested into the area. So far, it’s three full days in the bank and the interest rate on my deposit is looking good. Thanks for reading (although I don’t blame anyone if you’re getting sick of the daily updates too, you can always unsubscribe).