Fraser Darcy

It’s Saturday morning back at Quorn. Not even one whole week back in Oz from Aus. I slept 10 hours last night and am still tired. Today will be an easy day hopefully and I’ll feel fresher from here. Being an easy day it also allows me to put down my final reflective thoughts on the build-up and execution of my World Champs Experience.

Highlights:

• Winning the National Mountain Running Championships and being selected to represent Australia. Subsequently, finishing my race and knowing I have represented Australia and feeling like I belong in my uniform.
• Putting together the biggest and best training block I’ve ever done in my life. Consistency was the key. Felt very fit. Averaged 160km’s per week for 15 weeks with several 180+km weeks. I surely have to be a better runner than where I started from.
• Leaving Australia for the third time and going to Europe for the first time. Visiting Dubai, Munich and Innsbruck. International flights. Passport control. Foreign language and currency. Foreign food. Old buildings. Big mountains. Different power points. Different rules. No helmets.
• Broadening my running horizon. You can only achieve what you can see and I’ve never seen running like that of which I saw across the World Champs.
• Meeting famous athletes from other countries.
• Meeting other Australians who enjoy training and racing on trails as much as me. Nice to talk to people who have similar goals and feel on their level. Good exposure to different ways to achieve the same goals.
• Going from feeling like I had a long way to go in the middle of January with my running to where I wanted it to be, to being selected, to racing and finishing the World Champs all in the space of about four and a half months. Very ahead of my long term schedule.
• Achieving all this training and racing interstate and internationally whilst starting a new job and living within my financial means.

Lowlights:

• Feeling slightly disappointed with my result. Not one of my greatest races but I know what to work on next.
• Coming back to Australia and re-settling in to work whilst tired. Not even five minutes into the start of my first day back as a teacher a student wanted to just leave the room because they were bored…
• Haven’t done anything but running on the weekend for a while besides an occasional hit of tennis or kick of the footy. No climbing, no kayaking, no bushwalking, no camping since end of March. (Although as I write this, that’s only two and a bit months so really Fraser it’s not the end of the world…)

Lessons learned/Things to do differently next time/Philosophical wanderings within Fraser’s Brain:

• Run downhills faster. I backed off a bit in training on the downhills because I was over confident in my prior ability and also because it’s where I can get injured (and crack my tooth). Getting passed by too many others on the course demonstrated to me I need to get back into running the downhills properly. Already have started on this.
• Embracing the full team hotel experience in an urban environment may have been a great experience for my first time doing it so I can tick that box etc. but after a whole week in Innsbruck I felt stuck in the city. I started the race even thinking ‘I can’t wait to be in the hills behind Gotzens and settle into my work’. Never got that time to myself. Because I spend a lot of time by myself in Quorn going from lots to little probably affected my race. Need to either change my lifestyle to being more social or recognise this if I ever compete in a ‘team hotel’ situation.
• Find the time to stick to my race day routine even amidst a sea of changing food and timeframes.
• The 2.5 week block of being on those steep hills in Austria has left my legs feeling stronger than ever. So while I might not have raced as well, I’m probably just as fit, if not fitter than before the race even with the 1 week taper and 1 week recovery either side of the race.
• Adapting to racing in crowds without headphones. Listening to music on the train back to Innsbruck or just back running in Quorn has already reminded me of how much easier I find things in life, especially when working hard, with the right music on. Hence, it was difficult in the race to have the right mindset without music. Listening to music helps me focus on my mindset and get into that coordinate geometry view of the world I have because if I’m listening to the same song in Innsbruck or anywhere that I’ve listened to while training really well out in Quorn then I’ll be locked into that same mindset in a way. So I need to be able to drop into the coordinate geometry mindset without music a bit better.
• Sticking with the coordinate geometry view of the world, where I’m a point in space and the axis just shift around me, this is a good model for being comfortable in new surroundings but I need to add to it. Instead of just imagining one set of points within the data set (me) and the axis (the environmental conditions) I can simply add more data points (people, other runners) to the coordinate system and try and work on focusing on my own performance despite all the noise in the system.
• Appreciating that while I may be searching for the best runner within me that search will never feel any easier and never has an endpoint. Naively in my head I was trending towards being a better runner from all my training and I thought I was going to be the best version of myself on race day, reach the pinnacle of the best I’d ever been and all that and I would feel good. But being the best version of yourself is asymptotic (if that can be used as a descriptive word). I will never stop hurting going up or downhills even if I am the best. I failed to use the World Champs with a ‘more training’ mindset because how can a World Champs be more training for something, isn’t that the end goal? Well yes, in a race sense, but no in a ‘getting to your best’ sense. I approached it as the ‘last race’ of my life so I could leave everything out there on race day. This set my up for a big let down (which a ten year old muppet could’ve foreseen) when all the hopes and dreams I had for finishing didn’t eventuate. What this did as well though was set me up to fail as I shifted away from focusing on my journey to being the best to trying to achieve perfection in a single race. Not possible. Each race is a journey to finding my best. Don’t think of the World Champs as the be all and end all.
• BUT! BIG BUT (cannot lie, you other brothers won’t deny). I used to think that I wold be happy being the best version of myself running on a trail out in the Flinders all alone and that’s where I would find eternal happiness whilst being my best. Being back in Quorn I’m not so sure I’m sold on that vision anymore. If a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make it sound type vibes are what’s going through my head. Is it because I’ve tasted the nectar of running in a big race and I want more? Or is it simply it’s cold at the moment in the Flinders and the experience I’m really searching for with my running is having my lungs screaming, my heart pumping, some music pounding, the sun out and the heat turned up and I’m not going to get that for a while so everything else seems kind of pale in comparison? OR is it because I’ve now created a second, now more bigger compartment of running in my head that is more attractive than what I conceived of running beforehand.
  
  Before these races and the big build up running was just for me and was fun to see my progression. Now though, I’m enjoying the build and execution of races and the sport and competition of it all and it’s impact on others around me as I try to demonstrate what it’s like to work hard at something, do your best, and reap the fitness benefits. But that’s a different thing to running. I call this new view, racing. So we have running (jogging, doing personal time trials) and racing (encompasses running as well but includes performance in competition). Running is an interesting sport because I don’t need a race to go and ‘play’. I could run the fastest marathon ever in training and arguably be the best in the world. Not every sportsperson can do that. Novak Djokovic can’t be the best tennis player without actually entering competitions. Any AFL player can kick the footy on a weekend but can’t measure themselves as being better, worse or the best version of themselves without actually playing a match. This thought pattern leaves me thinking that yes, I can still enjoy jogging as much as I did beforehand and running personal time trials but I shouldn’t be discouraged from not getting the same satisfaction as I did from these activities beforehand.
  
  I’ve found a new approach to the sport, racing, where I get the thrill of competition which supersedes the thrill of jogging if I get it right. I have to be careful though and not get too caught up with competition and results as my basis for who I am as a runner. A few bad results and I’ll be struggling mentally I’m pretty sure. And yes, another big lesson learned from my race experience was the danger of expectation before a race so I can’t expect to race and finish on the podium all the time. Instead, I have to learn to approach each race as another step to becoming a better racer and runner. An opportunity to go hard, give it a crack and do my best. Get my lungs screaming and my heart pumping. The, effort, not the result will define my experience. Focusing on giving my best effort in races as being the pinnacle of my running will give me the freedom to use any leftover mental power saved in holding my best effort for my alone time running out in the Flinders.
• Live with minimal expectations. It would be unwise to boldly run at a pace I can’t sustain because I didn’t have any expectations on how the race would pan out so I can’t race with zero expectations. It is also unwise to expect a series of events out of my control to occur (like a finishing position in a race) because I had created a neat little formula of how I expected everything to go. Instead, I should approach races with just enough expectations of my ability to get the project started but from then on, trust the process vibes should take over and I should let the result take care of itself. I’ll be grateful for any result I achieve this way hopefully.
• Remember to change the training stimulus every so often. Got a bit bored with the same weekly schedule but was too scared to change it towards the end and ended up doing the same 30 minute efforts up Mt.Brown or Dutchmans because they were easier mentally than doing something new.
• Racing on the roads provided good competition and great training benefits. Pulling out a 69 minute half on my first attempt after a week at Araps, then a 67 minute half a month later with no real dedicated half marathon training and then a sub 15 minute 5k with again, no real dedicated 5k training was pretty cool. The 10k two weeks later could’ve been better but the chipped tooth factor played a role in that one I like to think. And going out too hard at the start. And the course was shit.
• Being amongst a community of runners is really cool and fun. I didn’t go on any team jogs because that’s where I could steal some alone time but the vibe I got from supporting the other three races (especially the long trail) was awesome. I never embraced any running communities in Adelaide while I lived there due to my outdoor ed schedule and my laziness getting in the way. Now I live in Quorn there is no running community and that’s OK because no community is better than a shit community but I do wonder how things would go if I stuck my neck out a bit and joined in a big running group. I used to play and enjoy team sports, loved the 5k’s at Westventure too and even the occasional visit to Parkrun which all indicate I’d probably do pretty well if I just got over being shy and lazy and joined in with some group runs. Something to think about if I didn’t live in Quorn.
• Spending money on my running hobby is something I’ll have to live with if I really want to leave no stone unturned. I’m working as a teacher because I’ve always wanted to try it and because it’s a great stable income. Having been a quite diligent saver from my outdoor ed days (due to the inconsistent pay frequency) it has been difficult seeing money come in the door and then go straight out. But hey, if I continue to dream of being the best, living a pro athlete life etc. it is good practice to be doing that as much as I can this year (by racing lots and ensuring I don’t deprive myself of good gear and good) while I have money coming in at least. I dream of living the dirtbag climbing life with my running, living on the edge, back against the wall and watching the bank account balance go towards zero as I race around the world so adopting that mindset and being comfortable with it is a good experience while I am still earning an income. At the end of the day, it’s always a question of bankruptcy of pocket or bankruptcy of life.

There you go Future Fraser. That’s what you’ve recognised as a nice little snapshot from the World Champs adventure you went on. Keep an eye on your progress with these lessons/room for improvements/philosophical wanderings. I look forward to re-reading this in a few years time to see if I’ve:

a) Gotten anywhere with it
b) Learnt from my mistakes
c) thought this was all a bit cringeworthy and self-indulgent to be putting on the internet. Ah fuck it you thought it, it’s Saturday afternoon by now and you’ve had a great easy day getting back into running, getting some rest, planning the next training block and you couldn’t care less what it read like to anyone else because you enjoyed getting your thoughts on digital paper so much.

^ I hope everyone can relate to thinking like Part C at some stage or else you’ll think I’ve cooked my brain. I haven’t. I think…

Thanks for reading!