Fraser Darcy

In a great example of foreshadowing I told you to ‘watch this space‘ last time I was here. If you were watching closely on my Strava over the weekend you would have seen it. If you blinked you wouldn’t have. Yes, ladies and gentleman I was up to my old tricks of slicing and dicing my way through the airport on the way to an interstate race and packed all the adventure into one day this time. None of this settling in to the environment period. There’s teaching work to be done and money to be saved by flying in and out on the same day of a race.

The details. I raced the Brisbane Trail Ultra, 35km version with around 1200m elevation gain, on Saturday. Why? To test myself against a couple of elite runners who had entered the race and to also continue learning what it’s like to train and race in the mould of an ‘elite’ runner who flies to races. Plus, the more high profile races I enter where I can get pushed along to a better time/result the better my ‘resume’ looks in the long term development of myself as an athlete. There was no motivation to complete this race for any of the scenery or ‘completing the journey’ aspect like a long ultra, no, this was almost a box ticking exercise in which the box would be labelled ‘Put yourself in harm’s way and get out of your comfort zone regularly so you keep adapting to become a better runner’.

The other neat aspect to this race was that I was satiating my appetite for flying and being an adaptable outdoor athlete ready to spring out of the box at any time. I could’ve gotten work off on Friday if I tried, I could’ve spent some money on a hotel either before or after the race but instead I went the somewhat dirtbag style of fitting the race in around my existing schedule, which was…

7:30am. Leave Quorn. Go to work.
1:30pm. Finish the school term. Leave Port Augusta
5:30pm. Arrive into Adelaide.
Saturday
7am. Leave for flight to Brisbane.
11am. Land in Brisbane, take the train to the CBD.
1:30pm. Bus transfer from race finish to race start.
3:00pm. Race Start.
5:30pm. Race finish?
6:15pm. Leave race area to get to airport.
7:40pm. Flight leaves for Adelaide.
11:30pm. Home in Adelaide.

This was a nice smooth plan. Didn’t cost too much either seeing as I had saved on hotel accomodation and any food costs for dinner and breakfast I would’ve incurred by staying over. However, it’s nice to have a plan until you get punched in the face or until Jetstar cancel your flight…

Yes, all the naysayers thinking ‘oooooh that’s a bit risky flying in on the same day for a 35km run, won’t your legs be stiff? What if they cancel your flight?‘ Well there’s risk in everything in life and the sooner I stop taking them and playing conservative the sooner I’ll be miserable.

‘Ok, so your flight was cancelled? But you still went?‘ Yep. Being a one-man band with a two-person admin team of Mum and Dad I was able to get them on the phone whilst I was driving into Adelaide. Their task was to look at alternative flights with other carriers (Jetstar’s replacement flights were all arriving in the afternoon so were of no help). First option up was $850 to get a business class seat on a 6:10am Virgin flight instead. Ok, doable, but pricey. I took twenty minutes to think about it.

I could just run a hard marathon style workout instead and save all the hassle of going to Brisbane. The race doesn’t mean that much to me, it was just a good idea to do it for the learning experience of it all (and I’ve learned not to book with Jetstar!). But, I’d already put $220 into the entry fee and $300 or so into a return flight on Virgin which were both going to be useless to me unless I went and raced so I was already losing out on money. What’s another $850 down the drain in the scheme of life. It’s all part of the adventure and experience of trying to be a pro athlete. Plus, the old ‘bankruptcy of pocket or bankruptcy of life‘ line was haunting me as I mulled it over while driving along South Road.

Ah fuck it dog, life’s a risk, I thought (with a subtle nod to FIDLAR). Called Mum and Dad up, got them to take the plunge and I got back into the mentality of ‘I’m going to Brisbane‘.

Whoops, no I’m not. That seat had been booked already by some other unlucky Jetstar punter probably. Plan C, a 9:20am Virgin flight, arriving in Brisbane at 12:15pm. Oohhh it’ll be tight to get to the CBD by 1:30pm and if it’s delayed I’ll be chasing my tail to even make it to the 3pm start line worst case scenario. The seat’s now worth $900 too. Fuck me, these airlines are messing with me! Nuh, fuck it, fuck Jetstar, I’m going anyway. Book it Mum and Dad. My back’s against the wall already, what’s a little time pressure to go with a little money pressure…

Things settled down for a bit after that. Bit of rice, bit of cricket, a great night’s sleep and then bam it was off on Saturday morning to have a great day living life (and rolling with whatever other punches came my way).

Punch 1. Arrive at the airport and the 6:10am Virgin flight to Brisbane has been delayed for 2 hours almost. Shit. It technically has nothing to do with my Virgin flight but it wasn’t a good omen. Pass through security and stroll along to Gate 13 where the 6:10am flight is now on final call at 8:30am and my flight is apparently boarding in twenty minutes…

The ladies at the service desk are trying to page the last few customers and the idea light bulb goes off in my head of ‘what if I just asked to see if I could take those people’s seats if they don’t arrive, what’s the worst that could happen from asking’. So I did. The lady I asked directly gave a disappointing ‘no‘ but her eavesdropping superior to the left said ‘yep. get over here. I’m doing it.’ I didn’t throw any ‘oh I need to be there for a race‘ or anything it was just a ‘hey, do you mind if I jumped on this flight instead?‘. The lady changed my boarding pass and sent me down the ramp as I boarded with the last few people to arrive. I was stoked! From being cancelled to being bumped onto an earlier flight the adventure had barely started and I was already getting value for money! Way more life was being lived here than by sticking in Adelaide or Quorn for the day.

A few hours later and I was in Brisbane. Cool. Caught the train to the CBD (also cool) and then wandered down the Brisbane River to the site of the event village. Alrighty, here nice and early, do some stretching, eat some food, sit in the shade and get ready. A bit of time passed and I started to get even more ready for the bus shuttle to the start line. I looked to leave behind my bag at the finish line and was told by someone from the event that I had to take my bag with me to the start line for it to be transported back to the finish line. Huh? That doesn’t make sense. But that was the rule so whatever, I’ll work something else out so I’m not relying on some muppet to collect my bag from the start line and bring it to the finish line whenever they fancy, I had a plane to catch after all! I asked the First Aid person who is external to the event if I could drop my bag with him. Fortunately he had some common sense and so he also had my bag for the next few hours. Punch 2 sorted.

Punch 3 was to follow straightaway. Getting onto the bus for the start line should’ve been a straightforward process. Instead, there were buses for the 20km and 30km runners and neither driver knew which one they were. Cue a bit of stressful shuffling from other runners getting on and off buses and the driver taking his sweet time to organise it. We got there in the end though.

Relieved to finally be at the start I was able to now focus on getting to run. I was confident in my taper up to the race as I had tried to do my best ‘marathon’ taper in readiness for the Adelaide Marathon. Try and tick that box of being comfortable with a proper marathon taper before I have to do it you know. I was also excited to race as I would be putting myself up against some strong competition. Nathan from Melbourne who I had raced and was 1-0 up on from the Donna Double (and who was also on the Worlds Team) and Ben Duffus from QLD who has been a top trail runner in Australia for in excess of five years were the main contenders plus of course a few QLD’ers looking to stamp their authority on their home turf.

Off the start line we were running pretty conservatively and I was feeling alright. The sun was out and it was a lot warmer than 6:30am is in Quorn but there was nothing I could do about that. Opening up to some fire track around the third kilometre I was confused by the conservative pace somewhat and decided to just run at a pace I thought was a little bit more what felt right. Nathan came with me and we opened up a five second lead up the first hill. Ok, not bad, but remember it’s 35km long, not 15km long. Since Worlds I hadn’t done any hard long runs over an hour whilst trying to recover so wanted to play the first 20km’s solid and then try and run the last 15km’s hard. The little five second lead we had was absorbed back on the downhill and Ben, Nathan and I were at the front a bit off the next pack of two. Right where I wanted to be I guess, sit in behind these two for the first part of the race and then open it up in the second half of the race.

The terrain for the first half was quite punchy. Steep uphills, steep downhills, a few turns and no real sense of direction. Tough trail running. Well, I found it tough. Ben and Nathan were slowly pulling away from me and I didn’t try to hang on for fear of blowing up. The fourth and fifth runners soon caught me and I found myself in a new three-way battle. Was this going to be a repeat of my World Champs race where I spent the day getting passed by people? I hoped not. I was realistic in that I knew if I put myself at the front of the race and in contention it was likely I was going to get passed at some stage. I was there to try and win and podium so getting out in front was something I had to try. Kiss glory or die trying right? If it didn’t work I reasoned that I could still gain something from the experience of racing by focusing on trying to re-pass some of the people that overtook me earlier in the race instead of being in a ‘woe is me’ headspace like I was for some of the Worlds race.

At 15km we passed the first and only aid station and I was back in fifth with sixth close by. I didn’t stop to re-fill any electrolytes or water hoping that the minute I saved there by not fucking around with my bottles and some volunteer would outweigh the benefits of having more water and electrolytes on board. The sun was starting to go down now too so as it cooled off I was beginning to settle more and more and felt less and less like I was slowly drifting back through the field. Like a pendulum that comes to a stop before it swings back down again, I was starting to shift from surviving the first 20km to chasing the last 15km. The one thing I needed to kickstart that process was a bit of music in the headphones so on it went!

Nothing special on the playlist, just an hour long mix tape I’ve listened to regularly while doing extended hard efforts. And finally, I started to enjoy the race. The first part was hard and hot in retrospect while this middle part was cool, fast and fun. I started to get more of a lead on sixth place (I could no longer see him on long stretches of trail) but I had no idea where fourth and third were. Running along by myself a bit more with my music on and with the golden hour sunlight falling through the trees I felt like I was just running around Belair on a Thursday afternoon. The race was secondary to my feeling of enjoyment for that middle part because it was just great to have given my body the time to recover (by tapering) and then feel good running fast without any niggles.

I hung onto those nice feelings of enjoying this as a ‘run’ first and as a ‘race’ second as I continued to push along the course. The trail had now switched to road and I had about 13km’s of Brisbane road running to get back to the finish line area. As the km’s ticked over I started to really wonder where the next runner was. I felt like I was flying but surely he didn’t have that big of a lead on me? At least this effort will be putting distance into sixth place and will yield a good training effect no matter what…

Shit there he is! Fourth place had appeared on the hill in front of me and I was able to now switch from ‘run’ mode to ‘race’ mode as I tried to chase him down. My focus went away from the music and I enjoyed hunting this unknown runner down. As I got within striking distance, a road crossing being operated by the police appeared and he snuck through while I got held up by the policeman who yelled at me. Fuck me, is this a trail running event or something else? Back running I now had to work a little bit harder to regain his tail. We were now past the 2 hour mark and the body was definitely feeling it as running sub 4:00 min/km’s felt drastically hard (either showing how much the first 2 hours had taken out of me or how neglecting hard long runs since Worlds while in ‘recovery’ mode had left me feeling a bit weak now).

I ground my way past him as the diners on the footpath ground their salt and pepper. So much for trail running scenery, we were now in Brisbane’s inner suburbia and I was trying to be an ‘elite athlete’ while wearing an XL high-vis vest as per the safety rules… I continued in my rhythm and started to increase my lead as the finish line got closer. It would’ve been great to know where third place was but this was not the type of race where any informed spectators were standing around on course with time splits. I just had to run as hard as I could and empty myself and hope he appeared. Plus, the finishing time I end up with is all that counts for a good ITRA (International Trail Running Association) score for my running resume. Double plus, my expected finish time of 2:30 was looking more like 2:40 putting pressure on my ability to catch a 7:40pm flight. Ipso facto I had a few carrots drawing me along for the final few km’s…

Which I needed because I felt like death. Running the last stretch of bike path that I had walked earlier in the day I just started to see third place up ahead but could not go any faster. A bit of water here would’ve been great but alas I had none and could not get as close as I needed to be heading into the final stair climb. My legs started to cramp as I came up here, showing I had timed my electrolyte balance to perfection, but I was able to get back into a solid jog for the final 300m U-turn into the finish. Yes, memories of Heysen 115km came flooding back with this race’s similar ‘we’ll make you do a U-turn past the finish line area so we have a good visual product for all our finish line festivities‘. How about actually having a finish line that makes sense, puts the runner’s interest as priority 1 and is not contrived? Fuck trail running shoots itself in the foot in my opinion with these ideas…

Rant out the way I ended up finishing 4th with a time around 2:40. Thirty seconds back from 3rd place, a minute back from 2nd (Nathan) and four minutes back from Ben in 1st place. I was cooked at the finish and could tell from several symptoms. One, I didn’t feel like eating at all for a fair while and two, my hearing was all funny. It’s a strange feeling to describe but it’s like having water in your ears that won’t escape or your ears not being popped. From my understanding it’s from an increase in blood pressure or blood flow causing the tubes in my skinny ear canal to expand and block what’s going on in there. Or so I think, I’m not a doctor but I do know if I race a hard 5km I’ll get a similar feeling.

I caught my breath, grabbed my bag from my First Aid mate and said a quick congrats to Nath on a good run plus a few other mates I had met from my World Champs experience. It would’ve been nice to relax a bit around the fancy finish line area but I had to catch my plane! Onto Didi (Google Maps’ affiliate version of Uber) I went, grabbed myself a ride and I was at the airport thirty minutes later ready nice and early to board my plane. Still feeling like shit I laid down on the ground and just tried to recover. The easiest way to relate to how I was feeling was imagine being hungover AND stiff and sore from running. I wanted only water and didn’t feel like food even though I knew I needed it.

An hour or so went by on the plane with lots of me holding my head in my hands before I ordered a nice chicken and bacon toastie. Got that into me, plus more water and the pendulum was once again swinging the right way. Stepping off the plane and into Mum’s car at 11pm I was almost back to a normal post-run recovery state. Quick chat to Mum in the car ride, ask her about her day and then just like that I was back in my own bed where the day had started from. It makes for a very simple reflection when I can ask myself if I am better for what I have done today when I am standing in the same room as I started the day. From this effort, I can easily say yes. To speed up the finish to the blog here are some of the lessons I gained (these are the lessons I paid all the money in flights for!):

• Flying in on the same day is doable but is not advisable given the current approach airlines have to cancelling flights willy nilly it seems
• I’m probably not as ‘long run’ fit as I think I am and probably need to focus on doing more extended hard runs that have a bit more variety to them as opposed to just repeat thirty minute efforts up Dutchmans and Mt.Brown with long recoveries in between.
• ‘Racing’ is great when you’re chasing but sucks when you’re getting overtaken. It was great to be able to have a positive experience to reflect back on where I was able to switch my headspace mid-race and shift the pendulum from being caught to doing the chasing.
• The Brisbane Trail Ultra is an alright race for the competition aspect but that’s it. Hard to compete with QLD’ers used to the heat in their own backyard when coming from cold Quorn. Also hard to feel like I’ve gained anything apart from the ‘race’ from the event because there was no cool ‘journey though the bush’ feel like you get when doing Five Peaks or Alpine Challenge.
• The taper was good. Wouldn’t change anything there.
• I’m up there with the top trail runners in Australia but I’m not at the top yet. Ben Duffus is a sponsored runner who’s competed internationally and represented Australia over the last ten years so to only be four minutes behind him, in his own backyard at a race he’s done several times before on my first attempt racing him is not too bad. But now I’ve seen the next level, I have something to aim for.
• The style of training I do of running lots of the same km’s at the same effort is great for being able to be a strong runner and recover quickly between events but to be a more fast and dynamic runner I think I would benefit from running at a higher intensity in my training with more variety in my routes (both from day-to-day and within the routes themselves, more ups and downs and turns etc.). However, the next few races I have my eye on, marathons, relate more to the settled rhythm running I tend to do so I’m not going to be switching my training too much in the immediate future. *Next trail race I have my eye on is in mid-November.
• Winning lots of races in SA last year and the start of this year was good but it has possibly set me up poorly expectation wise. It is easy to be an optimist and think I can win races like this and it’s a mindset to have if I’m going to be serious about my intention to travel all this way to Brisbane for a race but it mightn’t be the best mindset to have as I felt disappointed I lost as I travelled back home despite having a solid run. It’s therefore great to have been handed a 4th place finish because it puts me back in the hungry state of mind wanting to beat those on top and will give my internal monologue a bit of evidence to temper my expectation a bit more in future.
• In a similar theme, the first couple of interstate races I did earlier this year were ‘barrier breaking’ races where I exceeded what I thought was possible. I then followed that with a solid first half marathon and a subsequent PB half marathon and then a new 5km PB. The last three races I have then raced with these new higher expectations for myself and have put in solid performances that are in line, or if viewed harshly, just below what was expected of me. So none of the last three have been ‘barrier breaking’ and that’s something I should accept more readily as being OK as opposed to being disappointed not to have broken a PB or barrier every time I race. Breaking PB’s can’t go on forever.
• It’s great to have been able to have the confidence to book this trip, race hard, and put another strong result in the bag for my ITRA score^. This an aspect of trail running I’ve only just started paying attention to and essentially it helps quantify and compare race results across different distances and elevation gain profiles. As I’ve highlighted previously, it’s nice to compare times from races I’ve repeated or between half-marathons and marathons but for trail races I’ve always done thus in a qualitative manner. Until now.
• Although I don’t enjoy a lot of the race hoopla and organising that comes from some of these events I do enjoy the middle parts of a race where all that matters is running hard and breathing. Nothing else in life is important. I am fully focused and distracted from reality and it’s great. Only races can put me in that headspace. That’s what I pay the big bucks for. Not the free socks, finisher medal or event t-shirt. Put me in harm’s way and out of my comfort zone please and thankyou.
• Lastly, this trip reminded me that my ambition to do trail running stems from being motivated to be the best runner I can be and compete in challenging Alpine area events across the North East of Victoria. Doing a race that finishes in the Brisbane CBD is almost the opposite location. But, you have to try these things to make sure you don’t enjoy them as much as the things you do right? So now I have that confirmation and will be wiser for it in the future when I see the Brisbane Trail Ultra race dates pop up on the calendar. I’ll know what I’m getting myself into at least.

There we have it. 12 lessons of varying size and one box certainly ticked of ‘putting myself in harm’s way and out of my comfort zone to be a better runner’. That’s a lot gained from a such a short experience so in the end I think I can say the money was worth it. And if it wasn’t, it was still a fucking cool day to look back on.

Thanks for reading!

^At time of writing ITRA score was yet to be updated

^^Event Photos still to come too. I guess they’re still busy packing up their finish line festival…