Fraser Darcy

It’s Sunday. One week on from the Adelaide Marathon. I’m outside at Huia Park because it’s not 10 degrees for once. I put down some rough thoughts on my marathon straight after the race, on the drive home, during the week at school and up until Thursday really when my body started to come good. Those thoughts have fermented since and without too much structure or flow at times, here they are below.

• Not a breakthrough performance, just a time on the board relevant to my current pb’s. If you take my 5km PB of 14:58 (set during somewhat ‘heavy’ training earlier in the year) and plug it into this calculator, https://runfastcoach.com/calc2/index.php, you get a marathon predicted time of 2:24:06. Pretty much what I did. The predicted half marathon time is about 90 seconds slower than my PB from April but it’s all relatively in the same ballpark. Hence, this performance was good but it wasn’t a breakthrough fitness performance. Still nice to know I am capable of it.
• Pertinent to the point above, this year I set PB’s in all the classic road distances. These PB’s are ones I would’ve been happy to retire with if you’d given them to me a few years ago. The challenge now is to either maintain this level of road running form and if that’s not challenging enough (life is better when you’re riding the line between challenging/uncomfortable and comfortable) the next attempt is to get to be a sub 14:30 for 5km, sub 30 for 10km, sub 30 for half marathon, sub 2:20 person for the marathon type person.
• I had a lot of fun! Running (and sport) is all about fun in the end. It’s just a game with only one player. My attitude at the start was to have fun and enjoy it and I did. Nice to see lots of familiar faces on course, nice to enjoy running in a pretty nice part of Adelaide. I also had fun when it got hard towards the end. That’s important to relish the getting hard part. It ‘hurts’ yes because you’re tired but it in other ways it’s not painful. No-one is prodding you with a knife, your ligaments aren’t breaking and bones aren’t snapping, you’re just in a comfortable state of suffering of your own choosing really.
• Raced the whole way without music. One reason behind this was my headphones have died in one ear and I’m getting sick of them rubbing on my back where the headphone jack/phone sits in my shorts. The other reason was because I wanted to just be a bit more present in the race and I’ve started to listen to a lot of my favourite songs enough I can pull them into my head without needing them to come on. Provided I’m in the right mindset already. Music does play a role in digging your head out of the gutter but I don’t think a marathon yields itself to that mentality. Just hit the pace in the first few km’s and stay there. Job done.
• Training block reflection: Positives.
  • Consistency. Since World Champs I have had a very good 8-9 weeks including multiple races and long runs.
  • Easy runs. These crept up to 4:00/km pre World’s and I backed them off to 4:45/km a bit to give my shins more healing time. It worked, I felt less banged up and could hit workouts harder.
  • Threshold on Pinkerton Road. Brilliant location to run a 30 minute hard effort with rolling hills to keep the trail runner within me engaged. I enjoyed doing this for 3 weeks in a row, along with kilometre reps on Arden Vale Rd, and feeling how each week it got easier.
• Training block reflection. Negatives/Room to Improve.
  • Longer marathon style efforts in training. I pointed out previously that a lot of marathoners train with longer marathon sessions these days. I didn’t because they take a lot of mental effort. I should try them next time to see if that gives a good training effect or just good mental confidence.
  • Switch to road specificity further than 6-7 weeks out. Feel like I really got rolling just as the taper came around. I wonder how I would go with a longer road build.
  • Training isolation. Would I run better or faster if I had more training companions to push me? King of the Castle is nice but allows me to rest on my laurels.
• This performance was another big tick in my ‘relocation to Quorn to be a better version of myself’ plan. Couple this with the selection in the World Champs team this year and it has been a successful year so far. Only in September (approaching my two year anniversary of living in Quorn) too with another four months to go.
• Going off the visits at the race and messages of support/congrats I impacted a lot of friends and family with my result which was nice. That’s one part of what drives me to do better. If I do better, everyone else hopefully pushes to do better and then we all do better.
• Proud I went back to work on Monday. Just because you’re all that and a bag of chips on Sunday doesn’t mean you can’t go back to work on Monday. Did the same thing last year with a bushwalking camp so going back to teach Maths and Science was a little easier.
• Glad I won with a time that is the second fastest ever on that course. I could’ve taken it easier and played it safe at 2:28 pace and still won but risked it and went at 2:24 and ran from the front for 95%. Getting overtaken and then going for it in the last few km’s I was thinking of this video which popped up on my facebook feed earlier in the week...
• While I feel like a much better runner than last year I was only 8 minutes better which doesn’t sound like a lot of time for all the effort I put in but maybe that’s just a reminder that times and results aren’t everything?
• I do sacrifice some career aspirations and outdoor trip ideas I have to get results like these. Is it worth it? Is there a rush to get onto those career/job goals or outdoor trips? I think everyone questions things like this and when I am in a race I remove the doubt in these questions and focus only on the race itself. And love it. Then when I am back home or back in routine training my mind wanders and that is not as enjoyable. The uncertainty behind is this the right path or progression is in everyone’s life and as long as it doesn’t hold me or you back then perhaps a little doubt is good at times (uncertain outcomes can challenge you to be better I think). However, it’s clear to me when I operate without doubting myself and believe in myself I live better. Perhaps thats the real lesson of the marathon.

During the race I was lucky to be following the lead bike the whole way. On the lead bike there was a GoPro filming my every move and the recordings of this GoPro available at the links below.

• https://gopro.com/v/MWEW8wVBoXN0L
• https://www.michaelsphotos.com.au/Adelaide-Marathon-2023/A/

Recovery Thoughts: Having been once week now since I finished I am pleased with my recovery process and where I sit now. The following schedule has left me feeling closer to under trained than over trained and with my next race being on September 16 (two weeks away) that’s a good place to be.

The hardest part about recovering has been switching my brain from ‘wow I did the thing I was dreaming of’ to ‘your next race is in two and a half weeks’. Fortunately my view of running that one race does not make you a champion means I take a more holistic view of my running efforts and that they all play a role into developing me better for the next race and the next one after that. Ticking the marathon box last week has given me the confidence to run at a high level back on the trails in two weeks time and allows me to focus on giving it my best effort on that day. I’ve done the marathon for this year and now I want to make sure I get a good trail running marathon right. If I expect that it’s all going to just happen because of this Adelaide Marathon performance then I may as well roll over and play dead because that’s not how sport works. So you can be glad that I am not thinking that. Hence, I return to my original part about saying the hardest part of recovering is switching into the next race mode. The closer I get to the race and the further I get away from Adelaide Marathon the more switched on I’ll be. This is where the busy race schedule I have followed over the last 18 months has taught me how to handle this challenge. With the spring weather making it more enticing to be outside I am ready to step outside and bring on the next challenge. Literally, I’m writing this outside! Thanks for reading!