Fraser Darcy

I’m back into Term 4 and and into the longest continuous stretch of training I’ve planned without racing. 8 weeks all up. I’ve been given a free/elite entry to the Kosci 50km on December 7 (a Thursday) and as such, have pulled the trigger on locking into one block of training focusing on one race.

A different approach to the ‘train for 3 weeks, use a race as a hit out, train some more‘ method I’ve employed for most of 2022 and 2023. I’m looking forward to doing it this way and seeing if there are any changes to my fitness but I have made the decision to train/race this way also out of necessity.

I want to maximise the competition, enjoyment and travel factors out of running while minimising the cost. To maximise those factors running a race in the alpine area of Victoria and NSW was high on the cards however that makes minimising the cost difficult. I could have just been satisfied racing say the State 10,000m Champs and a couple of small Adelaide Trail Runners races but besides enjoyment and maybe competition (in the 10,000m champs) I wouldn’t be ticking all the boxes. Hence, I looked at a number of interstate races to finish off the year and there are plenty. Bogong2Hotham in January would have been nice but there seems to be no information if that will be on this year so that’s out of the question. Another few races on weekends in Victoria were also tempting as it meant I could take maybe only 1-2 days off school either side of a 14 hour drive to the race venues. Doing it that way feels like I’m forcing the issue though. I’m forcing the running to fit in around my teaching life. That’s not how it was supposed to be.

Instead, I looked at the races I’d like to do most and figured out what I’d need to do to try and make them work. If I could get a free entry that would help alleviate the cost burden. So I threw out an application. Got a bite. Reeled it in and bang, we’re off to the Kosci 50k! This race ticks several boxes for me:

• It’s on a Thursday and so I am forced to commit to taking a week of Leave Without Pay from school to allow me the time to travel over and back. I therefore tick off an end of year holiday I was envisaging when you add on the weekend’s before and after the race.
• It gives me a terrific reason to travel back to the scene of my 2018 and 2019 ski seasons when I worked at Perisher which I’d been meaning to do for a while. Very similar nostalgic vibe to when I went over and raced the Alpine Challenge in 2022 which I enjoyed at the time.

• First time I’ll be racing under the UTMB banner of events. These are the big dogs of trail running event management and already run the closest thing Australia will get to having a European style race in Australia with their Ultra-Trail Australia event in the Blue Mountains.
• It’s in the mountainous area of Australia which for me, is the true home of trail running. All other events are just trying to imitate the mountainous/ski resort style terrain that is on offer at events such as Kosci, Alpine Challenge, Great Southern Endurance Run and Buffalo Stampede.
• Finally, having locked into a race in December motivates me to actually train and build fitness for the rest of the year. The past several years I’ve gotten lazy with running and climbing due to working a lot in Term 4 on outdoor ed programs where I am either on an island or bushwalking (i.e. away from regular training set-ups). They’ve been great but I have lamented about not being able to race an event in the alpine area in VIC/NSW and also just being generally unhappy with my fitness by December (which usually sparks me into January pre-season mode). This year though I now get to see what being fit in December is all about. Bring it on.

• The one downside to this plan, and a small part of the reason to dive into 8 weeks training straight, is that the Kosci area is still a long way away. To save on the extra costs of getting there, instead of flying and hiring a car I’m driving over and taking my camping gear with me. To help save on fuel costs to get there and back I’ve sacrificed a trip down to Adelaide this term (hence no races for 8 weeks) as when you do the maths, a trip to Kosci is essentially 2 Adelaide trips. So if I avoid Adelaide and ‘spend’ Term 4’s ‘Adelaide’ km’s in one hit heading to Kosci, with the free entry thrown in I’m essentially going for free, except for the lost money in wages for the week. There has to be downsides/sacrifices though to make it really worth it so I’m not complaining. Plus, the 8 week focus on a race has already started to sharpen my training…

Week 1 was an easy introduction highlighted by the Redemption on the SSSFFF trip. Around that trip I cranked out 123km of other running which was mostly just jogging. I wanted to get into a routine before school started and made it as easy on myself as possible.

Week 2 has been a progressive build on that first week. 147km’s of running and some intensity brought back in as well. Tuesday’s session up and down Mt.Brown was a good way to blow the cobwebs off as shown below. It was also fun. I hadn’t been enjoying the trails as much as I have in the past over July/August due to feeling quite beat up and sore. On the Friday before the last TRSA race I mentioned in that article I was enthused by my ability to run and enjoy the downhills in Belair again. Well I’ve still got that momentum and the warm weather is increasing it’s effect. Something I’ve always enjoyed about trail running, despite my sometime poor race performances in the heat, is how much cooler it feels to be running hard and fast when it’s hot than when it’s cold. It wasn’t boiling on Tuesday by any means but it was warm enough to be dripping plenty of sweat.

As the week progressed after Tuesday I became a little more tired. That’s what happens first week back at school I guess. The wind also picked up a bit more and by Friday, day of session number two, I was a little pooped. Getting out for a faster tempo run at 80% is better than not getting out at all so I went and ran it anyway. The wind sucked for the first half but it created a set of circumstances where I was able to drop into ‘more training’ mindset mode. In this mode, every thing I do becomes ‘training’ for the next race. More wind? More training. More heat? More training. Have to do some gardening? More training. It used to be how I lived and viewed the outdoor ed world as every day at work was ‘more training’ for the next climb/kayak/run. 9-5 worker life is at times the antithesis of training mode (however, I have started viewing the work day as a mental ‘ultra’ to get through so watch this space). I haven’t tapped into full-on training mode in a while I feel because when I’m always racing and recovery I fall into the ‘be smart and conservative’ mode. Don’t run too fast in this session or you mightn’t recover for the race. Don’t run those downhills too fast or you might fall over and not be able to race. The amount of risk taking allowed in life is minimal because the consequences of a decision going wrong can be fatal to my chances in a race. Not in training mode.

Falling into training mode on my Friday tempo was a nice pick-me-up for the final fifteen minutes of my tempo run. Again, with sweat dripping me off I pushed on through and gladly recorded a time that shows I’m semi-fit (a.k.a a time a little quicker than I expected an hour before I started) and I’m back (into training mode) baby!

It feels good to reflect on both my motivation for my next race and these first two weeks of training after my Sunday long run this morning. I feel like the animal runner/training mode life within me got a bit lost and disorientated with all the emphasis on road running. Maybe it’s the warm weather or maybe it’s the fact I’m forcing myself into relaxing into an 8 week block for once that’s bring it back out again. I guess we’ll see as I gather more evidence over the next few weeks.

For now, it’s simply more training, more school and more watering of the plants as they continue to grow in Spring. I hope I can beat their growth rate.