Fraser Darcy

Alright alright alright. January is over and so is the dedicated 5km speed block. I put the icing on the cake with a new Belair parkrun course record (15:46) on Saturday January 27th. As I alluded to in my last blog, I was in two minds about whether to give this a crack or not.

After the track race last week, I ran 30km the next day (split between two runs), completed and ‘won’ an ‘adventure’ race with friends (cycling, kayaking and running) and of course had to get myself organised to return straight back to Quorn for work at Hawker on Saturday at 2pm. That left me with about fifteen minutes spare if I was to give the Belair parkrun a rip beforehand and with not that much energy in my fuel reserves. In my warm-up at Belair I thought ‘this feels like I’m at my limit here with how much intensity I’m loading onto my plate’. I’ve thought this in the past on a few Tassie multi-trips where I’ve been rock climbing, bushwalking or kayaking for days on end without a rest day. Realising I’m on the edge of the limit meant I had to respect it and go easy or respect it and just get after it anyway and be ok with the result. It’s good to know I’m on the limit though because operating in this space means I’m breaking through to the other side and setting a new limit for next time.

Despite relishing being at my limit, it does invite the risk that I might not perform at my best and have overcooked it, which I hate. I find it difficult going hard at something and not being able to give my best effort and having a time or result on the board that doesn’t reflect my true ability. All because I place too much emphasis on what other people might think if I run say 16:20 and they might think it’s my best (when I know it’s not).

And then, I say as I motion back to the jury (my brain) like a fancy pants lawyer, I remember that I should not care what others think and let myself be the only judge of my performances.

So I got after it. And ran 15:46 officially. A new course record by 17 seconds. I think I can do better but I’m happy with that time for now as a benchmark for someone else to beat.

From there, the next eight days until now have been all about getting back into Quorn life. Hence, why I chose to title this blog with that very simple phrase. In good old condensed fashion:

Saturday: I drove straight to Hawker, worked at the pool all arvo, bought some groceries in Quorn on my way back home and watched Sabalenka win the Aussie Open.
Sunday: Ran 35km in 2.5hrs, stomach cooked itself with ten minutes to go. Worked at the pool in Quorn in the arvo. Ran after that listening to Sinner lose the first two sets of the Men’s final then watched him win the final three sets.
Monday: Ran an easy hour. Did a big shop in Port Augusta. Did some mobility. Worked at the pool all arvo in Quorn. Ran after work (after work runs start at 7pm ish).
Tuesday: Morning run included 8*1km’s running 3:00ish/km’s. Prepped airbnb room for new guests. Finished off The Blue Line draft. Worked at Hawker. Ran at Hawker. Met Airbnb guests.
Wednesday: Ran 1.5 hrs, worked 1.5 hrs in the morning. Worked the afternoon shift at Quorn. Ran after work and chatted with Airbnb guests plus a little bit of mobility work.
Thursday: Ran an easy hour. Did the washing. Checked out Airbnb guests and cleaned room. Worked at Hawker. Ran at Hawker. Finished off TBL with some last minute adjustments.
Friday: Morning run with 13km of faster tempo running. House jobs. Worked at Quorn. Ran afterwards.
Saturday: Morning easy hour including unofficial Quorn parkrun. Worked 9:30-1pm. Relaxed for my first arvo off in seven days and put most of this blog together. Ran in the arvo plus easy mobility.
Sunday: Ran 2.5hrs. Felt good. Enjoyed my shoutout on the Hot Takes podcast by For The Kudos. Finished off this blog. Might go to the pool for a swim but not work for once!

A busy but simple week. Run, work, run. The beauty of Quorn life though is that apart from that there’s not too much else to do anyway. It would be ideal to not work as much but that’s just the nature of a casual roster sometimes. If I wasn’t working at the pool I’d be ‘working’ on a house job or writing project anyway.

The Quorn life, the way I’ve constructed it this year after building into it for 2.5 years, is now working very smoothly. I enjoy running my loops and setting out for a run on my own. I am the only one who tells me to do this amount of training or what type of training. It’s a pleasing reflection of how passionate I am about my running at the moment that I ticked off 180+km’s this week.

The thing I most like about being the one who sets my running plans and then has zero influences on it from the outside world is that I don’t lose confidence or inspiration when things get tough and don’t over congratulate myself either. Running with others, or doing anything with others, can make you feel shit if you’re not as good as them (because it’s hard to always be the sole judge of your performances ^^^). Same as running with others when things are hard or hot and everyone’s backslapping each other telling everyone how much of a good runner or a hero you are for just getting a run done despite the conditions. I think that can over-inflate your ego and goes against all the principles of stoicism I think translate well to endurance sports. Training and living solo has taught me, this is just my experience of course because newsflash, this is fraserdarcy.com, how to finish a run and get on with the rest of the day no matter how good or bad it went. It makes the run more precious in some ways because only I know how hard or difficult it was and can reflect on that. Again, it’s mostly my internal motivation pushing me out the door and my satisfaction welcoming me back inside 95% of the time. But hey, back slapping myself for being the only one telling me what to do is a bit hypocritical so instead I’ll shut up now and just get on with it*.

The plan following this week is to continue this simple way of running and working for the next few months. Maintain the 180+km’s week and continue to build the quality of my long runs and tempo runs as I aim to peak at the Ballarat Marathon in April. There’s a 10km race on in Adelaide next weekend where I’ll get to enjoy a hit-out with others (and might jump into another group training session while I’m down there) on the immediate horizon. It’s nice to have these little intermediate races and then the Ballarat marathon as waypoints along my year of dedicated running. I am old enough now to know that placing 100% focus on one race is a bit fanciful as each race is just a building block for a future race. Maybe this Ballarat Marathon will be a PB, maybe it won’t, but it will help for the marathon(s) I run in 2026 or 2027 where I’ll have another 2-3 years of training to go with it. If I haven’t PB’ed since Adelaide 2023 by 2027 there’ll be some serious questions being asked!

This proper marathon block, my first real dedicated one, will be all about trying to maintain high mileage and consistency in long tempo runs at or near race pace (3:20/km-3:40/km). If that works for me, great. If it doesn’t, well, hopefully I’ll know why it didn’t work and can change that for the next block or at least before 2027 etc… Anyway that’s enough waffling about training and what I hope to do. Less talk, more action Fraser.

*If I ever stray too far from sharing my training and racing details for educational purposes and get into the namby pamby emotional writing about how the trees looked when I ran past them on a cool summer’s morning then please write in and give me a spray!

Thanks for reading!