Fraser Darcy

This blog comes to you the day two days after I raced the Salisbury Run Half Marathon. I entered the race sometime last week after I finished off my Tuesday session of 6*1km with paces that encouraged me to think I was back in business. The fact I was able to run a few sub 3 minute reps was positive and makes it technically one of my best sessions. However I always take improvement like this with a grain of salt. Did I run these better because I had only done a 2hr easy long run the weekend prior? Was it easier because it was a lot cooler than when I last ran this session this fast? You never can know and it’s hard to compare but it’s better than nothing.

With that confidence though I entered the 21.1km race for the Sunday and continued with the rest of my training week. It involved another long run of 90 minutes on the dirt roads around Quorn, some time spent ‘bushwalking’ with a rucksack on my back in place of an afternoon run and finally, a day of top-roping. Yes, not only was my fitness back in business… I think… but my climbing guiding itself was back in business.

I had been recruited by the local school, the Quorn Area School, to facilitate some climbing instruction at the local Warren Gorge. This was being driven by a teacher who of course I’ve chatted to once or twice in town and at the local pool so it was fairly easy to organise. It was also going to tick off one of my original ambitions when I moved into Quorn of bringing climbing to the local community. To finally do so, on a day of brilliant weather in the Flinders was very nice. To add to the niceness of it, the students were well behaved and climbed well. I was relaxed as an instructor as I have worked at Warren Gorge over the last three years now so it was all very cruisy. This was not a one-off session too, the plan is to continue the climbing sessions for another three weeks from next week onwards. And hopefully it continues next year as well.

The highlights of the week did not stop there though. I had some friends stay on Thursday night after my top-roping work and I was treated to a meal at the Trans (fish and chips) for the second time in a week as payment for my hospitality. Fuelled by my fish and chips from the night before I went for a short tempo run on Friday morning, only 2 laps this time, and tested some new supershoes. The body felt good, the shoes felt fast and it was nice to wave to some of the students I had climbed with the day before as they went to school and I ran around town.

Between Friday morning and Sunday morning not much else really happened. I drove to Adelaide, read the blogs and studied my efforts from the two half marathons I did last year (Clare and McLaren Vale) and tried to rest as much as possible.

Going into the race on Sunday morning I was fairly relaxed. I wasn’t stressed about my injury. It wasn’t going to be restricting me from running fast. I didn’t have any colds/flu to worry about even though some of it had been going around. I didn’t have any stomach issues either on the day of the race even though the day before it wasn’t feeling great. There was no mandatory gear or rules about headphones to worry about either. There was also no chance of a PB given the nature of the course (windy, gravel path). There was also no real fast competition I was scared of too. So basically, I was 90% sure at the start line that as long as I ran as well as I had been in my Thursday/Friday tempo sessions then I would win. That’s a pretty comfortable thought to have on the start line. It’s nice to race tough competition and be all razzed up to go blood’n’glory style but this more mellow approach was also nice too.

Off the start I raced the first km pretty fast just to get breathing space from a fellow RunAsOne teammate who was supposed to be racing with a more controlled effort (but still aiming for second). I got my little gap and then eased off a tad. One of my goals with the race was to run the first 10km’s at a very controlled, almost easy effort. Another goal was to run the last 5km’s the hardest I could (kind of a fake goal to have to ensure I controlled myself in the first ten km’s) and my other goal was to not do any damage to my now repaired body.

With such a windy course I wasn’t able to really settle into a rhythm until after the first 7/8km’s. I was running at a pace that would’ve given me a finish time of just under 70 minutes. Going into the race I wasn’t too concerned about a time, given there was no PB chance I wanted to just give it a good hard effort, but if I finished in 71/72 minutes I would’ve been slightly disappointed. To be holding 70 minute pace for the first 7/8km’s meant I was fairly happy. I almost got too relaxed though as I headed into the turnaround point starting to get a feeling of ‘jeez, this is taking a while, I wish I was there already’.

After the turnaround though I started to see a few competitors on my way back which broke up the monotony of it all. I was still on 70 minute pace heading into the last 5km’s where I hoped to increase my pace but given I was already on track for 69:something I decided instead to just hold it steady. I did this for a few more km’s before a few sharp hills and some traffic on course (from the 10km and 5km events) interrupted my rhythm. With about 3 km’s to go I could’ve, and if I was still intent on hitting my goal, put the hammer down, but with nothing to really gain and the risk of doing some late damage I decided to back off the pace and enjoy the last few km’s in.

In the end I ran 1:10:58 (70:58 minutes). Fairly solid. I crossed the line and didn’t feel wrecked or anything so I know that I had, let’s not stay plenty left, but still a fair bit left in the tank. Being my third half marathon I can compare it to the other two from last year and when I raced them I felt a lot more cooked in the final km’s than I did in Sunday’s race. When I raced last year I also had company for at least 45% of the race and in that 45% of both races I remember thinking ‘oh shit, am I going too fast?’ I wasn’t in the end and ended up exceeding my expectations. Contrast that thought with the thoughts I had in Sunday’s race ‘this is a really nice little area… how long is this taking’ shows to me that I wasn’t really pushing to give an A grade race effort.

Which is nice to think I can race like that and still win $750 and an Akubra for first place. It does pose the question of where do I want to take the knowledge that I can train at 100km’s and race like I did on the weekend. Should I keep training consistently like I have been and try to step up my efforts in another race in a few weeks time? Or should I step up both my training and racing efforts now that I’m confident my ankle/foot is not restricting me anymore? The answer I think lies with where I felt most weak in the race yesterday. It was not a lack of aerobic power or leg speed but more the cumulative effect of the pounding of running 3:19/km for 70 minutes. My legs were tired and sore by the end. I can either get them stronger by continuing my rucksack walking/going climbing again or I can ramp up the volume of my running training. If I do both through a controlled approach I think I can be within touching distance of my half marathon PB in a few weeks time. I can hear the naysayers out there already saying ‘take it easy Frase, maybe do things one at a time’ and to them I say, ‘ni!’

But enough of what’s happening in my training. What’s happening this week in my lfie is I’ll be heading along to the RunAsOne session on Tuesday morning, driving back to Quorn afterwards, going climbing at MOONARIE on Wednesday as a real treat and then finishing off the latest issue of The Blue Line. The opportunity to go climbing at Moonarie popped out of nowhere and has come at a good time as I believe the lack of climbing within my routine over the last 12 months has meant a general decline in my strength. By just doing a little bit every month or so I think I should either be able to confirm that opinion or discredit it and have to go back to the drawing board with why I think I’m not as strong in my legs anymore.

Anyway, that’s enough for this week. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the pictures!