Fraser Darcy

This week’s revelation on my Sunday long run was that I am beginning to believe further in the concept that I will never be satisfied with my running and perfection is impossible, hence, treating races as if they are the end of a single training block and culmination of my efforts is a fallacy. Even if I PB I will always think ‘I could’ve done a little more there if I did this or that’. Realising this thought before a PB takes away a bit of the aura of the actual PB itself. If I will never be happy straight after a PB, when will I be happy and satisfied with my running? Probably when I’ve stopped trying to get better but for the foreseeable future, as long as I’m trying to get better I will always be asking more of myself. Thus, each race is just an opportunity to ask more of myself in the present moment and continue the never-ending build to a moment that will never arrive. I am on the ‘Road to Nowhere’ and I’m enjoying it.

Ok Mr.Philospohical what does that all mean practically? Well it just means that on my Sunday long run I reminded myself for a good thirty minutes of talking to myself that I do better when I take the pressure off races and focus on the continual journey of getting better at running and living the way I want to. Ok cool, so that’s what you did on Sunday… what about the rest of the week? What… philosophical thoughts are not enough for you, you want the play-by-play still… ok… I want to tell it too.

Monday. The day after the Salisbury Run. I was pretty tired but not too sore so I made my way to Belair for a leisurely 12k. It was one of my slower 12k’s there but I was glad to survive it. The Salisbury race was a good test for my ankle/foot injury during the race and of course post-race. To not pull up any sorer than normal after a race was the first green light for the week that I was, as I wrote last week, back in business… I think. The rest of the day was pretty cruisy and relaxing, tidied up some Blue Line work, got things sorted to return to Quorn the next day and had an early night.

Tuesday. The reason I hung around until Tuesday was to jump in with the RunAsOne session in the morning. Coming off a race I probably didn’t need to ‘train’ and could’ve just jogged around but after similar half marathon races last year and earlier this year at Belair I was able to train on Tuesday so this was another opportunity for a green light to convince myself I am not injured anymore and try to again train on Tuesday like I had managed in the past. It’s a risky way to play the game but taking risks like that is how I’ve ended up living a pretty good life so far.

The session itself was 600 ‘on’ (code for ‘fast’) followed by 400 ‘float’ (code for very fast jog). Not something I usually do by myself because I can’t be bothered slowing down and speeding up in a session so to have an opportunity to work on some different speeds was great. I started out thinking 8 reps would be great but 6 would be enough considering I was coming off the race. Out of the gates the group I was in was going pretty fast, sub 3:00/km’s, and I was hoping to hold on as long as possible. For the ‘floats’ it felt similar to marathon pace/effort at 3:20’s/km. On the second rep it was much the same and I could feel my legs reminding me that I had run a race two days ago. Still, the way I like to train with others is give myself the opportunity to hold on to a faster pace than I would normally run for as long as possible. So that’s what I was doing.

Coming into reps 4 and 5 I was still tossing up whether I would try and make it to 8 or not. I was happy with my paces so far, I wasn’t slowing down in the ‘ons’ and was actually speeding up in the ‘floats’. I figured I’d do a 6th and if I hadn’t blown up I would go two more. At the end of the 6th rep I internally decided yep, we’re all good I’ll go for 8. I had been running all the reps with Luke (a long-time arch nemesis after he beat a parkrun record of mine) and was grateful for the accountability it provided for. Right before we started the 7th rep though, Luke ducked off and I gave a not so quiet but automatic response of ‘fuck you‘. I didn’t know he only had 6 reps to do that morning so now I was really being tested by myself on the last two. The paces dropped off a bit but not by too much, still faster than what they needed to be so I was still getting the desired training effect. I was glad to make it to 8 in the end and when I finished quickly apologised to Luke who didn’t care in the slightest of course, just as I wouldn’t if I was in that situation and the roles were reversed. But still, good value for a training session, I don’t get to swear at anyone when I’m training at Quorn.

After the session I tidied up some loose ends at home, created a new loose end by misplacing a set of keys and then hit the road back to Quorn a little later than I intended. It meant I missed an easy walk to flush the legs out but oh well, these things happen. I also found the set of keys I misplaced too so that was a bonus for my morale.

Wednesday. With some good running under my belt and satisfied I’m injury free it was nice to take a break from running on Wednesday with a whole day of climbing at Moonarie. I met up with a bloke who’s working in Hawker and gave him a bit of a tour of Moonarie and enjoyed getting back into some relatively easy climbing. My feet don’t fit into my climbing shoes anymore and I’m probably not as strong as I once was but I still enjoyed it as much as I always have. It made me also consider selecting a few new routes or old routes to re-assign as a ‘project’ for the next 6 months while I have the opportunity to have a climbing partner in the area. After the day of climbing I jogged for an hour near Wilpena. It felt clunky to jog and my stomach was cooked after being cinched tight in a harness all day but I made it through the hour. In an ideal world I would’ve been feeling fresh as a daisy and ran 90 minutes to stay in my normal Wednesday mid-week long run routine but I’m glad I made the change this week to include some climbing as I addressed at the end of last week’s post.

Thursday. I ran an easy 90 minutes after a bit of a sleep-in. The rest of the day was spent polishing off The Blue Line and going for an easy walk up Devils Peak with my new motivation to get back into climbing. I also had an Airbnb guest arrive who was my old footy coach from 2010 so there was a bit of cleaning to do as well.

Friday. Big day. With my next race likely being another half marathon and two weeks and two days away at this stage I wanted to put in my longest ‘tempo’ session around the North Quorn Parklands loop. I’d been doing 4 laps, or 3 laps, sometimes with a break, sometimes not depending on fitness and race proximity. On Friday morning I thought it was time to go for 5 laps. 10.5km’s. If I could hold under 3:20/km pace for each lap that’d be great. If I slowed down past 3:20/km pace for a whole lap I’d take a minute break to jog and then go again. To set a new half marathon best requires me to hold somewhere around 3:12/km. In an ideal world I’d be rolling around the parklands in 3:10/km for 5 laps and be super confident. But, I know that after a big training week already, all by myself and the first time I’m aiming for 5 laps at intensity that it’d be a stretch to start out at 3:10/km pace, only a few seconds a km off my km splits pace, and hold on. So instead, I set my benchmark at 3:20/km and started my effort.

The first lap I flew out too early at 3:14/km so eased off the throttle. It felt good but I wanted to make it through all 5 laps as my primary goal. It would give me 35 minutes of volume at the pace I ran for 70 minutes at Salisbury. As I progressed through the second and third laps I felt good aerobically but my legs were beginning to tire and lose the pop of maintaining sub 3:20/km pace. It’s the same I felt in the Salisbury race of not having the strength in my legs to maintain the speed I could aerobically output.

Still, I was on track with my sub 3:20/km pace goal so I kept going on my fourth lap. I was holding something slightly in reserve on my fourth lap as breaking into the fifth was new territory. What comes with new territory and the last lap is an obvious sense of I’m almost done here, stay controlled and then kick for home. I could’ve gone a little harder in the last lap (see I’ll never be happy not even in training) but wanted to make sure I didn’t overcook things already more than they needed. To finish all 5 laps, under the 3:20/km pace goal was a pretty good confidence booster. If I can do that on my own, I should be able to run 68/69 minutes for a half marathon in a couple of weeks with this session and the Salisbury run session in the bank now. Unfortunately, running doesn’t exactly work like that and just because I’ve done this in training gives me no right to expect it from myself on race day without working just as bloody hard as I had to in this session. I warmed down for a teeny bit longer than usual and felt pretty cooked for the next few hours of my Friday. It took some mobility exercises for me to start to feel recovered but by 5pm I was feeling good.

So good in fact that I ended up running again in the afternoon. It was another green light and confirmation that I could ramp things up in training. I feel if I can slightly increase my km’s to 140-160 over these next two weeks I’ll have the confidence in their ability to withstand 3:12/km or faster pace for an hour at my next half marathon.

Saturday. Easy hour in the morning, watched Essendon win one of their best team performances in a long time which made me start to believe that we are actually a reliable football club followed by an easy afternoon run. Seriously, if Essendon can be relied on to have a crack and play the same game style with the same effort week in, week out, it’d be eerily similar to how I now view my running of just one week after the another, not focusing too much on any one race in particular but just trying to be better in the long term. It’s like the universe is aligning. Well it did for me this weekend, not sure about your universe dear Reader.

Sunday. Back where we started, the Sunday long run. The aim this weekend was to get to at least 30km’s in around 2hrs 15min. I went a bit slower than I thought I might but that was ok. It’s nice to be able to wheel out 2hrs in confidence again and even go a little further. Of course, this run was where I was able to reflect on the ‘Road to nowhere’ that running can feel like sometimes and I’m happy on it again. There’s a variety of races in the next few months that if I get to all of them that’d be excellent, if not, even if I only get to a few that’d be great too. My fitness is back in a good spot and I am confident of racing at my limit again and aiming for PB’s if it’s the right race/weather. If not, or I’m on the trails, well then I’m looking forward to just enjoying the racing!

Next week. Much the same. Tuesday I’ll do something slightly different again, hopefully it’ll include some sub 3:00/km stuff as I think it’s feasible to make some last minute adaptations to high end speed in the next two weeks as I approach my next half marathon. My ‘tempo’ work ability is pretty good already but I’ll do a bit more of that too. The long runs don’t need to be as long but I’ll see how I feel. I’m planning on a Moonarie day on Wednesday again and working with Quorn Area School at Warren Gorge on Thursday so there’s two climbing days in a row as well. I could see myself potentially hot footing it to Adelaide for the weekend for more training companions but we’ll see how that plays out. If I do it’ll potentially mean I’m on that schedule of Thursday night – Tuesday day in Adelaide, Tuesday day – Thursday night in Quorn for the next three weekends around race commitments. It sounds like a lot but really, it’s only 4 hrs sitting in a car instead of on a couch. Plus if I have a long term view on my road to nowhere, it’s only three weekends, it’s not like I’m doing it for three years…

Anyway, that’s enough for this week I’ve decided once again. I look forward to reporting what actually happens next week, in about 7 days time.