Fraser Darcy

Last week’s blog finished off with an indication I was 95% sure of running in the TRSA Kuitpo Forest 24km. Well, if you read the title, it’s pretty bloody obvious I did in the end. Was it a ‘get in the pain cave, put some headphones on and go running through the forest for 1.5hrs‘ type experience I alluded to last week?

Well, you can be the judge of that! First, let’s review what happened earlier in the week. *Time travel music plays and Wayne’s World Scene Dissolve*.

Monday started off very business-like. Went running in Belair for an hour and a bit, completed some programs for RunAsOne runners, replied to some emails, did some business essentially, went for an arvo run. It may read very boring but Monday’s are pretty good when it’s the day after you win a half marathon. I pulled up better than I thought as well after Barossa. Better than after the Salisbury Run.

Tuesday. RunAsOne training day. I just jogged instead, played it smart. It gave me the opportunity to have a chat to a few runners about their races and plans for the future. After the session it was straight onto the open road back to Quorn. After 4 hours of catching up on podcasts I arrived back at the humble Huia Park (my house’s official name).

I wasn’t going to be in Quorn for long though. I had entered Kuitpo knowing I needed to be back in Adelaide on Saturday at the latest but could get down by Thursday. When time is of the essence I seem to do my best work and became very productive on Tuesday afternoon, through Wednesday and Thursday morning. Highlights in this little period were; fixing my oven, finishing off my programs, running a hills session at Devils Peak (and getting a little humbled by it) sorting out some more outdoor ed work for the long weekend, going CLIMBING at Devils Peak and soaking up the rain on Thursday morning.

Yes, unfortunately from a climbing/work perspective it rained on Thursday which meant I had to postpone Quorn Area School’s last scheduled climbing session. Despite that sadness, it was actually pretty good to see it rain for the first decent time in 6 months. The roads and trails were very very dusty so hopefully that settles them down and washes away the sandy top layer. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out myself because with no work on Thursday and all my jobs done I thought, I could easily find things to do in Quorn till Saturday orrrrr I could kick back and relax in the car, listen to some podcasts and do the same things back in Adelaide. So I chose option two on Thursday arvo because really, I enjoy driving back at 3pm, sun’s going down, traffic’s great and I can just relax to podcasts and music. A great way to spend 4 hours. And I end up being more useful in Adelaide as a result.

One of the ways I was more useful was heading out to RunAsOne training on Friday morning for a short fartlek. It felt good and the productivity set me up for another succesful day on the laptop doing various jobs. With all my jobs done for the week it meant Saturday, the day before the race was very quiet. The highlight was seeing Rob Stillwell and Thommo (from the Robe Run of 2023!) in Belair. That highlight occurred at 8:15am so the rest of the day became a real drag after that…

Sometimes you need those days where they just drag on. It gets me fired up more to scratch the itch of running on race day. On Sunday I rocked up nice and early down at Kuitpo, ready to go with my RunAsOne marquee and ready to go myself. Having seen the startlist I was very confident I would win unless I got lost or injured. The pressure of winning and running well in this situation is still there no matter how confident I am though. To overcome this thought this week I realised that in climbing (of course it’s a climbing reference) I don’t feel the pressure as much to start the climb, I just feel the pressure to do it. Once I’ve started the climb, it’s very easy to keep going. The starting part in running is hard because I have to wait around anxiously until 7:30am. But once I’ve started then I’m all sweet.

So it was on Sunday. Out of the gates early and into the 24k fast course. I had the same playlist on as I did when I last ran at Kuitpo in 2017. Back then, I was finishing my uni degree and finally broke through for my first race win. I spent the night before having beers and burrito’s with mates and being relaxed made a difference. Having raced Barossa last weekend and knowing the start list, I was at a similar relaxed state for the first few km’s in 2024’s version of Kuitpo. Helping me to relax was the three cues I had given myself.

1. Have fun.
2. They’re behind you. (As in, don’t stress about anyone catching you, just worry about your own race. Not, aahhh, they’re behind you, run you idiot!).
3. Average under 4:15/km.

I was definitely having fun as I rolled through the first 4km’s of easy fire trail. It was freezing cold and very easy to run fast so I would warm-up.

At the 4km mark there was a 4km loop with a bit of single track that was kind of nice. It was all too early in the race though to ‘get in the pain cave’. I was just having fun listening to my playlist (see below).

I had a gel at 10km’s and started to feel a bit tight in my hamstrings. The last words my Dad said to me the night before ‘don’t get injured’ started to ring in my ears but lucky I drowned them out with Art v Science’s In This Together.

Who am I to let a couple of tight hamstrings hold me back? I kept running along enjoying myself, trying to cover the course as quick as possible. I could’ve eased off the gas a bit to claim the win in a much slower time but a big factor in my rationale of running races is to always give my best (and get the most training effect out of a race) AND also, to get as many ITRA points as possible. Say what now? ITRA points. Yeah I can read idiot, what does that mean? It’s essentially a global ranking system that is used for trail running races. TRSA races will be recognised this year so I will be rewarded for my efforts with a points score. It’s hard to know how many points my performance will get (the system is not completely understood) but the faster I run, the more points I score so on Sunday it was RUN FRASER RUN!

At about the 16km mark I had another gel and was still going pretty well. It continued that way until the 17/18km mark where a section of the course was heavily marked with three arrows. The GPS map on my watch indicated something slightly different to what I was staring at in real life. Uh-oh, what do I do? Follow the GPS or the real life arrows? Is this the part of the race I stuff up and get lost? I chose the heavily arrowed section of the route and immediately felt like I had gone the wrong way. Too late to turn back though, I had to be confident in my decision. *It turned out to be the right way*.

As I got closer and closer to the end I ramped up the effort as much as I could on the flat. I probably could’ve gone a little faster if I was chasing someone but I was still giving it a red hot crack. It wasn’t quite ‘pain cave’ level of pushing. I felt comfortable the whole way. It was instead ‘flow state’ pushing. I hadn’t been looking at my average pace the whole time but I knew from my 1 km splits that I was going to be close to a 4:00/km average. I sprinted in to the finish having had fun and knowing everyone else was behind me the whole time. It was nice to win two weeks in a row (and repeat my 2017 victory!) but it was especially nice to see an average of 3:45/km on my watch! Wowiee! That’s fast!

Pretty happy with myself, I got changed and went to go cool down and who do I see running in second place… friend of the blog and Willunga’s most famous Worm farmer, Chad Freak! Yep, Chad came in second, followed closely by some RunAsOne runners who I chatted to afterwards, plus, Rob Stillwell who makes his second appearance in the one blog for 5th place in the 17km! Bloody terrific morning!

Winding down after the event I got the post-event process a little better this week. I ate some oats, a can of tuna and two up’n’go’s to kickstart my recovery process which ensured I didn’t feel stressed about not eating while waiting for the presentations and allowed me to have better conversations with other runners.

From there, I headed home, had a shower, got some work done and then enjoyed the afternoon with another run (!). This one was a quick run with sister of the blog Georgia to give her a bit of company getting her long run done and also to enjoy the terrific sunshine. The only disappointment of the day was to follow shortly after when Essendon lost to Gold Coast. Life’s not perfect after all. But we are still second on the ladder.

Next week in the life of Fraser is very much the same as the last two weeks for Monday-Friday. Things get different on the long weekend where I have accepted some last minute bushwalking work. Seeing as I’m not racing this weekend I took the opportunity to make some more money being a bushwalking guide at Mt.Remarkable (an hour away from Quorn) and enjoy some bushwalking/re-learn to be grateful for a roof over my head and all the luxuries that come with it. What this means is that next week’s blog will appear a day or two into the week after I return. In the meantime, thank you for reading and thank you to those people who have commented either over the interweb or in person about how they read my blog. The way I interpret these ‘I read your blog’ comments is I imagine myself walking towards my destination (goals/destiny etc.) on a long empty road. I’ll get there eventually, but every now and then someone randomly pops out on the road with a ‘keep it up’ in the form of ‘I read your blog’ and I go ‘that’s great, thankyou‘ and it gives me a boost of energy as I continue towards my destination. Where that is with this blog I don’t really know. As long as I keep enjoying the walk though I’ll keep going! Thanks for reading!