Fraser Darcy

This weekend will be a failure if I can’t get back into normal training this week.

– Brisbane & Pichi Richi Recap – Last week’s blog on fraserdarcy.com

I always read last week’s blog before I start this week’s blog just to get me warmed up. Obviously, the above sentence stood out to me as my goal for this week. Happy to report that I did get back into normal training and I’m all the better for it.

On Monday that looked like an easy 10km around Quorn. I wasn’t actually that sore backing up from my two races in two days, just more mentally fatigued. I could’ve gone for 12km’s but I thought I’d ‘get ahead’ and be smart for once by just taking it easy.

That tactic worked because on Tuesday, at RunAsOne training, I was able to complete the session to about 90% of what I would’ve done if I hadn’t raced. Similarly to my Pichi Richi experience I didn’t start the morning with a real plan of what I’d do but after chatting throughout the warm-up with visiting Melbournian and fellow Bombers supporter Nathan Pearce I didn’t get a chance to work out my plan. So I just started the session as normal and ended up running 7 laps of 300 hard, 100 ‘easy’, 200 hard, 100 ‘easy, 200 hard, 100 ‘easy’. Or in other words, 7 pretty fucking quick km’s. I clocked 15:11 for 5km’s in there which was a surprise. I did drop off in the final 2 km’s (even though the stats don’t really show that), hence the 90% of what I would’ve done, but that didn’t really bother me.

Following training I had to hot-foot it to ‘work’ as a climbing guide with Port Augusta who were down for a three day trip. This was my final organised outdoor instructor work for the next foreseeable future and it went well. I maintained my record of no-one dieing on a camp and people having fun (usually me). Good record. Same as my pool lifeguard record too.

But of course there was more running to be done throughout the week and no time for celebrating records. Wednesday was a moderate 60 minutes with Nathan who I actually met when we represented Australia together so it was good to catch up and take him around Belair for the first time. I was a little cooked on Wednesday afternoon as the weekend, Tuesday training and work and now this moderate Wednesday morning run had caught up to me. Fortunately, or unfortunately if you don’t enjoy a frugal lifestyle like mine, I didn’t have any real ‘work’ for the rest of the week so I could relax as much as I needed before my afternoon run. Yes it’s great to have time during the day to relax but it doesn’t come with out financial sacrifices of course. Luckily running training doesn’t cost anything and I can win prize money to pay for my race entries. Anyway, I digress…

Thursday I went out for a run hoping to make it to 90 minutes but knowing 60 would still be enough. With all the time in my day I drove to the city and went on a very scenic solo tour of the main running destinations. As such, I made it 90 minutes and didn’t feel too bad. A normal week of training was on the cards. The other stressful part of my day was trying to decide if it was worth entering the TRSA Mt.Misery event for this Sunday. I was keen for a long run, and didn’t mind doing the event but wasn’t overly motivated to taper into the race and have to race hard for the win. If I could give an A- effort then that would be a happy compromise. Not knowing who else is racing though makes deciding whether to pay $55 for an entry and not use it a stressful exercise. I entered in the end. It was either run 2hrs by myself (no RunAsOne long run this week as everyone else is away on the Gold Coast) or run 2hrs on trails and potentially sign off on doing TRSA events for the foreseeable future (so I can prioritise events like Gold Coast).

Having tackled Thursday that brings us to… Saturday Friday. The second training session with RunAsOne for the week was 2 minutes hard/1 minute easy continuous for 30 minutes total (for me). With the big dog coaches away it was up to the small dog coaches to set-up and coordinate the group for which my role was the little speech beforehand. I did my part and got going solo in the session, hoping to average 3:00/km or just under for 2 minute hard and then 3:20-3:30/km for the easy minute. If that averaged out to 3:10/km, my normal tempo pace then that’d be good. The first few km’s went by at 3:08/km and I was doing well with my aims. Things got a bit tight towards the end but that’s when I started catching relatively fast runners as well which gave me something to chase. Something that I wouldn’t have if I was by myself in Quorn. I chased down a few people pretty hard late and managed to finish the 30 minute session with a 3:10/km average. A good session.

The other good part of Friday was releasing the latest Issue of The Blue Line. It’s always nice when it gets published because it means I free up some computer time to do some more sitting on the couch time. Another good part of Friday was I went for a climb with Ferg, Michaela and Emily which was good for the social aspects, the mobility aspects and good to be humbled by my lack of current ability. Oh well, there has to be sacrifices I guess… Another good part of Friday was my afternoon double felt really good which isn’t always the case. And then another excellent part of Friday was the Bombers beating Collingwood in a character building win for them. I fell asleep part way through the second quarter when we were down by a few goals thinking oh yeah, classic Essendon, lose to Geelong after being up at half time and then kick the first goal against the Pies, inspire some confidence and then let them kill us by 70 points…. Instead what happened is I woke up and they played good football to win by two goals. Best day of the week.

I was still pretty happy from that win on Saturday morning when I ran a bit fast for my easy 60 minutes down by the beach. It’s another sign that my fitness is feeling good though. I’m talking February feeling good when I was logging 200km’s for the week.

The arvo run didn’t feel that good though as I had a stack of pasta beforehand trying to ‘carb load’ for the race. I ran with Georgia though so it was nice to have some company and have a reason to do it.

Which finally brings us to the TRSA Mt Misery race! A 7:30am start, with a strict carpool instruction meant I had to meet at the Coles Carpark at 6am for a ride out there. A quick little warm-up and then we were off. I still wasn’t that motivated to race hard and given my lack of a taper I wasn’t that fresh. There was one or two names I was wary of in the start list but I didn’t see them actually on the start line so I thought you little beauty, hopefully an easy race. It wasn’t to be.

The first 12km’s were all predominantly downhill besides one punchy 1km climb. Heading into this climb at the 6th/7th km at the end of a long downhill second place was only thirty seconds behind me. Geez, he’s a bit close. I had been taking it relatively easy, saving something in reserve and knowing this was a 2hr race but still, it unnerved me so much that I pushed it up the climb, not stopping to walk at all. I walked in Brisbane and felt defeated because of that so I was determined to not walk again.

Following the climb I pushed it on the downhill section to the halfway point of the 24km race. I could feel on my heels that I had developed some blisters and they were limiting my ability to charge the downhills. I was worried that I’d also done enough damage to maybe impact my training for next week. But, I was out there in the race at the moment so I just had to focus on getting it done. I was pretty tired at about 50 minutes into the race knowing I was about to start heading up the biggest climbs of the course, on tired legs and a tired mind. The only thing I could think of to try and motivate me was pretending that I was in the third set of a five set tennis match. The look on a tennis player’s face when they’re sitting down at their bag, having a banana or some water, then they exasperatedly get up and go to serve. That feeling of going ahhhup when they launch for the serve is exactly how I felt. In the first service game of the match it’s all easy, the serve gets hit at 205km/hr. From the third set onwards there’s a bit more creakiness to it all and it’s getting rolled in at 190 km/hr. That’s where I was at 13km’s.

With my mindset sorted and a rhythm established I began working my way uphill on a section of the course I remember semi-fondly from 2022 when I raced this event last time. I thought I’m moving pretty well uphill so hopefully I’m making time on old mate in second. I hadn’t seen him since that 30 second gap but you just never know when someone will pop up. By the 18th km I was still in front and still feeling good on the uphills. The downhills were crap because of my blisters but I was doing the best I could. If I could get to 21/22km’s, the bottom of the last uphill, still in first then I had enough confidence that I would win.

That’s what happened too. In the end I won by ten minutes which is bigger than my lead at Kuitpo in the last race of the series. My time of 1:55 for 24km’s with 1300m elevation was also five minutes quicker than 2022 and 15 minutes quicker than what I did in Brisbane the week before on a less hillier course (albeit, the characteristics of Brisbane’s course were different but I still think it shows the effect of the heat that weekend).

Following the race I warmed down a bit, chatted with the other runners, tried my best to check the Gold Coast results but the patchy reception made it difficult so that had to wait until I got home. The blisters that had formed were annoying but I didn’t have to run in the afternoon so it wasn’t the end of the world.

At home eventually, I spent some time catching up on how the people I coach went at Gold Coast especially pleasing to know that some of them even read this blog! Wowiee!!! Some did well, others didn’t do as well as they hoped but they all finished and no-one died so again, a pretty good record I think. Just like this week really. Two quality sessions, a mid week long run and a long run/race on the weekend. 150km’s for the week with 2500m elevation.

From here, I’ll be waving goodbye to the TRSA events for the rest of the year I think as I would like to prioritise some other races that have a bit more competition for me which clash with the TRSA races. The end goal is to always be a better runner and a great way to do that is by running with better runners, not winning races by ten minutes. There will be no races with better runners next weekend, just training at RunAsOne but the plan is to knock out a good month and a bit of training focusing on the roads and only running on the trails to break it up a bit. I’m excited to race a few events over the next two months and will of course continue to provide updates to your dear readers of how I go and whether I am successful in becoming a better runner. For now though, thanks for reading!