Fraser Darcy

That’s right, this week is just general training! For those 16,000 new subscribers since last week’s Adelaide Marathon Round 3 report, most of my weekly blogs will arrive in your inbox in the same generic weekly structure as follows. The blog didn’t start out like that but that’s the way it’s been going for the past few months and makes it easy for me to: (a) put together and (b) check on what I was doing and thinking when I re-read the blogs in the future. Without further ado then…

Monday. The day after Adelaide Marathon. I didn’t feel too bad body wise when I woke up. Felt a little like I was hungover, not that I drank more than 2 beers the day before, it’s just how your body feels after a poor sleep and big effort the previous day. I went down to the Sturt River for an easy 10km and wasn’t sure if I’d make it all the way. Turns out I did and it didn’t feel too bad. Probably about the same as I felt after the Sunshine Coast half marathon two weeks ago. I had a sauna afterwards, felt even better after that and then ticked off some things at home. The best part of my day was probably going for a walk at Sturt Gorge near Blackwood Footy club to check out the location of RAO’s trail session. Very relaxing.

Tuesday. Even though I ran a marathon on Sunday it was still back to the early grind of getting out to training at 6:30am on Tuesday morning. If you want to be ‘wicked’ you can’t have any rest. I was only riding the bike at training which was nice as it loosened me up for my own easy jog afterwards. Tuesday’s jog felt worse than Monday’s though but I still made it almost an hour. And then that was that for my time in Adelaide. After 8 consecutive weeks spent training and building up my commitments with RAO it was now an appropriate time for me to return to Quorn to check my house hadn’t burned down and give myself a bit of a mental reset. This was the longest period I had ever been away from Quorn and I was very excited to be heading back, despite the massive headwind making the drive not that pleasant.

When I arrived home there were obviously a stack of weeds that had grown in my absence but also an extra $50 cash on my kitchen bench. Chad and Emily had stayed a couple of nights and even though I explicitly told them not to leave any money because they were doing me a few favours they displayed their poor listening comprehension skills and left $50. I spent it all on food just in case you were wondering Chad and Emily.

Tuesday afternoon was pretty busy for me once I got home. I whipped out the mower and spent an hour getting the weeds under control, then whipped out the whipper snipper (courtesy of Papa Kym) and finished off the small bits. A bit of poisoning, some raking and the backyard was starting to look normal again. Other business I had to attend to then took priority as one of the main reasons I was back in Quorn was to hold a swim club meeting. If it seems weird I am the President of the Quorn Amateur Swim Club then you’re not alone. I didn’t think too much about putting my hand up for the position two years ago and now for a third year I still don’t think too much about putting my hand up as President. All I do is run the meetings, make sure everyone does their jobs and try not to waste people’s time anymore than I or they need to. Plus, it’s a good way for me to get involved in the community and give me experience for when I do join a committee where I do think about my involvement a bit more.

Tuesday wasn’t done yet though. Back home after the swim club AGM I jumped on for a RAO coaches meeting. With that ticked off it was time for bed finally. With two semi-full on days post marathon I was looking forward to some rest come Wednesday/Thursday.

Wednesday. An easy hour at Dutchman’s to start my day was the perfect recipe for a restful day. My only other priority was sitting on my computer and putting together The Blue Line. I spaced out that task over the whole day and enjoyed pondering around the house and backyard trying to work out what the best plan of attack will be going forward for me. Stay in Adelaide permanently? Live a few days in Adelaide, a few days in Quorn every week? Rent my house out fully or partially in Quorn? Don’t rent it out at all? There’s no wrong answer to any of these questions and as always I’m searching for the solution that will provide me with the most efficiency in my life (i.e. be the most simple) while giving me maximum value towards how I want to live. To let you inside my mind, essentially I enjoy working and training in Adelaide whilst I enjoy training and living in Quorn with it’s freedom and space to relax. Can there be a compromise between the two that also makes good financial sense so that I can continue living how I want to live for as long as possible? If there was an easy solution to that everyone would be doing it.

Enough about that though, I’m not going to solve it in a blog post (I’ve already tried in an unpublished draft). Thursday was a great day. I finished off TBL, went for a last easy run in Quorn, walked up Devils Peak, did some mobility and squeezed out a small arvo run.

It was bloody windy again and I’d exhausted the honeymoon period of ‘ah, isn’t it great to be back in Quorn’. It was time for me to head back to Adelaide. On the road I went, arriving in Adelaide around 9pm ready for

Friday. Another RAO training and again I was on the bike. Not much to report there. There was a bit to report afterwards though as I jumped in the 9:30 crew with Adam and Izzi for the first time since the marathon. Izzi and I did 4*8mins at around 3:18/km with Adam doing an extra set. This was a great session and something I realised I probably needed to do more of before a marathon to settle into marathon or just above marathon effort and pace. Aerobically it felt fine but mechanically I felt a bit clunky. Izzi commented afterwards how in my blog last week I forecasted that I would be happy if I ticked off one session at or below 3:20/km pace in the week following the Adelaide Marathon. Well, I was happy, so the forecast was right.

On Saturday there was another RAO session but this time it was a trail session at Sturt Gorge. Feels like a lifetime ago I was walking around here on Monday doing a course check for the loop I had created. Not being a regular at Sturt Gorge I was a little nervous as to how my loop would go but it turned out fine. I wore a new pair of Asics MetaFuji Trail shoes I had been gifted for free and they were great. I probably didn’t need to put in any intensity today but after starting the group off and wanting to act as a role model I got carried away and just enjoyed pushing up the hill each time and cruising down. It was still about 25-30minutes of work which was more than I had hoped but not the end of the world.

I had the whole rest of the day to relax, send out some programs, do an interview for some Instagram content for RAO and let my body recover ready for…

Sunday’s long run. Third day in Adelaide and third morning in a row of doing something with RAO. I’m really making the most of being involved with the group I think. This long run was one of our structured ones where we set up a small drink station so runners can practice their fuelling strategies for marathons. Being a paid employee I helped set up the drink station which meant starting my run a little bit after everyone else with Riley and setting up the tent. It reminded me alot of setting up Westventure’s 17km runs but instead of having groups of Year 10 students roll through, there was 100 or so adults. And instead of me just jogging around for an hour or an hour and a half, I ran 30km’s in 2hrs instead. I thought that was pretty good going for a week after a marathon and if I hadn’t done the extra intensity on Saturday I may have even thrown some marathon pace work in there but decided against it. The other interesting part about this Sunday was it was the third weekend in a row I had collected the RAO tent and set it up after doing so for Fitzy’s 5 and Adelaide Marathon. On top of that, it was the third Sunday in a row I was running around MacKinnon Parade as that’s where Fitzy’s 5 and the Adelaide Marathon head along. This weekend coming I will be setting up the RAO tent at Sturt Gorge for a fourth weekend in a row for a race (don’t worry I’m not racing) there but at least it will be nice to get a break from the city.

That’s next weekend though, we’re still on the timeline of this weekend in the blog world. Following the Sunday long run I headed to the sauna for the first time since Monday. Got pretty cooked and enjoyed it. After that, home for Fathers Day/lunch/collect my things. With Georgia visiting in the morning, Emma in the evening and Harry in Sydney I carried the afternoon shift for Fathers Day before I too had to disappear. With a meeting in Quorn/Hawker on Monday morning and no need for me to be around in Adelaide for a few days I headed home on Sunday afternoon.

It was a much nicer drive this time heading back. I wasn’t stressing about what my house looked like and all the work I had to complete over the next few days. The body felt good too so it was nice to just enjoy a good quiet easy drive home. So, for a week that started in Adelaide, had a sojourn in Quorn, returned to Adelaide and then a return to Quorn, I was actually feeling like in a was pretty good spot with things. Helps as well when I have sent out all my training programs for the month and have just published the latest TBL issue.

What’s the focus for this week then for a blog that comes to you partly through the week (hopefully you can appreciate I was busy driving on Sunday afternoon in my normal blog writing time)? Well, some more marathon pace workouts to fine-tune my Sydney preparation and to spend some time deliberating on my living situation. From a training perspective I am focused on just dialling in marathon pace efficiency over the next two weeks and am glad I’m doing it this way in a short 3 week block like this instead of slowly doing it over 10 weeks. But of course I’d say that because I’m going to be as confident as possible in my own training routine. Essentially in the first 10 weeks of my build-up towards Sydney I thrashed my body with weekly sessions at or below 3:00/km pace and plenty of hard races. That pushed my fitness capacity to a higher level and resulted in among other things, a 5km Road PB, a great litmus test of VO2 max and my aerobic capacity. Now, in the final three weeks there’s probably not many gains I can make in VO2 or fitness capacity but instead I can become as efficient as possible with what fitness I have built. If that gets me a better marathon result in Sydney marathon then I’ll be championing this training philosophy for years. If not, at least I tried it.

From a living situation perspective I hope to drive back to Adelaide on Thursday this week with more information about what renting my house out could be like. I have already got a few little gems of helpful info this week but won’t add them in here. For now though, thanks for reading!