Fraser Darcy

Continuing on from last week, in the blog timeline I started Monday off in Quorn for the first time in a very long time. It was a nice way to refresh the body and instead of running along Sturt River I ran my usual arvo loop around town. Could I have gotten up earlier and done a usual hour before a meeting? Probably. Did it matter? Not really in the end because when I got home in the afternoon I had enough time and energy to run up Mt.Brown for an easy hour, something I don’t recall doing since Chad and Emily stayed after the June long weekend.

My body felt pretty good up Mt.Brown and it was great to do something different. That flavour of the week continued right into Tuesday where, still in Quorn, I decided to do a big ‘tempo’ session around my favourite North Quorn Parklands loop. I could’ve done some 2km reps a bit quicker than marathon pace or even some 4km reps with a little jog in between, similar to the session I had done on Friday in the city. Instead though, after the first 2.12km lap of the block I decided to just keep going and settle into a rhythm. It was very enjoyable, I felt fine and the effort felt perfect for a Tuesday a week and a half out from a marathon. That’s after and before a marathon. I was almost halfway, not exactly but close enough, and I felt like this 12.6km tempo would be a great ‘peak’ in the middle. It amounted to 90 minutes of running all up as well which was a nice little figure.

With my main session ticked off and most of my work done for the week already I was able to relax a bit and just enjoy living in Quorn for a few hours with not much on. I put out a phone call to a real estate agent to get some info for renting my house out, read my book, wrote some more programs, checked in with a bunch of runners, did some washing. Real sort of ‘hard work’ type day (‘…. …..’ > indicates sarcasm). Of course, after all this hard work I went for an easy afternoon run to relax myself.

The hard work for the week continued into Wednesday. I had the pleasure of some company for an easy run around Dutchman’s Stern with a friend from RAO Duncan on a whirlwind trip through the Flinders. Being the local tour guide I took Duncs on an easy hour around Dutchmans, let him rest his legs at my place while we watched the US Open, he kindly bought me lunch at the Quandong Cafe and then wished him on his way for an afternoon effort up Devil’s Peak. I did warn him that it would be a bit intense for an arvo run and that he might like to use it as hiking practice but he was motivated to run and I’m not one to squash anyones motivation. He survived. Me meanwhile, went for my own easy run in the afternoon and almost blew away it was that windy which wasn’t very pleasant but that’s life in Quorn sometimes.

Thursday. A final ‘easy’ hour in some more wind in Quorn and then it was time to pick up sticks and head back to Adelaide. I had had another successful relaxing trip back to Quorn where I; attended a meeting and continued putting out the feelers for what it would be like, and how I best go about it, for renting out my house. The number one scenario at this stage looks like a clean exit from Quorn. Let an Agent (sounds cooler if you drop the real estate part of their title) manage the property, I manage the few hundred dollars I receive and whack all my gear/furniture in the shed unless I need it for whatever living scenario I cook up in Adelaide. When I implement this isn’t the end of the world but every week that goes by without me maximising my ‘investment’ is an opportunity cost of a few hundred dollars all for the ‘opportunity’ for me to nip up and have a space for myself in the world.

You may have guessed, but that took a lot of my thinking time up in the car on the way back to Adelaide on Thursday arvo. Why was I returning back to Adelaide anyway? Well, the more RAO sessions I’m at, the better it is for me as an athlete and a coach. Two, it was also time to kick off the second part of my sauna block. Yes, sauna chat had been a bit minimised in previous blogs ever since it’s original heyday back in early July but with only a week and a bit to go before the Sydney Marathon it was time I kick the sauna chat back into overdrive. My plan was to hit it every day from Thursday to Wednesday at least of next week/this week (the tense is a bit confusing here but you’re smart enough to work out what I mean). The original science I looked at when first working out how to implement the sauna into my training as a 1%’er indicated that doing a block first up, then maintaining ti with 2-3 visits a week for a few weeks and then smashing it with another block at the end was a pretty good option. I’ve been following that plan well and (in current tense as of Monday afternoon) it’s been working well.

So that’s why I’m back in Adelaide. One for training, two for sauna. So on Thursday afternoon I went straight to the sauna and managed a classic thirty minute stint first up followed by another 12 minute block followed by another 8 minute block. Apart from that, that was all Thursday had to offer.

Friday wasn’t much more exciting but still a pretty good day. Rode the bike at training, checked in with a few people, things were good. 9:30 rolled around and we had a full crew of Adam, Connor and Izzi (with Riley on the bike) this week for another 4*8mins. We ran a teeny bit quicker this time around but I felt a lot better than this time last week. I’ve either recovered more from the marathon (highly likely) or I’m just a super compensator. Whatever the reason, it was good to be doing the paces we were hitting pretty comfortably. After that successful session I did a bit of admin work and then went to the sauna. Sauna chat was strong today with the Port v Geelong final getting a serious workout, plus, I bumped into a friend in there I had seen before the Adelaide marathon so was able to pick up an old sauna chat thread and continue that. The result? A second successful sauna session.

Saturday. Usually a pretty cruisy day of an hour run, maybe over hills, maybe at the beach, no real stress just get it done. Instead, much like Monday and Tuesday’s change in routine, I did my long run of the week on Saturday with Tom, Izzi and Riley. Tom and I were going to be out at Sturt Gorge on Sunday loitering around while Riley and Izzi had obligations elsewhere on Sunday so all four of us couldn’t get a good long run in. The solution was to long run on Saturday and it was pretty cool. I chose to run an easy 1hr 45min which is 15 mins extra than my normal one week out from a marathon long run. I often think going for 90 minutes on a Sunday, with no arvo run to follow, is always a bit light on for one week out from a marathon. With this long run being a Saturday I thought I’d experiment going an extra 15 minutes and quell my anxiety about the 90 minutes being too short. With the long run out of the way it was time for some general Saturday jobs of relaxing watching the footy and visiting the sauna. Not much to report this time.

Sunday. My fourth weekend in a row of lugging the RAO tent out to an event. This time it was only five minutes around the corner at Sturt Gorge so it was pretty straightforward. And, with me choosing not to race on a technical trail course one week out from a marathon, all I had to do was lug out the tent and stand under it for a bit. Not a hard task. I even, as always, got help! It’s very nice that even though I can carry it and set it up by myself, someone, even if I don’t know them, always offers to help. Either running people are friendly, bored out of their minds looking for something to do, or I look like I need help. Doesn’t matter to me, as long as the bloody thing gets set up. After a bit of socialising, chatting to RAO people, watching the races start Tom and I set-off for an easy hour around Sturt Gorge. I was able to navigate off the top of my head/using the short course arrows and it was a pretty cruisy way to run 10km’s.

Following the morning’s activities it was round four in the sauna and the adaptations and excitement was only building. First, when I walked in the aquatic centre streams of kids and their swimming instructors were exiting the pool. That’s weird, must all be wanting to hit the showers together? No, it wasn’t that. The small pool was empty. Oh, someone’s done a dirty deed in the pool. Yep, that’s exactly what it was. I found my viewing seat in the sauna and got to watch the lifeguard get the creepy crawly out and move it back and forth while telling people they couldn’t swim in the pool. As a former lifeguard myself it was an exciting ten or so minutes. That excitement, or the fact I was a bit cold when I first entered the sauna, meant I lasted on the top step for 35 minutes. Something I hadn’t done for a few weeks. It’s also possibly the effect of it being my fourth sauna session in a row. I went back in for another block and was very pleased with myself. Instead of whittling away the afternoon on the couch being all pleased with myself I went out for some afternoon drinks with some running friends. It’s a great reminder of the pro’s and con’s of living in Quorn vs Adelaide on a Sunday afternoon. If I was in Quorn I would’ve easily saved myself $20 and relaxed on the couch all afternoon. Seeing as I was in Adelaide though I spent $20 and relaxed with friends instead. Things could get out of hand living in Adelaide for my ‘social’ budget but also, wasting away my life on the couch instead is good every now and then but things could get out of hand very quickly if I chose to do that every weekend.

Enough of that though, I left the drinks at a fashionable time in the late afternoon with enough time to sneak in an arvo run along Shepherds Hill Rd. I hadn’t done one of these arvo runs in a week so it was good to tick one off. I also don’t think I’ll get the opportunity to do one for another fortnight or so with Sydney marathon coming up and the recovery after it. Oh well, at least I ticked it off this week albeit at a later time than usual.

Of course with that final run of the week we now come to the little part of the blog where I wrap up all my thoughts and point ahead to what’s coming up next. I don’t have any quite elaborate thoughts but more a few ideas about the next week:

• I’m looking forward to a few more days in the sauna.
• I’m looking forward to a couple of final sessions.
• I’m excited to race Sydney Marathon for a number of reasons:
  • It’ll be the first marathon I’ve done in two and a bit years that isn’t Adelaide Marathon.
  • It’ll be the first marathon I’ve done that’s actually a proper big city marathon.
  • It’s in Sydney and that means I get to go away for the weekend.
  • I get to run for 2hrs and 20 or so minutes in a big race with the most competition I’ve ever had in a marathon.
  • I can see whether this whole experiment of racing a lot and racing a marathon three weeks before a marathon is a good idea.

Actually, I do have elaborate thoughts now I think of it. That last point is something I’ve been thinking out a bit recently. Chatting outside The RunHouse on the weekend Riley said ‘you can race at 90% every week in a row and do alright but if you want to hit 100% you can’t do it’. It sounds simple and after having tried it, even though some races were probably only 80%, I agree. However, I think racing every weekend at what you think is your 100% effort (which is what I did for most of them) is actually a good training mechanism in hindsight. Because I ‘gave 100%’ and trained during the week I was actually, in a possibly optimistic view of the world, only running at 90%, I just didn’t, or don’t, know it was my 90% effort. In other words, if you do a half marathon one weekend, a 5k the next, it’s physically impossible to push your body to 100% of your true effort the next in a marathon. But now, having had two weekends of not racing the well has filled up again so to speak and I do have to fight uncontrollable urge that can be a danger to those who don’t race often.

That uncontrollable urge is the bit of energy and adrenaline that carries you out at the start a bit faster than usual and makes you fight to the end because you know races only happen very rarely. If you race often you don’t get to use this extra benefit as much, even if you try like me, to coax it up every race. This is of course another optimistic idea of mine to convince myself that hey, maybe I can break through a time barrier at Sydney and run a phenomenal race. Every runner expects or hopes every race to be like that and then when it’s not, we’re disappointed. At this stage, on Monday afternoon, I do have hope that I can run a better race at Sydney than Adelaide which is a lot nicer than having no hope that it’s possible. I’d like to think I am capable of being in the Top 5-10 Australians and maybe running in a big pack with the elite women (who are all African/Japanese ladies with faster PB’s than me). I’d also like to think I will be able to enjoy having a really good race no matter what the result. I look forward to seeing I reflect on these statements in a week’s time. Thanks for reading.