Fraser Darcy

I’ll give it to you straight dear readers. This week’s blog is going to be of the SS variety. Short and sharp. Not the German variety. But what do you expect, I raced the Sydney Marathon only a week ago and that being the biggest race of my calendar it’s only fair that I follow it with a slightly smaller week. The yin and the yang of life have to be balanced.

Monday. Still in Sydney and revelling in my success I woke up at Harry and Susie’s place at 6am. A little bit of toast, coffee, checked the socials, packed up my belongings, said my goodbye’s and I was on the road again. My body felt pretty sore, especially my left hip, but I had enough energy and strength to get myself to the airport on time (and thoroughly enjoyed the trains through Sydney one final time). At the airport I treated myself to a ham and cheese croissant, organised a lift from the airport and started to finish off my blog. Writing it all out on the plane made the travel back go very quickly. The pace of the day continued like that with a lift from friends of the blog Michaela, Ferg, Emily (and her boyfriend Callum, presumed to be a friend of the blog). More blog writing, more business admin, some relaxing, some organising and then bam, finally punched out the blog on Monday night.

Tuesday. There was no rest though after Monday, it was time for training at 6:30am. I enjoyed seeing the RAO crew and talking about their City Bay races while also gloating about my result. I went out for my own jog afterwards with Adam and Connor just chatting about our races. My hip was still pretty cooked. I wasn’t too worried about it though. I did some work at The RunHouse and then finished off my day with a drive back to Quorn, a stop at the shops for food and a coaches meeting for RAO. Another busy day.

Wednesday. Finally a bit of time for a lie-in. Well deserved in my opinion. It was great for an extra hour of sleep to be refreshed and ready for the orienteering master class I was giving at Quorn Area School (which is the primary reason for my mid-week return to Quorn). I delivered that lesson, with some bonus info on the Sydney Marathon, and then went out for another slowish and sore-ish jog. This jog marked the start of a less busy period of my week where I didn’t have any time pressures to get work done or anything organised. The extra time allowed me to go for a walk at Warren Gorge and again reflect on my achievement from last week. It’s important that a big achievement is reflected and digested slowly, like a big meal, so that my focus is then ready for the next event and isn’t still half looking back on what I’ve just done. This whole ‘recovery’ week sort of marks that.

Thursday. Another easy run in Quorn, followed by a walk up Devils Peak, a bit of computer work and then a return drive back to Adelaide. It was pretty nice to have a ‘weekend’ in Quorn where I was able to switch off and remove myself from the running bubble I’d been living in for a few days. I will miss this part of having a home in Quorn when I do finally decide to not live in Quorn. Perhaps I’ll be able to have weekends in other places around SA though for the first time in a while.

Friday. Back in Adelaide and back at training. Another good session of riding the bike around followed by a bit of a delayed morning jog from me. I was procrastinating some computer work hence the later than usual jog but I also think subconsciously I was hoping my hip would miraculously heal itself. It didn’t and I tried testing it out with some faster paces. There was no rhythm or rhyme to my intensity in this Friday run, or wait, maybe there was, I actually ran a fartlek to the music I was listening too. It was nice to do this without any pressure on myself to run at a certain pace for a certain duration etc., just run to enjoyment. The songs that particularly got me going on this run were Reckoner, My Iron Lung, The Bends (all by Radiohead) and The House of the Rising Sun. I pulled up pretty sore from this, spent the day slightly regretting it, got stuck into some computer work and then made a return to the sauna. Boy was it hot. After missing it for a week and thinking I was done with extra sauna sessions it was a disappointing shock to notice the intensity of the heat upon my return. I managed an hour collectively, in shorter blocks and with more breaks this time, and felt like my hip was a lot better afterwards. Without needing the sauna for any heat gains this was purely for recovery purposes and some extra fitness benefits seeing as I was not able to make it out for an easy run in the afternoon on a sore hip.

Saturday. Not even a week out from Sydney still and I’m complaining a fair bit about not being able to do a double run on a Friday afternoon due to a sore hip. On one hand, most people don’t run 6 days a week after a marathon, let alone two marathons in three weeks. On the other hand, the week after Adelaide I recovered well enough to run 120+km’s. I like to look at the first hand option for this week’s recovery week to not be so harsh on myself. On this Saturday I went to Belair for an easy 70 minutes for the first time in a while and really enjoyed it. My hip wasn’t that sore afterwards and I felt like it had progressed. Some work I’ve been doing on the foam roller has definitely helped release any pain but I’m not out of the woods yet. I substituted an easy run that afternoon for an easy bike along the Sturt River.

That bike ride and sauna combo was good but not good enough ecause on Sunday I felt my hip being pretty sore for a good 80 minutes of my 100 minute (1hr 40min) long run. Again, I should be pretty happy to be forcing myself to be running that long so soon after a marathon but given how much I’ve complained about my hip, I probably should just give it a rest a bit. Both the complaining and the actual hip. I spent the rest of my day either hanging around The RunHouse or hanging around the finish line of the Yurrebilla Ultra Marathon (56k). Yurrebilla was the first ultra I ever did in 2016 and I loved it. It was nice to reflect on that ‘adventure’ and how I viewed running back then as more of a ‘just see if I can do it’ type thing. I think that’s what helped motivate me to run so much on trails back then. The racing side of it was still a motivator but just completing it was equally as important. Having stood at the finish line for 2hrs cheering on some friends (/people I coach) I think I would like to do it again one day but maybe in my ‘retirement’ years of running where I again, just run to see if I can complete it/for fun.

That wasn’t all I did though on Sunday. Without the strength to do a double again on Sunday I went to the sauna and this time it felt not too bad. Must be the temperature of the sauna itself that fluctuates. I made it through for 50 minutes without a break purely because it was so packed in there if I left and came back in I wouldn’t have a seat to sit on it was that much of a hot property.

And that brings us to the end of a short and sharp blog detailing the closest I’ve come to a proper recovery week post-Marathon in the three years (and five marathons) I’ve been writing this blog. The other marathons have all had either intense training to follow after them or some period of outdoor ed work. It was nice to just have a bit of a reset this week and shift my focus on to the next goal.

Which, if you’ve been reading this far you may be a regular reader and may remember that last week I mentioned I’m doing the 10km at the Melbourne Marathon festival. That event is in three weeks time and a fortnight after that is the State 10,000m Championships. If I can run sub 29:45 at either I will qualify for the National 10,000m Championships in mid-December. If I don’t, I hope I can at least run a PB (sub 30:25). If I can’t continue progressing with this hip issue that plan might have to change. As long as I can get one session of 3:00/km in the next fortnight I’ll be on track with how I bounced back from Adelaide and able to confidently race in Melbourne. But for now, the priority is to get myself sorted, get back into some training and thank you for reading as always!