for now.
We’re back on the winners list this week. I pulled up fine from last Sunday’s 30km long run and was straight into Belair on Monday morning. I even pushed some of the final few kilometres because I was feeling good. A fair bit of my optimism with this run was that I also knew I had a pretty light schedule in terms of other work this week so I had more time to enjoy my running and recover from it.
I also had time to get in the gym again on Monday and was starting to see the effects of three-four weeks of consistent ‘rehab’ exercises. My glute and weak left leg was beginning to feel strong. So strong in fact, that I was able to do my first double run on a Monday afternoon for the first time in over a month.
Whenever an achievement like that, on top of the fact it was my longest Monday morning run since July, comes about, it usually brings trepidation into what could possibly be around the corner… another injury from a new stimulus or possible overload? Runners are always scared of challenging the status quo with things like this and I have had that mindset in the past too, but for this week, without a race or training intensity I cared about on the horizon I was just happy to be getting in the extra km’s to start the week.
The acknowledgement of foregoing my usual training intensity was best evidenced by my Tuesday session. I ran 10 sets of 800 hard, 200 jog on the grass track with the 6:30am group of RAO for the first time in a month as well. I took it a bit easier to start with and then closed the final few sets off quickly. It felt good aerobically and just ‘ok’ mechanically. Still, it felt better mechanically than when I did this session a fortnight ago in the lead up to the State 10km on the track so things were still looking up. I also extended my warm down in the name of chasing a few extra kilometres. Referring back to last week’s mention of Lydiard’s training philosophy, in the ‘base’ phase I’m sort of going about it’s all about getting in as many km’s as possible at different intensities. Extra warm down km’s ticks that box for me.
By training at 6:30 it meant I could hop on the bike to pace Izzi for her session on the grass track and it was really fun keeping her honest with her splits and riding the bike around in circles (and in my sandals!). Apart from that, like I said earlier, I had a very light week so I didn’t have much to do for the rest of the day but rest and an easy afternoon double, which, I managed to do on the trails!
Wednesday’s run brought me to a point in the week where in the proceeding seven days I had managed to clock up 160km’s which is what I consider the minimum training standard I start to feel good with. All I needed to do to maintain that streak was run 21km’s matching last week’s run. However, feeling better than I did last week, and with no need to drive to Quorn for a quick 36hr work mission I had more time to rest and recover post run. AND I had more time to hit one of Lydiard’s suggested 18 mile runs. So that’s what I did (or thereabouts, 28km’s is close enough).
Even though I described it as ‘that’s what I did‘ it certainly didn’t come about that easy. I felt a bit clunky to start with and then the humidity also took it’s toll. A trip to the toilet at halfway was much needed and I finally got rolling at around 1hr 40 minutes in. The last twenty or thirty minutes got a bit desperate though so to make it the full 28km’s was a nice reward. I added on a few strides as well afterwards which was another positive as I felt mechanically ok to complete them for the first time in a week or so. To top off the positive training I jumped into the gym again for the second time this week later in the day. It’s all sounding so good isn’t it?! Well about bloody time because the last few weeks have been some slightly miserable training and presumably blog reading so spare me a bit of positivity for once.
I didn’t choose to double later that afternoon as I was a bit cooked from the humidity effect and also wanted the strength work I did in the gym to really soak into my brain and muscles. Yes, get stronger Fraser, get real strong!
It also meant I was refreshed for Thursday’s run where I ventured into Belair for an easy 10 miles (16km’s). I took it a bit easier on this run than Monday’s 10 miles and was pleased to be feeling like my old self a bit on the trails. I haven’t had that much confidence of late on the trails but the feet were dancing all over the place on this run. Again, I didn’t have much on this day besides a meeting and a few admin jobs. I was hoping to smash a pretty good double but in the lowlight of the week, my stomach was a bit off so instead I ran a pretty normal double that turned hard when my stomach started playing up a bit. Oh well, it happens. There’s always Friday!
Which was very similar to last Friday. I jumped on the bike for the 6:30 group, shepherded them through a new warm up route to avoid the Vailo 500 road closures, got rained on while pacing on the bike, rode back to The RunHouse, went for my own run, which I’ll describe later, then smashed some food, jumped back on the bike for the 9:30 session and both paced and video’ed Izzi for her penultimate marathon session. Big morning.
Big morning. Big energies. Starting my own run relatively close to finishing the 6:30 session means I carry over the energy from that session into my own. Last week I just went for a strong 20km’s which felt good but this week I was bringing it up a notch combining some old school Fraser training with some new school methods.
Historically, in the 2013-2019 era of my running I used to just run 45-60 minute loops as hard/steady as I could. The 10 mile/16km loop I used on Monday/Thursday was one of those loops as was another 45 minute loop in Shepherds Hill that I used to smash on a Thursday after a tough day at uni. That type of training I knew was very fun and very good for the soul. It also fits in with what Lydiard was on about with long tempo runs. To combine it with a bit of new school methods, I added a 4km warm-up and changed it some faster shoes for the actual tempo section of the run. Most runners, like I have been doing with RAO in the past few months, would opt for a nice controlled loop but instead I was feeling particularly adventurous this morning and went to use a 13km North Adelaide loop as my tempo loop. Just head off from The RunHouse and build into it was my only instructions to myself.
Into the traffic chaos caused from the Vailo 500 road closures along Charles St and The Parade and I was immediately loving it. I loved it a little less when it started raining again but loved it some more when the playlist I made started coming up with some bangers. Mechanically I wasn’t moving as great as I hoped but I was still going fine. As I got towards the end of the loop I was starting to hit that really strong tempo pace of around 3:20’s/km and enjoying the flow of it. I got a little bit tired towards the end as I deviated around some traffic but all in all I was pretty happy to clock 46 minutes of work at an average of 3:33/km for the North Adelaide loop. I warmed down for a few extra km’s to try and get it a bit closer to 24km’s (15ish miles) and even had a second wind when Khe Sanh came on that spurred me to run a 3:48/km in the cool down as I headed down The Parada. All good though, it just meant I had to extend my cool down to cool down from my cool down. I couldn’t dwell on the success of this run forever though because I had to jump on the bike and join the 9:30 crew!
You can probably guess then that after a big morning I had a small afternoon. Correct. Made all the more smaller by the fact I had the house to myself with Mum and Dad off in Tasmania for a week (having dropped them off at the airport at 4:30am on Friday morning as well…yeah… big morning). I chilled out on the grass for an hour, listened to a podcast and then got myself motivated for an afternoon run. Which, if you guessed it was going to be a slow run after a big morning you would be…wrong! I actually felt really good and got flowing for a bit. I very almost pushed it past 7km’s but, like I scolded against earlier in this blog, reined it a bit just to be sensible.
That brought me to the end of the Monday-Friday week and I had already clocked over 130km’s, more than last week and my biggest week in over a month and a half. What better way to celebrate than with an easy hour in Belair on Saturday morning. I kept it easy by strategically running with a couple of other runners.
I fit in an hour of gym work amongst my busy day of relaxing and then managed to just squeeze in an arvo double as well, with strides as a bonus! Things really felt like they were coming together on this afternoon run but the true test was going to come on Sunday’s long run.
There was a bit of hype about this Sunday long run amongst the group with it being Riley and Izzi’s last big long run before they head off to run a marathon in Spain in three weeks time. As such, they were hoping to have the pace pretty fast by the end and I was definitely on the same page. I wanted 22 miles/35km’s and I enjoy it when it gets rolling.
But I wasn’t aware we were getting it rolling from the start! Usually we cruise along for 5-15km’s at 4:30’s but this time Riley was on the front at 4:00/km pace and the rest of the group was very unsure about it. We’re starting early here. I didn’t feel that great to begin with so put myself at the back of the pack early on also knowing that I needed to be feeling good late to make it to 35km’s at this pace, not good early.
Thankfully, by an hour in I started to come good as we turned around and ran down the hill. A new face in the group kept the pace honest in the 20-30km section which was great and provided a new stimulus on conversation. Another highlight was the snake we saw/jumped over/waited for it to pass depending on who you were. By 30km’s though I knew I was going to make it to 35 and accompanied Riley on a bit of an extra loop with Izzi a hundred metres or so behind playing catch up.
It felt good to be running fast on a Sunday morning without much of a care of what training was going to be like this week or how this run was going to affect my next race. I didn’t care about anything really. I’m not sure if I came to that conclusion on my own or this video that popped up on my Instagram feed pushed me along there (there’s always that saying that when you need a teacher, a teacher will appear that springs to mind with video). Basically, because I know many of you don’t watch the video’s I put in or have seen Dragon Ball Z (neither have I really) the character in the video is fixated on becoming really really good at something, beating his enemy at it, but can never reach the top level until suddenly he stops caring and then what-do-you-know, he gets really good! I’m not saying now I have this attitude of not caring and I’ve watched this video therefore I will be very good in a week or so’s time but I am saying, or writing at least, that it’s making training a bit more enjoyable at the moment. Of course I clearly care about some things, like how far I run each day and at what effort etc. Plus I care about the overall gist of my running at the moment which is to string together at least 12 weeks over 160-180km’s. My biggest stretch this year doing blocks like were around 10-12 weeks over 140km’s and same again last year where I did 14 weeks over 160km’s at one point. All three periods resulted in me becoming very fit. So, I care about that at the moment, and hopefully it won’t take the full 12 weeks for me to become very very good, but I don’t care about what effect that high training load has on my upcoming race results.
After all that discussion, I ended up running 36km’s for the morning and didn’t feel too sore or tired by the end. I had a shower, got some food into me, socialised around The RunHouse for a good couple of hours and then went back home to finish off the blog which is where I am now! Where I will be this time in a week is hopefully wrapping up another big week of training, not much working and potentially a race report of Glenelg Classic. It’s not a race I’m targeting to try for a PB, I don’t really care remember, but more so just to ensure RAO has a presence on the podium down there. Plus, the prize money part always helps too. Thanks for reading.
Fraser Darcy 
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