Fraser Darcy

The excitement of running a 3km PB had faded by the time it came to Monday morning. I was now looking at the race from the rear view mirror along with the two weeks of ‘recovery’ following the Cadbury Marathon, the Cadbury Marathon itself and all the training leading up to it.

So what’s left in the ‘front’ view. If you’re a regular reader maybe you remember it’s the State 5km, National Mountain Champs and then Ballarat*. But the tricky thing mentally is I had no pressure on myself following Cadbury into the State 3km so any training I completed felt like a bonus. Now, with these events all next in line and far enough away to put in some specific training on, it’s time to in some sense get back to training seriously. I can’t just get away with the thought of oh, that 400m rep was better than I thought, yay me.

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At first, that scares me a little bit but then I sit with it for a few seconds and realise that means that intrinsically I have placed some challenging expectations on myself to perform well as a runner. Which, when I sit on that thought a little bit longer, means by the end of it, even if I don’t reach those expectations, I’ll still come out as a better runner for having set some challenging goals for myself. With that little preface of the next few weeks, this weekly recap was all about putting in the first real solid training week of three full sessions together since the start of 2025.

To start with on Monday I ran an easy 14km’s at Belair and felt pretty tired and hot. After the long run the day before I spent most of the day at the cycling and then at the beach and then watching the Men’s Final of the Aussie Open. That all resulted in feeling tired and hot but I got through it. I even put in a little gym session during the day and an arvo run. I did drop my normal effort to do some strides on a Monday though because I was cooked.

Thankfully, after a good sleep I was a bit more refreshed for Tuesday morning’s sessions. The RAO session at 6:30 went well and then when I ambled out for my own session I wasn’t too particularly tired but still a little tired. I had thought I might have some company for my session but the plans changed last minute so I was again on my own. The positive thing is that it meant I could do whatever I wanted and wherever I wanted so I chose to do 4*Mile, 1min recovery, 4*400m (lap jog recovery) at the grass track at the uni loop. The negative thing is I brought a slightly wrong pair of shoes for the grass track but oh well, it’s not too much of a difference really.

Running this session on the grass track as opposed to just a road loop ensures I can pace myself successfully and really gets me used to running a race on the track. I went through the first lap in 70ish seconds which I knew was too quick for what I needed to run the miles but ended up managing to slow the pace slightly and keep it consistency across the four reps to run 4:48, 4:49, 4:53, 4:52. The four 400’s went at 67 each which is a bit slower than I would’ve liked but the shoes I had are a bit difficult to really run top top speed in. Still, I cooked myself again pretty good, made it through the warm down to The RunHouse and then spent a fair amount of time replying to a few emails and following up with people about their sessions. A little easy run in the arvo capped off a good day.

Which lead into Wednesday where I organised to run with Jess and Jacob again and we rolled out a good 90 minutes each. I felt good for most of it except the last ten minutes where I stopped feeling as strong as I normally do. Again, there wasn’t much on for the rest of the day for me besides some work at The RunHouse, a gym session at home and another easy afternoon run on the trails. I focused on doing my arvo runs on the trails this week as it’s something I never had access to in Quorn and felt like when I was running my best on the trails it’s because I was doing most of my runs on trails. Keeping that feel in check then before the National Mountain Champs is a priority and it’s also a big focus of Arthur Lydiard’s training philosophy which I have mentioned in a previous blog but can’t be bothered to look for where I did that. Essentially, by focusing on the steep up hills and running fast and strong on the downhills in my easy arvo runs I’m making my body strong for the track races, marathon and mountain champs. And I’m noticing it already.

Thursday was a bit of a different day this week. Instead of getting my second session of the week done in the morning I had to help my parents with a job in Port Victoria. I could’ve squeezed in a jog before hopping in the car to drive there at 7am but instead I thought nah, give yourself a morning off for once which I did appreciate at the time. After driving the 2.5hrs there, doing some jobs and driving 2.5hrs back I had to do a little bit of TBL work and then only got myself organised for a run at 4:45pm. That was when I regretted not doing a little jog in the morning or at Port Vic as I was pretty stiff and lethargic by 5:10pm when I actually got going at Bowker St Oval. And it was also pretty windy. Oh well, that’s the price I have to pay rather than pushing my session back to Friday after the RAO session and dealing with the lethargy post session then.

Once I got going in the warm up it wasn’t actually too bad. My stomach was a bit cooked but I did make it through the first part of the session, a full set of 8*400/200float (Deek’s Quarters), without having to stop. I ran 5/8ths of this session this time last week and was able to keep the 400’s pretty relatively similar across all 8 reps, (70s compared to 69/68s the week before) whereas my floats drifted around from being quicker than last week intially (41/42s) to ending up a bit slower (45s at one point). It’s a tough session to get right, especially solo and especially when it’s windy and your stomach doesn’t feel great. After a brief stop in the toilet I aimed to run four 400m reps at pretty much max effort with a 400m jog in between. After the first two went at 64s and the next one at 65s I realised I was cooked enough. I got my warm up done and started to bonk (run out of glycogen) right in the last 5-10mins which I hadn’t experienced in a while which was was cool. Meant I had certainly worked pretty hard or just under fuelled throughout the day. It also meant I had to work on getting the fuel back in ASAP so I could recover well enough for Friday.

Although, the beauty of doing my session on a Thursday is that the Friday run I had planned was only an easy run after being on the bike for the 6:30 session with RunAsOne. It was a lovely Friday morning for a run but I felt pretty sore from my own session so took a while to get moving nicely. When I did, yeah it was good. What was even better was that I did a proper gym session afterwards and then spent a fair amount of time relaxing and pondering my training over the next few weeks.

I had already planned my training up until Ballarat loosely but wasn’t too enamoured by the idea of if I get stuck doing the bike job at Tuesday/Friday sessions with RAO then I am always doing my sessions after the group ones when I am a little tired. It would be better if I did them on any of a Monday/Wednesday/Thursday/Saturday. After consulting with my Lydiard resources I did realise that it is possible to train hard on a Monday after a 2hr long run as that’s what he prescribes, and then that means I can train again on a Wednesday and a Saturday. Nailing three hard sessions a week, plus two other 90 minute jogs and a 2hr long run is a full weekly schedule under Lydiard. All up, plus a few doubles, that equates to around 180-200km’s which is what I managed for Cadbury and I hope to do again for Ballarat. Following one particular schedule of Lydiard’s it also fits in nicely with the following breakdown:

• 12 weeks or more of just aerobic base running. This is the pre-Cadbury block where I focused on big long aerobic sessions.
• 4 weeks of hill training/leg speed training. This is where I am now, in the middle of it really and hence focusing on my hill training and strides a bit more (which I could do more of).
• Then there’s each week for 10 weeks laid out in Monday-Sunday detail following the schedule described above. The best thing is on some Saturday sessions there’s a suggestion for a 5km TT or a 10km TT. The main ones fall right in line with when the State 5km is for the 5k TT and for when the National Mountain Champs is for a 10km TT (which is close enough).

So it’s kind of made to be when I realised how neatly that all fits in. The only downside of me following this plan is I won’t be able to train with others for my hard sessions and if there begins to be a bit more people than just me training at 9:30am on a Tuesday/Friday then I won’t be able to jump in with them either. But perhaps I could just support them on the bike anyway as a better resource of my time as it would still mean I was training ‘not fresh’ if I was training after being on the bike at 6:30. You can probably tell then that it’s not a 100% locked in plan at this stage and will probably be flexible but having the time and luxury to think about it all on Friday arvo was pretty motivating! I ran my arvo run pretty controlled as a result and added in some good strides to finish off the day ensuring I acted on my intention to put a bit more focus on leg speed training.

Which certainly paid off on Saturday’s run. It was another RAO trail session weekend and we went out to the Cleland parkrun for the first time. It’s a 2.5km downhill followed by a 2.5km uphill on an out and back course. I was hoping to break the record of 18:26 and knew that on that particular run, the person split halfway at 8:00 roughly and ran the first couple of km’s at 3:00/km pace.

Off from the start line I went out pretty hard but not crazy hard. I passed through the first km in around 3:00/km and then really got going in the second km. This is where my leg speed training and downhill running focus this week kicked in I think as I was able to run 2:30-2:45/km for quite a lot of it without feeling like I was out of control whatsoever. Being my first time I also think I’d be able to go quicker now I know I can handle that speed. I hit the turnaround in 7:20-7:30ish so was happy that I was under CR pace for now but knew there was still a lot of time I could blow it all with in the last uphill half. I went hard up the hill but instantly felt like I was moving a lot slower than I wanted. I had given the RAO crew a pep talk about staying positive the whole time but wasn’t following my own advice. Oh well, something to work on for next time. Coming into the last one and a bit km’s I missed a slight section of the course so I’ll have to work on that next time too. I did manage to pick it up in the last km though to finish confidently and run 17:16, taking 70s unofficially (due to my wrong turn) off the CR. If I go back another time I’d like to think I could run sub 17. It was pleasing to see quite a few of the crew got some PB’s and really enjoyed the short sharp uphills we added in afterwards.

For the rest of Saturday I didn’t have much on besides pondering my training further, enjoying some nice weather, putting this blog together and getting organised for a 2hr long run on Sunday.

Whereeee, things relatively smoothly. I ran with the group for the first 1hr and a bit at a leisurely pace of 4:20/km before starting to pick things up a bit. Starting out a bit slower it took me a while to reach the 30-32km’s I had wanted to hit but I got there in the end. I didn’t take a gel or any drinks with me but because the pace was slow I didn’t feel like I needed it. My only concern was my hamstring’s were really tight, possibly from the Cleland parkrun the day before. Oh well, I still got 32km’s done and felt good. Having ticked that run off for the day I had a bit of time to organise myself for the week ahead, tune into some Japanese races where Izzi and my TBL boss Brett were racing, write up a TBL recap and have a swim in the pool. Pretty good Sunday in the end!

Having put this first real solid ‘get back to training’ week in the bag with three sessions and two good long runs in there I’m excited to do more of the same for the next couple of weeks focusing on my hills and leg speed training. The weekly schedule that Lydiard advises kicks in from the Feb 17th so until then I can still be a bit flexible with what I have going on. In the short term that means this week coming up will be fairly similar to this week just gone; a session on the track somewhere on Tuesday, a mid week longer run on Wednesday, another session on Thursday (this time in the morning at a track) and then, as a point of difference, a 5km track race on Saturday night. If I can run a PB there that’ll be another sign of improvement and more confidence that I’m heading in the right direction towards becoming a better runner. Which is how I prefaced this blog and is nice to see it’s how I’m ending it. Thanks for reading.