Fraser Darcy

Normal programming has resumed, a regular weekly recap and a new zest for putting together this blog in Year 4 of it’s existence.

On Monday I started the day off early by putting together a recap on the Millrose Games for The Blue Line. I was happy with my work and that set the rhythm for the day. Normally I’ve been running an easy hour in Belair on Monday’s as of late but with my next trail race in Cleland I decided to do my easy hour there and scope out the course a bit more. I used to run in Cleland semi-regularly between 2013-2020 but haven’t really been since so it was good to rekindle some old memories. I ran the length of the National Mountain Champs course, the race that I’m aiming for on March 16th, and really enjoyed the change of scenery. At one point in the final few km’s I started to pick up the effort going uphill and really enjoyed doing so. There is something that is hard to beat about a spontaneous effort up a hill, on trails, by yourself, in good weather and in a good mood. This was of course all those things.

For the rest of my day I did some gym, touched base on what training the runners I coach got up to last week, relaxed a bit, and then fit in an easy run. I decided to skip the strides I normally do after my Monday arvo run because I was just a bit too cooked.

A good sleep refreshed me on Monday night though and the excitement of training with the group on a Tuesday for the second week in a row. This time, we weren’t at the track and I got to run around Vic Park with the group for the first time in a while. Having run a 5km PB on Saturday, a long run with a fast finish on Sunday and a hilly uphill effort on Monday I was just aiming to get this session done so wasn’t interested in sticking onto the back of Jacob like last Tuesday. Instead, I ran with Will for most of it for a session of (Mile/400jog, 4*400/100jog,Mile/400jog, 4*400/100jog, Mile/400jog). We ran the first mile in 4:56, and averaged the 400’s in below 70’s which was great. I felt it a bit on the second set of 400’s and was then pleased to run the last mile at 4:57 having to start out a bit slower in that rep before picking it up. Having to work hard in the session meant I was a bit cooked for the rest of the day but did manage to be productive enough to get some work done, keep on top of some messages and get an easy afternoon run in.

Wednesday was the warmest day of the week but sticking to my normal 6:30am start time with Jess and Jacob meant it wasn’t too bad. We had Izzi and Chad (not friend of the blog and former Willunga Worm Farmer: Chad Freak though, a different Chad) join us as well to make a crew of 5. I wore a brand new pair of shoes as my other long run shoes had finally bitten the dust so it was good to have that as a bonus positive for my mid week long run. I planned on doing 25km’s and made it there in around 1hr 45min with Izzi accompanying me for all of it. Again, I was pretty tired afterwards and by the end of a gym session later that day I was spent. My dreams of an afternoon run were put to the side and instead I just went for a walk later that afternoon to get the mental benefits of doing some exercise whilst avoiding putting myself into a hole with an unnecessary arvo run. I was glad with my decision in the end as when I went to run the next morning at the Thursday Thrash I felt a bit more refreshed and excited to run than usual.

The Thursday Thrash is by no means an official event and is just the name I gave to my own personal 1500m Time Trial at Bowker St Oval on Thursday morning. I slept in beforehand until 7am and started my run at 7:45 with a nice 5 and a bit km warm-up. The idea of this 1500m TT was seeing what it’s like to run 1500m and seeing whether it’s worth doing an official one on the track next Saturday. I was hoping to be somewhere around 4 minutes but knowing that running on the grass, in the middle of a big training week in windy conditions would make that very, very tough. But I still gave it a good go and knew that there were plenty of benefits of doing a hard time trial solo. The main one was that it satiated my appetite for doing fun and different things with my running by myself at Bowker. I like the feel of experimentation I bring to my sessions at Bowker St and this was the best example of that. I just wanted to see how fast I could run 1500m, that was all, there was no pressure.

After doing a few strides with my spikes on I spotted a mate, Lachy Hennig, warming up and told him I was about to do a 1500m TT. He gave me some encouragement and then I was on the start line shortly after. I ran off the start line pretty strong and came to the 3 lap to go mark a bit faster than I mentally thought I would. Three laps to go is a bit of tricky thing to think about I thought at the time so I kind of just held my pace until two laps to go. With 600m to go I picked it up a bit and got some more encouragement from Hennig. Once I hit the 400m mark to go I really picked it up, held strong through the wind on the back straight and then fanged it to the finish line to record 4:05. Not bad but not sub 4. Perhaps if I was a bit fresher and there was less wind I could’ve gone quicker. Oh well, it’s a good start and having enjoyed the feeling of hurt as I ran the last 100m thrashing my way to the finish, I am pleased to give it another go next Saturday at an official event and see what I can do there. The idea is that if I can improve my speed in a 1500m, it will translate to a faster 5000m and same again for other races. It’s all about rounding out my ability as a runner overall.

To finish off the session and make it somewhat like a trail race, I threw on my pair of Alphafly’s and started a 6km tempo. In a trail race I often find I spike my heart rate on a really steep climb, like in a 1500m TT, and then have some recovery going downhill before having to hold a threshold effort on a longer flatter climb, like in a 6km tempo. So that was the idea with the 6km tempo. I hoped to just run anywhere between 3:20-3:30/km so when I ran the first kilometre in 3:10 I thought I may have overcooked things a bit. I also thought I may be starting to see the benefits of running faster on the track in the last four weeks. Having not done a straight tempo in a while, going back to running just 3:10-3:15/km felt a lot easier to manage than it did before. In the end I averaged 3:13’s for the 6km tempo and felt really good about it. I could’ve kept going and I could’ve run faster as well but instead I chose to call it there and finish of with four 200m efforts off full recovery. These were similar to the 200m efforts I did last week and have now convinced me that I have the speed to run fast and I might not necessarily be able to improve it by that much in the next few weeks but I can now try and see if I can hold that 200m speed a bit further to 300m or even 600m. If I can do that, well that translates to a better 1500m and so on. The alternative is instead of trying to extrapolate my 28/29s 200m speed into 1:28/1:30 600m speed, I try to make it 25/26s 200m speed. On grass, solo, in the middle of 160-180km training weeks that just doesn’t sound very feasible nor necessary. I am of course foreshadowing the idea of doing 600m reps as that’s what I plan to do on Thursday next week at Bowker St.

Staying with this Thursday though, I put together a preview of the Adelaide Invitational for TBL, did some washing, relaxed a bit and then went for an arvo run. I almost skipped this arvo run on account of how tired I felt but choosing to run it at Belair meant that I really enjoyed it in the end. It was almost the first time in a week I had chosen to run in Belair so the change of scenery was very welcome.

Having ticked off my session on Thursday it meant I just had to jog on Friday morning. Usually I’m on the bike at least once a week at RAO but this week I was given the opportunity to run for the second time in a week at the RAO session. It was going to be the first time I was jogging at an RAO session since April last year which was a long time! It was a pretty good jog, buoyed by the fact that a few people I coach (who also read this blog!) ran a 5k PB which was very pleasing! After my jog I had my breakfast, flicked through a few things on the internet and then jumped on the bike to support Izzi’s session for a couple of hours. I again had dreamt of ending this day with another good arvo run in Belair like Thursday but I spent a bit too much time trying to recover and relax so ended up only having time to run 40mins around my home trails.

That theme of recovering has been pretty consistent this week and recognising that I decided to try and enjoy my Saturday session a bit more than absolutely flogging myself for it. This Saturday session was a RAO session at Cleland on the National Mountain Champs course though so it did have an element of specific-ness to it for my own training which was important I didn’t take it too easy. I put out the signs nice and early, met the group on time, took them on a nice warm up route and then got into 2 laps of the little 3km loop that is part of the course. For the first loop I took it 7-8/10 hard and focused on running fast up the hill with fast leg turnover as opposed to big powerful steps. It’s a slightly new technique I’m trying and I think, given I now know how to move my legs faster as a result of my strides and speedwork, it’s working well. On the downhill section I took it fairly controlled and ran all the way to the start line. I moved a few signs to make it obvious that this was the end of the first lap and then got stuck into a second lap.

A few of the other runners hadn’t bothered with the long out and back at the start of the loop so I had people to chase as I went up the hill this time and put my foot down a bit harder. I ended up really going for it, almost like 1500m TT effort up the hill and enjoyed the jelly leg feeling as I crested the top of the hill. I took the downhill a bit easier and was starting to get caught by these other runners so had to pick it up a little bit just to show them who’s boss. I was pleased with my efforts over the two laps and called it there. A quick chat to the other runners in the group, reinforcing the purpose of the session and the plan for the next session before I added in a few warm down km’s to collect the signs and also make sure I didn’t need to force myself out for a double in the afternoon. While I do enjoy a double run on a Saturday afternoon, logistically it was going to be awkward for me to pop out for an afternoon run with company over on Saturday arvo and I probably could do with another afternoon off to refresh myself.

Which brings me to Saturday night. The Adelaide Invitational was being held and is Adelaide’s biggest athletics meet. Two years ago I went for the first time the same day I won the Robe Marathon. Last year I went for the second time the day before the Dolphin Run. This year I went and sat with a big group of mates and watched the best thing I think I’ve ever seen on an athletics track. Sure there was lots of good races at the previous years events and also at the National Champs last year, but to see Jacob run sub 14 for the first time was the best thing I’ve seen. Ever since I first ran behind (it would be arrogant for me to say I ever ran with Jacob in high school) Jacob in high school cross country races he has always been the standard setter in my eyes. For him to have a big PB of almost 10seconds in front of a big home crowd was both inspiring on a running sense (I want to run a big PB) and an atmosphere sense (I would like to run in that race next year). Buoyed by watching Jacob and some other big races I wolfed down a big bowl of Tuna Mornay (my own batch as well) for dinner and then went to bed ready for a big long run.

Having run just under 2.5hrs last week for my long run this week I aimed at hitting it right on the head and would be doing so with Izzi. The usual crew were of course there, plus a few of the runners from Saturday night’s event, and we ran at pretty much the same speed we normally do which was good. The only thing that wasn’t good was that the Tuna Mornay wasn’t sitting well and caused my stomach to really bounce around for the next 2.5hrs. Having had plenty of runs like this in the past I just sucked it up and tried to get on with it without voicing my discomfort too much. You can imagine my relief then when I finally made it back to The RunHouse without having my guts catastrophically explode on me. It did keep my mind occupied enough that I didn’t really appreciate how fast Izzi and I ended up running in the last few km’s either. We eventually hit 37km’s and besides my stomach I felt fine.

A few hours later in the afternoon and I felt even better which just goes to show, after four weeks now of hitting three sessions a week and a big long run I am still handling it well. The game plan from here is to hit two more weeks like this to bring it to six weeks of high intensity three times a week with a big long run. I’ll then pull it back for two weeks, race the State 5km and the National Mountain Champs and then reassess my run in towards Ballarat in the final 6 weeks (probably a return to marathon pace training and a final sprinkling of high mileage). That’s the plan at least. See how it turns out I guess! Thanks for reading!

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