Fraser Darcy

I’m sorry to be doing this to my devout loyal blog subscribers but some people are not as wise as you and do not follow every blog I post. Thus, they may not be aware that this is my third blog in a row of a BIG race report following on from the State 5000m and State 1500m recaps from a week ago. So if you are one of the strangely sporadic readers of this blog or if it is your first time here, insert my obligatory welcome to fraserdarcy.com message here, perhaps go and read those two blogs for some context on what happened prior to this week. Or just jump in and read from here on in, it’ll be a little bit like watching a daytime movie from halfway but you’ll get the main storyline that way. For those regular readers, tune back in now for the story from last week continues on with…

Tuesday! Yes straight into a Tuesday to kick off the weekly recap. It was RAO session day but being one day post the State 1500m I decided I’d be better off with a 90 minute long run. It wasn’t a 90 minute long easy run though. The humidity and the fact I jumped in some of the RAO session meant it felt a bit harder than I would’ve liked. Still it was a long run and I got to top up my long run fitness in between State Champs and National Mountain Champs this weekend. After the long run I did a little bit of work on my laptop, did a gym session that felt terribly hard at first but then not too bad and then went home for a rest. Being over 5 days out from the race on Sunday at Cleland I went for an afternoon run at Belair and again, found this pretty hard for an afternoon run but maybe it was the humidity and fatigue from the weekend.

Or maybe it was the early stages of the stomach bug I suffered from. Yes, after documenting Alice’s experience in the previous blog, I too became a victim of the same stomach bug. On Wednesday morning I woke up at 2am and felt like my stomach was so bloated it was going to explode. I just thought maybe it was because I ate more pasta than usual. The abnormal feeling got worse though and I made several trips to the toilet throughout the early morning trying to relieve myself. None of those trips worked and by 6am I waved the white flag on my planned morning run with Jacob and Jess. Not long after, I sat on the edge of my bed, coughed, realised I was about to vomit, then walked to the toilet and did so. Goodbye last night’s pesto pasta and hello relieved stomach?

No, not quite. This wasn’t going to be a one-vomit-and-done job. I went back to sleep to try and sleep it off but at 8am knew I was in for a long day. Optimistically I thought if I could rest all morning maybe I’ll get a run in by the afternoon and keep my training streak going. By 10am that thought was fading fast. They say the stomach is like a second brain and they might be right. Being all tight and bloated it meant the rest of my body had no energy for anything. I felt very weak. Like I was very hungover. But hangovers can clear by the afternoon right? Maybe. This also felt like the time I got sick when I went bushwalking and rock climbing at Federation Peak. After taking two and a bit days to walk into where we wanted to climb I woke up on ‘climbing day’ with a similar ailment and pulled out of the climb. Luckily, the weather was crap that morning and during the time I had given up on climbing, my other two partners Aaron and Luke had been waiting for the weather to clear. Once it did, my stomach bug had cleared so I ended up joining them anyway. It wasn’t my most enjoyable climbing experience and for the rest of the trip out of there and even the next few days I was severely depleted but I still made it to the top of Federation Peak which was cool.

Back to modern day though and by lunchtime I still hadn’t improved and hadn’t eaten anything. At 2pm I sat down for a Zoom call for work related reasons and made it through that without feeling too bad which was a positive boost to my morale so I celebrated with two bits of toast. A few hours passed and I hadn’t improved but it was now dinner time. What special meal would I cook up for myself after only eating two bits of toast all day? That’s right… two more bits of toast with butter! Fraser’s Cooking is a wild segment. Ramen one week, toast the next.

You’re probably thinking, ok, toast for dinner, straight to bed now right? Wrong. I had to stay up for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Earlier in the day my FTK boss Brett had asked if I was free at 8:30pm for a zoom call. I said yes, not telling him I was dying, but technically I was free (I was just dying too). It turns out that the zoom call was with Eliud Kipchoge, arguably the greatest marathoner of all time. An announcement was to be made on Friday morning about his appearance at Sydney Marathon in 2025 (where I plan to race too but my race announcement and press conference must be later in the year I think) and this was an opportunity for journalists to ask him a few questions. It was surreal to think I had access, along with 6 or 7 other journalists, to one of the greatest runners ever. I asked him two questions and you can read about my whole experience and his response on The Blue Line. Yes it’s behind a paywall, tough titties, I’m not spending another twenty minutes recapping it when I’ve already done it once.

With a very different Wednesday than I was expecting out of the way I was onto Thursday. I felt good enough for a run in the morning and went to Belair instead of Cleland as I was originally planning. I wanted to keep it easy and very familiar while I was recovering from my sickness. I could’ve kept the run easy but decided to try three laps of a 1.6km loop that I’ve used for RAO trail sessions and progress my pace each loop. With National Mountain Champs on Sunday being a 14km course, this was a specific session to that race by fine tuning my trail ‘speed’ and feel whilst also being about 15-20mins of high intensity work which is a good amount bridging between the State Champs and this weekend. I got down to faster than 3:00/km pace at one time and thought, yep, that’s all I need to remind myself I can run fast on trails. Funny how only having one day off can trick me into thinking I’ve lost all my fitness and ability. It doesn’t work that way at all obviously.

For the rest of the day I caught up on a bit of work I missed out on yesterday, prepared the aforementioned Blue Line article, deliberated about what I plan to do at the National Track and Field Champs in Perth in mid April and then went for another run in the afternoon. Risky move to be adding two runs back in one day after my sickness but in my defence I had tapered into State Champs so was quite recovered and was also trying to rebuild my load for my Ballarat preparation. Plus I needed it for the mind as well.

Friday. RAO session day for the group but just a jogging day for me. I ran 11km’s with my friend and occasional character in the blog Nathan who is visiting for the National Mountain Champs and did some strides afterwards. They felt good. I did some work, some light mobility, had some lunch, rested a bit and then went and picked up Nath to bring him back to the Darcy residence. He had been in town for the week with work and now needed accommodation for the weekend so I happily obliged and said he could use a spare room at my Mum and Dad’s. With Nath back at home, I snuck out for a quick short arvo run and then had pizza for tea. Prep was back on track at this stage and I knew I would feel 100% by Sunday.

On Saturday though, with a very warm morning, Nath and I checked out a bit more of the course at Cleland for our shakeout run. It was a change in schedule for me to do a shakeout run for a race in Cleland having usually done them in Belair but I was glad to do so because I realised the direction we start the race is actually the opposite to how I thought we started. Instead of an uphill slog for a few hundred metres, it’ll be a fast downhill bit where I can hopefully get my legs going and gain the lead. Apart from that as a race plan, I don’t really have any for Sunday. You can tell I’m writing this on a Saturday afternoon pre-race. I have always raced these shorter ATR and Trail Running SA events the same way, start fast and get faster. Don’t worry about the competition. Run to feel. Enjoy pushing yourself in your backyard. It’s worked for me and I’ve enjoyed that way as I get to just focus on my race. Obviously there will be some stronger competition than usual on Sunday so perhaps I won’t have it all my own way but that excites me. For once I might have others testing me as opposed to just testing myself in a South Australian trail race. I am still undefeated on trail races less than 44km in SA since 2019 (17 in a row).

For the rest of Saturday Nath and I kept a low profile around home, going for a swim, watching sport, doing some work, relaxing, napping, getting in each other’s head, all the usual pre-race things you’d expect from two competitive males.

And then suddenly, it was Sunday. Before we get right into the nitty gritty of the National Mountain Champs race recap, just pause and remember that two years ago I won this race unexpectedly and earned a spot on the World Champs team. Last year I was unable to defend my title because my older sister scheduled her wedding on the same weekend so I was pretty disappointed but that was hopefully a once in a liftetime occurence. So, I didn’t get the chance to defend my title and now had the opportunity to win it back on home soil. Unfortunately the selection criteria isn’t the same for this year’s World Champs team so it’s not an automatic selection if you win but it’s still a very good thing in your favour. But hopefully the scene is set. I was pumped and I had lots of motivating reasons to win.

Off the start line I accelerated very fast and got the lead as I had hoped straight away. Behind me was Arron Nitschke who I raced and beat in last weekend’s State Champs. He was a late entrant and was one of my biggest competitors obviously but his lack of trail racing experience was going to be his weak point. We were absolutely hooning it up the first few km’s of trail and had developed a clear lead. Having practiced the course I knew where to accelerate and where to ease off and was doing so. All Aaron had to do was hold on and he was doing well.

At about 7 minutes in we hit a key junction where the Long course runners turned right and we, as the Medium course, were meant to go straight. I knew this was what needed to happen, and we were reminded about it at the start by the race director, but when we arrived at the junction there was only a right arrow (no differentiation between Medium/Long) and an ‘X’ marking the wrong way to go which was straight (which was actually the right way). The race director had also reminded us not to follow an ‘X’ too so I was confused as to what to do. Maybe I had read the course wrong all this time? I mean, I had the start confused so perhaps I was confused here too. I took off going right and Arron followed me. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if anyone else followed and vaguely saw the main pack twenty seconds back do the same thing. After about a minute and a half Arron must have sensed I was uneasy about going this way and since he was uneasy too we both knew we’d been stitched up by wrong course markings. Fuck, just what I didn’t need. Fittest person here and you’ve fucked your race by going the wrong way. I was pretty mad. Madder than I was last week on Wednesday after being a removalist for a few hours. Unlike last week though, this time I was able to channel my fury into chasing my way back into the lead.

We got back to the intersection and turned around a few more runners who all did what we did. It was a bit of a shit show for a minute there. I got the lead back over Arron and then took off on the downhill where we had practiced for a RAO Trail session a few weeks ago. I was as mad as a cut snake and ran this section very very fast. This was arguably the best part of my race as I made my way past several RAO friends who shouted encouragement and cleared the path for me. I was so pissed off that if anyone didn’t move for me I was going to hip and shoulder them out the way. Fuck this and this fucking wrong way bull shit.

By the end of this 2km downhill Arron and I had got ourselves back into the Top 5 and could see first place not far off. The others in the Top 5 had also gone the wrong way for part of it but overall, Arron and I had lost our twenty second lead and were probably 1 minute behind as a result. Which, after one more kilometre, we had completely hoovered up and were now back in the lead again. I remember looking at my watch at this point about 22 minutes in thinking I was absolutely cooked. And I wasn’t even halfway. Having gone the wrong way a few times before in races I also knew that when you have to do all this chasing to catch back up and then get back to the front, the hardest part is then readjusting to normality. I did this better than I have done before and started to run away with Arron but then he started to put a gap on me. That’d be right, do all this work to get back in front and then still go and lose to Arron. I let him go knowing there’s a chance I might feel a bit better in the second half of the race.

The course kept meandering along the same fire track for a few more km’s and at one point third place came up to next to me and I almost nearly lost it even more. I put a gap onto him on some of the downhills that followed though and then slammed down the emergency gel I was carrying. Time to really go Jason Bourne on this race. The quote that I kept repeating to myself along this section of the course was no human is limited which I’ve borrowed from Mr.Kipchoge who told me this himself on Wednesday night. It basically means there is no limit to how mad and how fast I can go so I may as well go all out.

I started to make up a little gap on Arron which boosted my confidence and then suddenly, I was right on him. He was jogging so slow I wondered if he was only bothering to do this race as a session and was going to jog it in. Turned out he had rolled his ankle so now I had the opportunity to dig the knife in a bit and take off past him. If I could build my lead on the last downhill then even if he miraculously healed his ankle and could run the last uphill fast, I would still have enough of a lead in the bank to be the winner at the end.

I absolutely flew down the last downhill and could feel my legs were hurting by the end. The last uphill, of which I had trained on several times, started with 3km to go and it was an absolute slog. I put in a good effort on the first section, not as good as I did in training but I knew that was going to be impossible to beat, and then continued running hard. I saw someone behind me in the distance on one of the last big u-bends and knew that if I really blew up I might be overtaken but otherwise I was pretty confident I had it in the bag. That didn’t mean I slowed down, I still went to the well and pushed all the way up the last kilometre. When it came to the point where I could see the big finish line banner I finally started to accept that I was going to win and be a two-time National Mountain Running Champion. Of course, it wasn’t long after seeing it that I was crossing under it and then yes, I was the National Mountain Running Champion for 2025. Fuck yes.

I was absolutely exhausted by the end and took a moment to gather myself a bit. The race organisers must have seemed a little worried because they grabbed a chair for me to rest on. At the time, I thought it was the hardest race of my life but upon reflection it’s probably in the Top 5. Still, I was very cooked and very happy at the same time. To run the wrong way and still win was probably the best performance of my trail running career ever.

Ok then Mr.Hot Shot, where does that leave you now then hmm? Well, it means that I’m probably a favourite for the World Champs team again in September but we have to wait and see on that. It also means that I can close the book on this little racing period of 8 days since the State Champs having ticked some big goals. It also means that I can now get stuck into the next training block and goals. Which is probably going to be the Ballarat Marathon with the National Champs (just the 5000m race) sprinkled in there beforehand. I am more excited to do the training for a marathon and a marathon than I am for a 1500m. Plus, getting another fast marathon under my belt before I run Sydney Marathon later in the year is a smart move too.

So there we have it, thanks for reading this blog. If you liked it and have not subscribed, maybe consider doing so. If you liked it and can’t be bothered subscribing well fuck you that’s ok, no harm done my good friend, please visit again in the future.