Fraser Darcy

Coming off last week’s 210km’s worth of training I was worried Monday morning’s run was going to be painful. My ankle was still sore even though I had been icing it regularly throughout the day and I was also a little tired, understandably I hope, I mean I did run 210km the week before including 42km’s less than 24 hours ago. I had ambitions to run on the flats along the Sturt River on this particular Monday to protect my ankle by keeping the surface stable. But, the allure of Belair proved too strong. Running in Belair is just so easy for me; no cars, hardly any people, good scenery, familiar routes. I drive there, turn my car off, turn my brain off and get running. Given the above complaints of being tired and having a sore ankle, which turned out to be not too bad as I favoured running on the cambered edge of most of the fire tracks, I chose to run only 14km’s.

My run done, I spent the majority of the day finishing off programs and talking to people who had questions and concerns about their upcoming races. A little bit of gym was thrown in there too and then of course, a second run in the afternoon where I again felt a bit cooked. I skipped doing strides because this time last week when I did them regular readers will remember that I tweaked my hamstring. Instead, I crawled inside after my run, cancelled my evening plans to go to Alice’s and tried to avoid any interactions on social media for a night of quiet time. Perhaps it’s the fact I haven’t escaped the city in a while or perhaps it’s just that I was tired from a lot of running lately but Monday night I felt cooked. The evening ‘off’ from the world was interrupted by a nice surprise phone call from my brother though and then bookended by rewatching an old favourite climbing video of mine (inserted below, highly recommend it!!).

Even though I had a quiet night, it was then again, for probably the seventh day in a row and maybe eighteenth day out of the past twenty one days I rocked up to my run on Tuesday unsure of how things were going to go. That’s the way things go when you have a niggle I guess. This Tuesday though the tide started to turn in my favour. The session was 4*4mins with 90s walk/standing followed by 4*1min with 60s walk/standing. Tailored to those racing the 5k on Friday night (which I’ll get to) it didn’t exactly suit my needs for a marathon prep where I wanted to run slightly faster than 10k pace, and then slightly slower than marathon pace. But I did that anyway and made it work for me. There are no laws about following sessions. I ran with my usual training partners for the four minute intervals and then in the 90s recovery ‘floated’ a bit harder out, turned around, and then paced myself to start with them again for the next 4 minute rep. I was feeling good this morning and even managed to gap them on one of the four minute reps. When it came to the one minute rep I didn’t want to push my hamstring too much so I did two three minute reps instead off a 60s float. Overall, I ran 10k’s averaging 3:07/km which exceeded my expectations pleasingly.

Having ticked off all my programs the previous day I was able to relax a bit on Tuesday, reply to some more questions, enter Clare, clean my room/downstairs/car etc. All normal life jobs. I did get out for a second run in Belair that afternoon though and it felt a lot better than this time last week so I knew I was on the upward trajectory out of the trenches for sure.

I continued this in Wednesday’s morning run with the usual compadres of mine, Jess and Jacob. We had to change our normal route to tie into being at Vic Park for a promotional video for the 5k on Friday night and fraserdarcy.com is all about being honest so with some honesty I can say I wasn’t that impressed by having to change my running plans to do so. As someone who comes from a background of selecting races or adventures because they find them through more organic means (like reading a climbing guidebook, or by using a google search to find a race calendar), helping be a part of a short video for Instagram is not high on my list of ‘things that make sense to me’. I can say the exact same about how last week I was provided with over $600 worth of gear from RunDNA via Saucony so that I could feature in another little Instagram video. How that helps make people buy more products from RunDNA or Saucony or in the case of this race promo video, buy an entry, I’ll never fully appreciate. Don’t people go to a running store and make a purchase based on what shoe fits them best and how it makes them feel? Not on how many times they’ve seen it on Instagram?

The counter-argument, the way I understand it at least, is that the more content out there about something, the more people will want to be involved for the sake of being involved. Which if we remember the fact that I lived in Quorn for a few years and yearn for a quiet afternoon run in Belair, or on trails, or on Arden Vale Rd every now and then, you can see how sometimes the hustle and bustle of city life gets me a bit angsty. Despite the small inconvenience of the aforementioned video shoot, I still managed to run 90 minutes as I begun my taper towards the Clare Half Marathon on Sunday. I also did some gym, picked up some equipment for the 5k on Friday night, had a nap and of course fit in a second run of the day. On trails. At home. Without anyone else. A peak experience for me on Wednesday. Closely followed by the burrito’s I cooked for Alice and myself on Wednesday night. There’s no picture but they were good. Trust me. There was a Mexican hanging around the kitchen the smell of the mince mixture was that good.

Come Thursday it was really time to start tapering and I did so by heading along the Sturt River for only an hour on this day at a fairly relaxed pace at a fairly relaxed hour of the morning. I had slept in until 7:30am, banking almost 10 hours of sleep! Thursday’s are always a quiet day for me and this one was no different, did my little bit for The Blue Line, did some washing, rested some more and then went out for another arvo run. Sometimes having such a restful day like this means I prolong my arvo run because I almost can’t get the energy required to put on all my running clothes for a second time. But then I remember how 24hrs earlier it was my peak experience for the day so I put on my clothes and ended up running 10km’s not the 8km’s I had planned.

I slept in again on Friday morning for the first time on a Friday in a long time. Given the 5k race was at night, there was no RAO morning session so I enjoyed my second day in a row of 10hrs of sleep. Being in taper mode myself it was also the first time in three weeks that I wasn’t doing a big Friday session so I enjoyed a leisurely 11km run plus some good strides (for the first time in over 10 days since tweaking my hamstring). The theme of not doing much in the day continued on Friday after my run. After being busy writing programs for two weeks it’s always nice to just take a few more relaxed days and practice relaxing into a race as that’s what I’ll have to do at Ballarat in three weeks time.

My second run of the day on Friday was at the Your Fastest Night In Town 5k event that RunAsOne was hosting and my job was to be the 16:00 pacer. It was good to first watch a few people I coach nail some PB’s or come close to doing so (and in the process looked absolutely cooked nonetheless!). For regular readers they will know of my sister Georgia’s prowess as a runner and will be pleased to hear that she pulled her finger out and ran a great 5k time of 18:something. When it came to the last race of the night I got to do my job and paced a big crew of runners aiming for 16:00. I was very very close to ditching my job in the hours before the race so I could race for the prize money on offer but showed great restraint to curb my competitive instincts and instead save them for Sunday. With the event finishing up past 9pm I was glad I’d been having a few sleep ins lately because it was well past my bedtime by the time I got home and had some pasta.

I slept in again for the third day in a row on Saturday morning and made it out to Belair for probably the record amount of runs there this week in a long time. It was nice to do an old favourite 10km loop instead of the 10km ‘loop’ I have been reverting to on my arvo runs. The rest of the morning I spent getting my bib for Clare and responding to some messages. By the time the afternoon came around it was time to put this blog together and focus on Clare!

Which is probably what a lot of readers have come for! So no more beating around the bush, let’s get into some Clare specific content:

1. Why am I doing Clare? I ran my first half marathon there two years ago and enjoyed it. I ran the 10k there last year and enjoyed it. So I wanted to go and run the half marathon there this year and enjoy it.
   • Why do I enjoy it though? The Riesling trail is a great path, no turns, slight undulations, nice enclosed feeling. It’s a good compromise between what I like about trail running (up close to trees makes you feel like you’re running fast) and what I like about road running (a pretty good surface that is nice to run fast on).
   • The other reason to running Clare is it’s obviously more specific to Ballarat than the 5k event on Friday night was.
2. What is my game plan? I’d like to run 3:10/km-3:19/km up the hill in the first 10km’s without ‘overreaching’ and then run as fast as I can down the hill at around 3:00/km pace. If I do that, there is a good chance I can break my PB of 1:07:29. To spell it out even clearer, if I run 35:00 for the first 10.55km’s up the hill at 3:19/km pace then all I need to do is run 32:30 down the hill at 3:05/km pace (which I almost did this time two years ago).

Now that’s all well and good to have those nice little plans all framed up like the other races I do. But despite having good intentions there was still something not quite right about my mindset on Saturday evening/Sunday morning. A Dr.Seuss type poem could probably fit here going something like ‘whatever Fraser tried to do to put his finger on the something not quite right, the not quite right just kept out of fingers reach of Fraser’. That’s not actually Dr.Seuss by the way but you get the picture. One theory is I was stressed about having to knock off a half marathon PB off the back of a successful summer season. My half marathon PB was set last year in the Sunshine Coast but is basically the same time I ran two years ago in McLaren Vale. So I was due for an update.

But would Clare be the race? Solo? On a gravelly, hilly path?

Yes. Yes it was. Put me on a start line and I like to think that no matter where my head is at I can do what I do well. That’s what comes with calling yourself a runner. You don’t get to pick and choose when you’re a runner. You just fucking run. So I did. I had my little plan to not run faster than 3:10/km up the hill but in the first few km’s I was feeling good and just went with my effort. I ended up averaging 3:08/km up the first 10.55km’s and was feeling like a bat out of hell for some of it. Trying to get what was on my chest off it by just running.

I turned around on track for a PB. All I had to do was drop a few seconds per kilometre down the hill and I’d be right as rain. Not that running the PB itself is the thing that’ll make me right, but working towards the goal the whole way of the race and ensuring I run the damn thing the whole way is what will make it right as rain.

As I flew down the slightly downhill return leg I was buoyed by all the other participants coming the other way. I said later on in my presentation speech how I feel like when I’m in a race, you have to do your bit as a role model getting the most out of yourself so that others copy you and get the same result. That was the approach I was trying to embody and as I closed in on the final few km’s, nervously checking my watch to see how far under PB pace I was. It turned out I was almost a minute faster than my PB finishing in a time of 1:06:34. Almost eight minutes faster than second place. And satisfied that I’d given it my all.

Post-race I warmed down, chatted to some people I coach (and who read this blog!) which was good, received my trophy and then headed into the Clare Foodland for the second annual ‘Feast of Foodland’. Yes, last year after my 10k there I wrote about the return of the dirtbag and how I enjoyed eating my lunch bought from the Foodland and not a fancy cafe. Seeing as I reread that blog earlier this weekend I was inspired to go and buy two cold pizza slices from the bakery section and a protein drink and eat it in the main street. It also continued the theme of the morning of reliving my days driving on the North South Motorway for various trips to Quorn. The dirtbag inside me was happy.

To ensure the rest of me was happy and back to ‘quite right’ Fraser as opposed to not quite right, I went for a quick arvo run when I went home and then played some tennis with Alice. Pretty good Sunday overall and there was no Bombers loss to dampen the overall weekend either (they had the bye).

What’s coming up next in the world of Fraser is another week of quality training really and that’s about it. There are still some exciting sessions I have planned as part of this Ballarat Marathon Block and if you want to read about them next week either subscribe below for FREE or set a reminder in your calendar to check back here in a week’s time. Or if you’re reading this in the future, after April 2025, WELL HELLO FROM THE PAST, very excited to be talking to you from the year 2025. Thanks for reading.