Fraser Darcy

When something big in your life is on the event horizon for so long it builds up in your head and your mind. A bit like the first light before sunrise. Starts out pretty mellow and exciting, oooh boy I hope it has nice colours, then there are the nice colours, then the sun comes up and you’re like wow, the sun, I haven’t seen you since yesterday! A couple of hours later the sun is well and truly up and if it’s summer you’re probably by now cursing it.

Was that going to be my Ballarat Marathon experience? Cursing something I’ve been wanting to do for so long?

I’d been thinking about this event since last year when I had an entry but ultimately had to push it back to this year due to injury. Come this year, I’ve put together a 25 week training block (not that it was designed like that) since the start of November 2024 and feel more prepared than ever for a marathon which is exciting. This being the Saturday the day before the race as I write this, I’m yet to see ‘first light’ but it’s not far away. Everyone else racing the marathon has these same doubts I’m sure. The rhetoric I’ve been telling myself this week has been, those who handle race week nerves, doubts and challenges the best will perform the best. So did I handle them well?

Well on Monday I handled them like most Monday’s. I did an easy hour run in Belair along with some computer work. I mostly started to prepare some programs for RunAsOne as it’s that time of the month again. Instead of a double run in the afternoon I visited the sauna for the second day in a row. Pretty stock standard Monday for marathon race week.

Tuesday was like most normal Tuesday’s too. A RAO session at 6:30 where I did the usual w/u and then got changed into my shoes ready for the last real bit of intensity. I was in two minds about what to do in this session; do I stick with a routine I followed before Sydney last year and do 6*1km? Or do I do the group session of 500/200 jog/200/100 jog? The group session had plenty of pace changes in it and obviously company but the 6*1km was more specific to my race. So I did that instead around the same loop as the group. I kept the recovery pretty honest like I did several weeks ago when I had 90s rest between reps with the group. This time I kept it to 60s rest and managed to run the same pace. Conveniently, the pace I was holding for the whole session turned out to be 3-4s/km just faster than my planned marathon pace (3:12/km > 3:15-3:16/km). After the session I did a shorter warm down, got stuck into some programs, did a bunch of jobs around the house and then went for a second run. A second run?! Yes, a second run.

I had been thinking that because my training volume had been quite high leading into this taper week, if I just dropped all my afternoon runs for the week I’d be feeling a bit sketchy. Plus, I have done alternative things before 1500m and 5000m races this summer, running doubles the morning of or day before the race with success. So I figured this was more my style and would make me more comfortable if I chose to run in the very nice autumn afternoon on this Tuesday. And it was nice.

On Wednesday I had planned to run with Jacob one last time but he had to bail last minute. I wasn’t too fussed, I got to choose my route, my pace and my podcast or music to listen to and enjoyed a good hour run along the Torrens. This third day of the week was much more of the same; programs, house jobs, relax a bit. I went for a walk this afternoon instead of a run because it just felt right. For dinner I cooked some chicken schnitzels as the celebration of the last non-carb loading dinner for a while. It was pretty good but probably not as good as the chicken kyiv’s I cooked for tea on Sunday night (post blog publishing from last week).

Thursday. Things are getting serious. If you’re reading this whole week waiting to get to the Ballarat recap then you know how it feels now for me to have to sit through a whole week waiting to race the damn thing, all you have to do is sit and read a few more minutes to get to it. I ran an easy 10km’s along the Sturt River/railway line route on Thursday and then, well you get the picture, did some jobs. I was getting pretty over the jobs and organising for the weekend by about lunchtime so I called it a day there and started to enter proper relaxing mode. Full horizontal, on my phone, or watching TV, very quiet, proper relaxing mode is a game changer if you can get into it. By late Thursday afternoon I had relaxed so well that I rewarded myself with one final run just to tick the legs over. They felt good, I felt good and I was ready to go.

Which is good timing because on Friday morning Alice and I were at the airport by 7:45am. No time for an early morning run, that would have to come later. The flight was pretty good, I felt sick for a bit which isn’t unusual, we arrived on time and ambled over to the hire car place. This was real fancy of me to hire a car and I was very much looking forward to the experience. Until the line-up at the desk became a 25 minute wait. Don’t ask me why it was taking people so long, I was only at the desk for less than 3 minutes and there wasn’t more than 8 people in front of me when I lined up so you do the maths…

Anyway, those who handle the challenges the best in race week, perform the best. I handled that challenge well and was rewarded with a Subaru Forrester. We drove it up to Ballarat, nothing to report without throwing Alice’s ability to use Google Maps under the bus (wait, what?) and then arrived in Ballarat just in time for a quick run around the lake before lunch. It felt good to get out and check out what is a very famous lake in running circles in Australia. I also checked out part of the course through Victoria Park and did some 1 minute intervals like I did before Sydney. It’s not good to compare too much between individual sessions but I felt faster and certainly ran them faster this time around than the time before Sydney. Session ticked, lunch collected, accommodation checked in. We were kicking goals! All before Anzac Day Footy!

I sat down to watch Anzac Day while it rained outside and went into full relaxing mode again. Unfortunately the Bombers did not win but they didn’t play too bad for 3 out of 4 quarters. To commiserate ourselves we collected our bibs from the expo and a couple of last minute items at the shops. The bib pick up was a moment of consternation given I had gone from being on the ‘elite’ list a couple of months ago, to then being demoted to the ‘preferred’ list after a few more ‘elites’ signed up. When Riley heard about that, well that’s a bit poor was his response, he got me put back on the ‘elite’ list via an email to the elite athlete coordinator. But it wasn’t quite an official re-entry to the official list. I had to show an email to the bib pickup people confirming I was elite and the same for my access to the elite room. I wasn’t too mad about being demoted to the preferred list until I saw some of the names on the ‘elite’ list when it came out. Then I was pissed off… I had faster PB’s than some of these people, what the fucks going on here? Regular readers of the blog will know that when I get pissed of at something in a race I tend to use that to my advantage (examples being my incorrect turn in the National Mountain Champs recently and one time when I didn’t agree with the rules around wearing headphones in a trail race because it was too windy). So, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise to be motivated to beat as many people as I could in the race, put it to the organisers that they made a mistake by leaving my off the list. 

So eventually, I did collect my bib without too much of an issue and made it through Friday relatively unscathed…

Until 1:30am on Saturday morning when the smoke alarm went off. I got up and checked there was no fire. Not really actually, that could come after getting the fucking alarm to stop. The trouble was the accom had a high ceiling so I had to climb on the desk and do a one arm chin-up, one arm push-up/mantle thing to then use my other arm (wait, what) to push the button. It was tough. Luckily there was no fire because I was cooked. I went back to bed, put my head on the pillow… and then the fucker went off again! This time I grabbed a wooden spoon to help push it off so I didn’t have to levitate in mid-air to push the button. Again, there was still no fire so there must be an issue with the hard-wired smoke alarm I thought as I lay my head on… oh give me a fucking break, the thing went off again. This time though I climbed on the cupboard and ripped it out of the ceiling. Burn in hell smoke alarm. And me I guess if there was a fire. It was a risk I was willing to take.

A few hours later, Alice and I were up and about for a short run with some other RAO people around the lake. It was good to cruise with some people and then even better to stumble into my friend Elise and Brady who I ran with in Sydney for 30km’s. Brady was planning on a similar strategy to me for the race so it was good to just touch base and share some pleasantries. After a bit it was time to head back to the accom, eat breakfast, prepare some bottles, go to the ‘elite’ meeting, drop the bottles off, walk through the expo, say hello to some friends then back home for 500g of pasta as per my usual routine. I ate 500g the night before for dinner and for lunch I smashed another 500g on my own. Carb loading was going well and so was the preparation. If everything else goes well what do I hope to achieve with this race:

• Beat a few people I think I am faster than. Races are races after all and no matter the conditions it’s always nice to beat as many people as I can. Prize money pays down to 5th too.
• Run a PB. Currently 2:21:35 is good but sub 2:20 and even 2:16-2:18 would be better and fit the other PB’s I have. The pace I aim to go out at is 2:17-2:18 pace so it’ll be a game of push on to 2:16 if feeling good in the final few km’s or hold on for 2:20 if things haven’t gone well. I don’t expect this race to be my lifetime PB but it is an important stepping stone to one day getting closer to a time that I think represents what I’m capable over the distance.
• Enjoy being in amongst another high quality race. One of the best things about Sydney and other races I’ve really enjoyed is having access to great roads to run on with great support from those within the race and those off course. It makes you feel amazing. Whilst I do love running by myself in the bush, I also do like getting to run by myself at stages in these big events and get to have that same ‘solo’ experience in the bush out on the roads due to the absence of any other distractions.

After putting most of this blog together on Saturday afternoon I went out and watched the 5km races, became a bit tired and then went home for only one bag of rice for dinner. The last bit of inspiration I took in on Saturday night was watching a twenty minute highlights package of Robert De Castella’s 1982 Commonwealth Games gold medal. Very good stuff and very inspiring.

Sunday morning. Finally. Been waiting a long time for this. Had my usual two bits of toast and honey, coffee, packed up the accommodation including putting the smoke alarm back on, and then journeyed into the race. I waved goodbye to Alice nice and early at around 6:45 and found my way to the elite room. There was a fair few people in there already but none of my mates so I just chilled out by myself with an attitude that almost felt like I was waiting for a plane at the airport. No point getting all excited an hour before the race starts or even at the start of the race, marathons get hard at around 30km’s if you pace them right and that’s when it’s time to be excited. Until then, relax brother! Which is what I did.

Jacob, who was racing the half and would go on to finish second, eventually arrived not long after 7am and we went for a short warm up jog after that. At just under 3km’s it was actually my biggest warm up before a marathon. Back into the elite room, I put my race shoes on, had a drink, bit of a stretch, piss and then down to the start line. I got a couple of strides in to check the fitting of my shoes and then lined up maybe two or three people deep on the start line. As we were starting with the half marathoners there was a fair few faster people than me to sit in behind. 

The gun, literally a proper musket too, went off and so did we, up the biggest hill of the course for the majority of the first kilometre. The plan was to hit around 3:15-3:16/km (on my watch that is, which is always 1-2s fast) and we were straight onto that with a big pack of half marathoners and marathoners. I was looking around to make sure all the people I planned to race had gotten into this pack and sure enough they were all there, including the 2:20 marathon pacer! That kind of confused me as 2:20 marathon pace is more like 3:19/km on my watch. Only a few seconds slower over a kilometre which isn’t much of course in the first couple of kilometres, but by the third kilometre he was still up the front, now 7-8s faster than he needed to be. It actually provided some entertainment and discussion amongst the other runners in the group who weren’t sure what was going on, is this bloke for real? does he know he’s going out a little bit fast? do we let him just set the pace and get some protection from the wind? Well yes, that’s what we all decided to do for the first part. From then on he slowed a bit to be on pace for 2:20 but would then surge a bit when maybe he realised he was slowing. It was hard to know if he thought he was doing the right thing and we were running slow or we were on pace and he was running fast. Anyway, sitting in a group is a much easier way to race and given the presence of some wind I was happy to keep the status quo and just join the others in the pack. Easier to keep track of everyone too that way.

A few km’s down the road and we hit the second drink station at 12km’s in. With only one table for about 15-20 bottles it was pretty stressful trying to spot my bottle. I got caught up in some arms and caused a collision at the table, missed my bottle and had to go back and get it. This is now the third time in a marathon that this has happened so I wasn’t too worried, more just embarrassed for being the idiot who caused a crash. Anyway, I got back on to the group and we started making our way around the lake still in a massive group.

It came to the 15th km for someone to make a move from the big group and it was Dean Menzies from WA, a 2:17 marathoner in good form. He put maybe 10-20m into the group before I realised, ooh yep, time to go here, better not let Dean get away. I joined him thinking others would come for the ride and finally get away from the 2:20 pacer going at 2:19 pace. No-one else did which worried me a bit, had we gone too early perhaps, but eventually I got over it. I took the lead from Dean on most of the next few km’s which I wasn’t too fussed about, Dean had made the move so I was happy to repay him for getting things going by doing some work.

Coming into the end of the first lap, Dean and I were caught by a few fast finishing half marathoners which was kind of cool. I encouraged them on and enjoyed looking at the crowd that had already built at the finish line area. As we came through halfway of our race I saw Riley on the side who said the second placed runner Alex Harvey up ahead wasn’t looking good and I shouldn’t get too carried away here with this small gap on the rest of the race. Heading up the hill though, with Riley’s good advice in my ears, I started to make a break on Dean without lifting the pace at all. Fuck, do I sit up here and keep some company, nah, trust yourself and keep it controlled but strong I thought. Chatting to Dean after the race he had heard Riley’s advice and was wishing I had dropped back to him which was funny to hear. Glad I didn’t!

Getting into my groove on my own through 21-26km’s I started to run a bit faster without necessarily trying. Again, I was trying to keep it controlled and keep my lead over Dean and another runner who had joined him whilst also working my way up towards second place. By 27/28km’s there was a turnaround point where I got a good look at first place Reece Edwards, too far in front, and second place Alex who looked cooked. Great, you’re mine. I must’ve passed him at 30km’s and had him sit on me for a few hundred metres before he faded off. As a 2:15 marathoner I have to give credit to him for trying to run a PB and going backwards. That could be me one day, a 2:15 guy getting passed by a 2:21 non-elite guy…

The next few km’s I had hoped would feel great, after 30km’s, time to pick up the pace. Instead, running into a slight headwind/cross wind I dropped a few seconds/km and it started to hurt. I wasn’t as jovial as I ran past my mates Goddsy and Will for the 5th or 6th time. They still said I looked good and had a good lead but I didn’t necessarily believe it. All I had to do now was make my way around the lake one more time and then it was a downhill run into the finish. As I turned around the lake the headwind/cross wind became a slight tailwind which gave me some relief for a bit. That got me to 35/36km’s before it became another headwind/crosswind but I was still in second place with around 6km’s to go so things were looking good.

I navigated my way through some 2hr 30-3hr half marathons for the final couple of km’s of the lake before finally turning back onto Sturt St. My calves were starting to send a few ‘warning sign’ cramps which made me nervous but I also knew I would have to drop down to 3:40/km or slower for the last two km’s to get passed. That’s a pace that I can hold pretty comfortably so started to relax knowing I was actually going to come 2nd and claim a PB.

Sure enough, without too much fanfare, I ran the final stretches and crossed in 2nd place in a time 2:18:36. It was somewhat anti-climatic with the announcer failing to recognise I was finishing so I basically crossed the line, stopped my watch, looked at some randoms on the side and was just like ‘I’ve come second… wahoo’. They were just as perplexed as me but eventually I saw Izzi and Riley at the finish along with Alice, who ran her own PB in the half marathon, and was able to celebrate.

I caught up with Jacob and a few others from the race in the elite room later and then well, it was onto the rest of the day really! Except I’d run the marathon so I was a lot less stressed. We checked out the 10km, cheered on some mates, got my big celebratory cheque, went to the pub for a meal of fish and chips and a beer, drove down to Melbourne, walked around the tan, had another beer, I dropped Alice off at the bus station as she was flying out on Sunday night and then ventured out to the Dohnt’s house in Brighton for the second time post-marathon this year. It was good to have dinner with them again before I flew out the next day and just take a pause from the running bubble I had put myself in.

Stepping out of the bubble and then back into it however meant I appreciated the significance of my achievement once again when putting together the remainder of this blog on the plane on Monday. In addition to the recap of events some other reflections I’ve had about the race and my training in the lead up have been:

• I was happy to race strongly and always felt ready to pick it up but never really needed to. It was tough in the patch between 30-33km’s but a few good words from Goddsy and Will got me through.
• I ran a negative split which is pretty good to do given I was solo during the whole second half.
• All my drinks/gels went down well. I opted not to take a couple onboard late as I was pretty full but in the end got 6 gels and about 1.25L down.
• I wouldn’t have changed anything about my strategy. Perhaps I could’ve got a faster time if I ran the first half 30-60s quicker but to do that would’ve been solo from the gun (maybe people would’ve joined but it’s hard to know).
• I’ve now moved to 5th all time on the SA list, in front of Jacob and still behind Riley. It’s now the second PB I have that’s faster than Jacob who has always been my benchmark of what it means to be a good runner. I still haven’t beaten him in a race yet though so a faster PB doesn’t mean much because…
• Racing a marathon is where it’s at. When you race a marathon, tracking the kilometre splits on your watch don’t really mean anything besides stopping you from going too fast too early. 
• My streak of finishing top three Australian in every marathon I have done still continues. It’s now 8 in a row and that includes three interstate marathons. Sydney this year will be my next interstate one and I look forward to a bit more Aussie depth there this year. 

In terms of training reflections:

• Overall the 25 week block was very good. Multiple pb’s and good race results. I ran lots of kilometres and implemented race pace specific training, good quality hill strides and track work for the first time before a marathon.

• In the next block I’d like to increase the volume ever so slightly, incorporate more race pace specific training, more special blocks and more powerful hill strides early on.
• I think my strength is a strength and I need to keep believing in the small improvements that come from consistency to bring my marathon pace from 3:17/km down to 3:10-3:12/km or faster so I can one day have a crack at running the state record (which is currently 2:12) or at least be competitive each year at a Melbourne or Gold Coast marathon (2:12-2:17 is likely to earn some prize money given the current depth). Adapting to the marathon takes a lot of years of doing the training I have done over the last 6 months, not just 6 months of it which is what I think a lot of people underestimate. Just because you can complete the training and the first 30km’s of a marathon doesn’t mean you are ready to complete the last 5-10km’s of a marathon.
• My weakness is my efficiency at 3:05-3:08/km pace and also my max speed. If I bring my max speed up, then my efficiency at all paces should improve. Or so the theory goes.
• As I said earlier, this race is likely to not be my lifetime PB so is therefore a good stepping stone to improve it again. Sydney is shaping up to be my next big marathon and then perhaps I can bite the financial bullet and make a pilgrimage to Japan for a famous marathon over there now that I have a sub 2:20 marathon under my belt. We’ll see I guess…

There you have it folks, the recap of my fastest marathon to date and probably one of my most meaningful and successful races in terms of my whole running career. I’d still place the 2023 National Mountain Champs race at the top and maybe Sydney Marathon just alongside it for significance but this is certainly in the top 3. Breaking 2:20 was something I thought was beyond me a few years ago so to run under it on my first real attempt was great. It turns out then that waiting for the sunrise was worth it in the end and now I’m living in the light of being a sub 2:20 marathoner… well, that’s pretty good but it doesn’t really change much I guess. I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing lately and get on with the day, like every other day when the sun comes up. In the short term that means my focus is on recovering from the race, getting some programs ticked off and preparing for this weekends Adelaide Marathon Festival. A rolling stone gathers no moss… Thanks for reading!