The foot injury is related to my first metatarsal area. I have seen two doctors about it without much movement towards 100%. I am positive it is related to the accident but not directly related (if I wasn't an athlete it probably wouldn't bother me). The second doctor did provide me some improvement which was promising. I will see him again this week to see what else we can do. It is important as an athlete to understand how your body operates. At least in a basic movement pattern way. There are certain movements that humans should be able to perform without difficulty. The long journey home from the race provided me opportunity to listen to my favorite podcasts. Kelly Starrett was on one of them discussing human movement and flexibility. For those who do not know, Kelly is the creator of mobilitywod.com. This website is an informative website on flexibility, movement, and recovery techniques related to life. I would highly recommend checking it out, at least for a couple minutes. But one of the things he was talking about was an overhead squat. Overhead squat is not that complicated of a movement but pulls together so many aspects of endurance athletics. The most important lesson it can teach is hip stability and shoulder mobility. Kelly describes some important information about the overhead squat below.
I am making a goal to increase my mobility drills for the day. It only takes a couple minutes a day to increase mobility which increases efficiency. Efficiency is an overlooked aspect in most athletes training plan. There are a few coaches out there, like Scott P. of IREP, that focus on form and efficiency because they realize how important it is to running, swimming, and cycling faster. A couple of minutes a day can be more beneficial then running 2 extra miles on an easy day. This was basically a long winded way of saying do some mobility work everyday. Look to mobilitywod.com if you need some ideas.
Sylvania International Distance Duathlon:
Sylvania Triathlon/Duathlon has been going on for over 30 years! 30 years for a smaler triahtlon is very impressive. Events like these cannot survive without the local community support and they definitely get it. The organization of the event and the support on the course is phenominal. I haven't experienced such friendly volunteers and determined organizers. I commend them on such a great event.
Like I described earlier, I came into this event with a foot injury. I didn't expect strong runs and it was kind of just seen as a good workout. The bike was a different story. I got on the bike and really wanted to test myself in the TT position. I did a very crappy standing mount because of my tender foot. After that, the first couple of miles were extremely rough road. It was flat but had a lot of bumps. My two gels fell out of the compartment on the in between arms aero bottle within the first couple of minutes. I was pissed but didn't get too worried. My main goal was to destroy myself on the bike, get the fastest bike split on the day (triathlon/duathlon). The fact that it was super flat and few turns made that pretty easy. I ended up getting the fastest bike split by over 5 minutes. This was a huge boost to my confidence. The second run (10km) was brutal though. I cramped extremely hard in my upper abdominal around mile 2. I even had to do a walk/run for a half mile until I got the cramps under control. After that my foot started to bother me so I kept it on the tempo side and didn't want to push it too hard. I ended up with the win by a long shot.
After the race I remembered to check the USAT rankings and even though this race hasn't been added to the total I was still 2nd in the nation for all duathletes. 2nd in the nation is an amazing accomplishment and I am excited to continue to improve on that placing.
Stay healthy out there!
