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Part I - Tight Hips, Locked Glutes, Movie Metaphors...

Thursday, 02 September 2021 00:10

By Ted Treise

The first part of the season is wrapped up. It started in April @ 70.3 Texas, from there we raced two more 70.3’s at St G & Des Moines along with a local duathlon then finally Heart of the Lakes Tri. The goal of this blog is to break down each section of each race of my season so far along with my thoughts behind it. The breakdown will be segmented into a few sections making it semi-readable.

The Lead Up

Going into the season I had my goals which you can read about HERE (schedule emerges pt 2) & two other things I really want to touch on are 1.) Mobility & 2.) Equipment.

For mobility, I’m doing two things – 1.) biweekly massages at Odom Health and 2.) hiring a Strength & Mobility Coach. For the massages, I really feel like this adds an edge to my program. They feel amazing and help me hit the reset button after a hard stretch of wkos....

For strength & mobility, I felt like there was room to improve. My shoulders allowed me to maybe make the Y of the YMCA song while going off the walls in the pool and my hips were constantly tight. What I was doing was not working so I reached out to Kevin of KP Coaching to help. In his program, each day is assigned a session lasting anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes. I really really believe in the benefits from this time invested and have no intention on deviating.
 
For equipment, my stuff was pretty budget before. Second hand bikes, ripped wet suits fixed with puddy & questionable tubulars. I needed to tighten everything up. To do this, I reached out to Dimond bikes & begged for a contract. We agreed on a deal & I could not imagine being on a better bike. Additionally, I got a Roka wetsuit & that thing is amazing compared to my other brand that started with a high scoring scrabble character. Finally, I received a super nice disc wheel through the help of Gear West. It scares the heck out of me to travel with but showing up to the races knowing you’re on the best possible equipment is something you cannot put a price on.

 
Ironman Texas 70.3

This race was the first one of the season. Our goal was to shake the rust off and get ready for the season. All I can say about that plan is it sounds great on paper but man it’s hard to show up at a pro race with the likes of Sanders, Long, Hanson, Kanute, etc and be cool with ‘shaking the rust off’.

S: I was stoked with my swim. Before I was way off the back of the main group in no man’s land. It was embarrassing at best. However this year in Texas, I made a pack for the first time and hung tight. This really underscores that the mobility work & my approach to pool time is working.

B: That same pack from the swim was my group for the bike. We worked together until getting obliterated by the headwind on the way back. When you’re heading into the halfway turn around with 50min on the clock and see Lionel’s pack moving 2 MPH with gritted teeth you know  lots of lots and lots of pain awaits. We hit the turn-around and it was the worst headwind I’ve ever experienced. I have no idea what happened to the pack but it was just me for a bit. I think some guys blew off into the ocean. One was hit by a flying cow. Another had a house land on him (but they saved his ruby red cleats). thankfully a couple guys formed again and we worked as a group back into town. Well, actually, I’ll be honest here. I took some garbage pulls but found myself glued to the pack due to our headwind.

You’ll hear pros complain about this a lot how there’s people not working in the pack. But what do you do when you cannot work – when you’re at your limit to just hold on. Jump on the hoods and brake? “I’ll see you at transition guys, this pace was just right but I’m unable to push an extra 50 watts for 10 minutes” I have no idea what to do here, I am not going to brake and let the pack go then at the same time I can’t physically pull so thanks for the ride I guess.
 
R: Back in town right before the run, my glutes locked up and it was game over for the race. I hobbled around on the run and nabbed that finisher medal. More time in the TT position was needed but there was some huge gains from prior years on the swim and bike giving me excitement in races to come. (End of Part I)