April's Already Gone Away

Man time is flying by! IMTX is two weeks away and the reality and immediacy of it sinks in a little more each day. I've been very task orientated for weeks now, but I still have a scary-long to-do list before I head off for Houston.

From a training perspective, the last week of March and most of April were my last big building block, so April was time and mileage heavy. I’m proud to report that I finished this block both happy and healthy! Plus I made measurable improvements and achieved new distance milestones across all three individual sports.

My mental preparation has gone well also. I've managed to stay motivated and I also forced myself to finish the details of my nutrition and hydration plans. I've been practicing these plans for a while now, but I really wanted to get everything written down and mapped out and yes, I finally got that done.

I've been thinking about what I've learned through this process and there is a blog post brewing.  I've also started thinking about my post IM goals, so keep an eye out for that post as well.

Open Goals:
Back in September I posted a goal about swimming a 1000m TT in 20 minutes or less. At the time, that was a crazy goal, but I threw it out there as something to keep me motivated and to keep me swimming while I decided what I was going to do next. I had no specific plan at the time, but I kept swimming anyway. Once I made my IMTX decision and seriously increased my swimming mileage, my times started to fall. Since you follow me closely, you already know that I have lowered my 1000m time a little bit over each of the past few months and I’m happy to say that in April I finally achieved my goal by swimming a 19:57. What’s even better is that I swam that as part of what turned out to be a 3000m set where my first 1000 was 19:57, the second was 20:12 and the third was 20:55. I feel like I’m ready for Lake Woodlands!

At this particular moment, I don’t have any open goals other than those that I described in my IMTX 2013 goals post a couple of weeks ago.

Now to close with the April numbers since I care even though nobody else does…

Swim:
18 miles (new training record)
First sub 20:00 minute 1000m time trial! (19:57)

Bike:
432 miles (new training record)
First 100+ mile ride!

Run:
133 miles (new training record)
First 20+ mile run!
Plus a new training PR for 13.1 miles!