April went by quickly, time seems to be accelerating towards June 24, I wonder if July and August will go by very slowly. April was a bad blogging month, I posted a total of 7 times, FAIL! I wish that I could look back and say that April was a great confidence building month but it wasn’t. I am trying to look on the bright side and hope this was my chance to get through some difficult situations and that everything will be much easier going into Ironman.
April started out with a trip to Portland for a family funeral and a PR at a half marathon. It was nice to see family and enjoy a race in my favorite city even if the circumstances weren’t great.
My mom turned 60, and asked for events instead of presents. My event doesn’t happen until June but my brother decided to take us up the Cog Train to Pikes peak. Cory and I needed to get in a long run so we got up early, ran 16 miles, took a quick ice bath and got ready to head down to Colorado Springs. We had a great time even though we couldn’t make it to the top because of high winds.
Work was extremely busy, but spring is always our busy time so I should have known.
Then Cory and I drove to Las Vegas. The week leading up to RAGE I was a ball of nerves, I was nervous enough about my first triathlon of the season, but add on top of that it was a half ironman, a really difficult course and forecasted to be in high 90s.
On the bright side, the swim went well and the bike was easier than I thought it would be. The run on the other hand was awful. I was not prepared for the heat, I jog/walked the half marathon and there were many times I wasn’t sure that I would finish the race. I did finish but it didn’t build my confidence that I could double the distance. It was surprising how I wasn’t very sore after this race, nothing compared to the half marathon from the beginning of the month . Goes to show that not being able to run hard and recovering correctly makes a big difference.
After getting home we had to say goodbye to the sweetest dog in the world this was not an easy time for my family but it was time.
Overall April was not the worst month but I am glad to put it behind me and hopefully move onto a better month that will help my confidence.
May is lined up to be an exciting months of Personal Records, most of these will be distances or amounts of time training but I am kind of hoping to PR in a race as well. Here are some highlights I am looking forward to and goals I am hoping to reach in May:
• Starting Peak training and putting in 20+ hours a week swim-bike-run-yogaing
• PR-ing at Greenland 25k (guarantee since I have never ran a 25k before)
• Riding my first over 100 mile ride at Boco Loco
• PRing at the Colfax Marathon, this is not an A race so I won’t be devastated if I don’t but I would like to beat last years time from the Colorado Marathon
• Not IM related but I am looking forward to spending sometime in New Mexico visiting a ranch where we will be doing some conservation research
(source)
• Completing a metric Ironman supported by my coach as one of our last big training weekends
• But most importantly I hope to consistently nail my training so that I can go into June feeling confident about my efforts and looking forward to taper
What are your hopes for May?
