Imani-Lara Lansiquot reflects on two reaching two important milestones in May as she steps forward into June.

Last month I completed both my season openers and my first year at university! It’s been excruciatingly tiring and busy, yet it feels like such an amazing feat to have two big goals ticked off my list. On Saturday (June 2), I actually had my first day of ‘freedom’ if you like, and it’s weird to feel like an athlete-athlete instead of a student-athlete for the first time, in what feels like forever.

It was a pretty positive month, and even though it had challenges, I found I managed my second bout of exams a lot better than my first. I also my season opener in Weinheim, Germany, and it was my fastest opener to date.

Amongst the craziness of May, the most important thing for me was to stay in my bubble, focus on my priorities and protect my energy as much as possible.

Prioritising goals

I don’t know if you’re like me, but sometimes I feel like I go with the flow of each day too much, and at times feel pretty overwhelmed by all of the things I need to do that week because I just forget to plan. This month was different though. I had a plan for each week, with small goals, both physical and mental, and it was what actually kept me sane during the exam/race overlap.

If I had of sat down in the beginning and wrote down ALL of my revision/training goals as one long list I would have shed a tear, but by splitting goals and tasks up into bitesize chunks it made it easier for me to commit to revision, and to continue to progress in my training.

In one week, I’d prioritise completing a module’s worth of revision, nailing that training cue that we have been working and working on.

Having a clear idea of my priorities instead of improvising the week allowed me to ensure that anything that detracted from my ability to work on the module, on my training cue, or on my focus was something that was more easily filtered out. I’m definitely not there yet, but I think this was a huge step forward that has helped me to enjoy the positives and distance from anything or anyone that promotes negativity.

Now solely focused on the track

On Sunday (June 3), I competed once again over the 100m. This time it was in Regensburg, Germany and I was super happy to leave with a new season’s best of 11.24s, which is an improvement on the 11.39s that I posted last week in Weinheim.

It is my second fastest time to date, so I hope to build some consistency around the performance and improve further in the upcoming months.

Looking ahead to my next few races this year my plan is to just keep moving on the positive trajectory that I have going, and to remain injury free. My next race will be in Geneva, Switzerland, where I‘ll be running in the relay, and also in my first 200m in six years.

My coach and I have decided on a plan for the year that takes into account both outcome goals and more importantly, process goals, so I’m looking forward to seeing how many of these I am able to achieve.