Day by Day the Opponent is Me

You often hear football coaches talk about not looking past an opponent. Well for a masters pole vaulter with any significant meet months away, each practice is an individual opponent. You can't just slog through it half way and the turn up the intensity when you get closer to something important. You have to focus on every set and every rep of whatever you're doing or you simply won't get better. The calendar pages are flipping but you're not improving. This happens with a lot of high school vaulters who think that by taking some jumps a couple of days a week that they will get better. You won't, and it's frustrating.

So I face my biggest opponent every single day in practice and I'm sad to say that the opponent is me. I'm busy, I'm sore, I'm tired, I'm thinking about something else I need to be doing, I'm thinking it would be OK to cut this short, etc. I think I'm full of crap and won't listen to me. I just keep showing up every day and doing what I can to the best of my ability without risking injury. That's all I can ask of me. I certainly can't trust the "me" that's constantly in my head. I can only trust the one looking at this next individual component. Todays add up to be yesterdays, and if you have enough good yesterdays behind you then you will have many good todays. That's all I'm after. Thanks for enduring the rambling! Bubba