I'm Getting Too Old For This...

It seems that many collegiate athletes retire from sport after their varsity career, too many times have I been told that by the time I'm 25 I'll be fat and out of shape. I'm entering my third year of CIS eligibility out of a possible five but even when I'm finished I have no plans of stopping training. I know that real life gets in the way, trying to build a career, relationships ect. but it's all about prioritizing. The vast majority of people would rather go out on a Friday night instead of sitting at home alone, icing and planning next weeks workout's. And that's quite understandable but I am a firm believer that you can only get out what you put in. It's not enough to be an athlete for a couple hours a day, you have to be an athlete 24/7 if you truly want to reach your potential.

   When I'm 25 I don't want to be on the downside of my career or be out of sport altogether, I want to be just entering my prime years. Right now, at 19, I feel as though I am just starting to understand the mechanics of a good training program and my knowledge of the sport of track and field is about 20% of what it needs to be. But even so, I'm working towards jumping 15.00m which has been my goal since I started track and field. I know that I'm not there yet but sometimes I get excited thinking of how close I am to a distance that has always been just a dream. There wasn't a single jumper over 50 feet (15.20m) this year in Canada... and knowing that I'm nowhere near my potential keeps me motivated. I want to jump 15.00m, I want to jump 16.00m and who knows, maybe even 17.00m but it's going to take countless sacrifices. Sometimes I look at "normal" non-athletes and I feel so envious of them, how they can go to movies and scarf down a bag of pop-corn or stay out late while not worrying about being fatigued at practice the next day. It would be so easy to slip into that kind of "normal" life but that's the last thing I desire, I want to reach my peak with no regrets, knowing that this is the farthest could have possible jumped.