Day 4

I'm sitting under the boulder right now writing this, thinking not so positive thoughts. It just feels so hard today. Going into this, I knew I would have good days and bad days, but with the way progress was being made so quickly I sort of thought I'd just do it. I thought I would do it today. Instead I saw a regression. I'm frustrated I walked all the way up here. I can't waste precious skin on worthless attempts. The second move is the crux. I've done it. More than once. Today I wasn't even close.

I started out positive, my body felt alright, my skin was good. I was talking to myself before pulling on each time, "You can do this. You can do this." And then I failed miserably, over and over again, on the jump, coming off screaming in anger sometimes. Of course it felt good to scream. Did it make me get any higher? No.

With some mild form of last-ditch optimism I put my shoes on one last time and as I was grabbing the start holds thought, "What are you doing? You can't do this today." And that was that. It was over. I let go of the start holds, sat down, took my shoes off and packed up. Even if physically I could have done the climb today, mentally I had already failed. I had defeated myself.

I can get to the top of this, but anger, frustration and doubt are not going to get me there.

I know better.

I can not let myself be the reason for defeat.