From the age of seven, I basically started practicing my hand-eye and foot coordination, balance, strength, endurance, discipline, and mental toughness three days a week until I was about 15.
I think watching multi-events is much worse than competing. Especially when you have vested interests because you go through the emotional ups and downs.
When I was a junior and an up-and-coming athlete, I don't think I looked to anyone for inspiration. I was so busy trying to improve myself and learning these new events and learning about the decathlon in general that I didn't really have time to focus on anyone else.
I would say 90 percent of the stuff we do is technical anyway. If you look at a two-hour training day, 12 minutes are probably spent running or gaining fitness.
The strong ones are the ones who realize that having a bad training day, those types of days are necessary.
I actually like indoor track and field more than outdoor.