Well, You Better Ride Like You Stole

What Makes A Great Endurance Athlete Is The Ability To Absorb Potenial Embarrassment, And To Suffer Without Complaint. I Was Discovering That If It Was A Matter Of Gritting My Teeth, Not Caring How It Looked, And Outlasting Everybody Else, I Won. It Didn't Seem To Matter What Sport It Was-in A Straight-ahead, Long-distant Race, I Could Beat Anybody. If It Was A Suffer-fest, I Was Good At It.

When I Was Sick, I Didn't Want To Die. When I Race, I Don't Want To Lose. Dying And Losing, It's The Same Thing.

The Ban Is Completely Out Of My Hands. And I Think In Most People's Minds, Even If It's Unrealistic To Them, It's One That I Left Myself With No Choice On.

What Is Stronger, Fear Or Hope?

I Wanted To Live, But Whether I Would Or Not Was Mystery, And In The Midst Of Confronting That Fact, Even At That Moment, I Was Beginning To Sense That To Stare Into The Heart Of Such A Fearful Mystery Wasn't A Bad Thing. To Be Afraid Is A Priceless Education. P 99