The thing I like about decathlon is also the thing I dislike: It's the maximum challenge, but also the maximum frustration.

Competition is pretty much the essence of everything, it gives humans drive.

To do the best that I possibly could in my world makes me pretty happy.

If you have done something once, you can do it again or you can do it better. The beauty is the pursuit of the limit, not the limit itself. At least that's what I hope people realize.

I'm not maximized yet.

I knew I could compete with most people in high school. It didn't quite give me an attitude, but it made me think I didn't have to try hard sometimes.

You can't really explain competing in Olympic event to someone. You can say, "Oh, that was really tough." And that literally means nothing to someone. If you can give some sort of comparison, because that's really all track and field is about any way....Usain Bolt runs a time and you get to see what everybody else's time is. It would just be interesting to compare Olympians to somebody who doesn't train their whole life.