Kristin Armstrong Quotes

I didn't know that you could race your bike until after college. I didn't know anything about cycling except that I rode my bike from class to class or to my friend's house. But here I am an athlete, I ran, I played soccer, I swam and people are riding their bikes and racing them? I had never seen a bike race.

I want to get more comfortable being uncomfortable. I want to get more confident being uncertain. I don't want to shrink back just because something isn't easy. I want to push back, and make more room in the area between I can't and I can.

I had to quit triathlons, I continued to be active and worked in advertising agency .

As a nation, China, is one of the most powerful countries around and if anyone can make something happen, if anything is in their control and they can make things happen and make things the best and look at their country as a beautiful place to come visit and our people are great they're going to do it. I feel like everything that hasn't been perfect over there is out of their hands. They've done everything they can to make it perfect.

I think it doesn't happen overnight, that's for sure. As the first gold medalist since 1984, I think cycling needs to ride that wave right now, because people are excited.

In America with the Olympics when you not only have a medal but a gold medal all of a sudden people come out of the wood work and you're treated a little bit differently. I guess that's where my personality is, that's where I just can't get used to all this.

It's not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.

To be honest, if I had to pick somebody to be related to in sport, who's better than Lance Armstrong with what he's done for the sport and with his cancer foundation?

A run has never returned me exactly the same. I go, I grow.

Running fills a need so we make fewer demands on others. Running reveals the roots of negative thinking, so the weeds can be pulled. Running reconnects the soul to the source, inspiring hope and creativity.

We either live with intention or exist by default.

I think once an athlete always an athlete and once you have a competitive nature about you, in general, it's hard to let go. Whether you're going to take it into medicine or take it into sport, the competitive drive never really leaves.

When we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in.

Take care of yourself. Eat well, rest, train hard and smart, make time to think and breathe. Be intentional with your time.

Parents walk a fine line between discipline and grace - values have to hold even when circumstances change or call for compromise or compassion. It's the ultimate challenge to be both firm and fluid, soft and strong, yielding yet rock solid.

Running has taken me in, and continues to comfort, heal and challenge me in all kinds of magical ways. I am not a 'good runner' because I am me. I am a good 'me' because I am a runner.

We can thank God for everything good, and all the rest we don't comprehend yet.

I think I run my strongest when I run with joy, with gratitude, with focus, with grace.

I think I get used to, even addicted to, the feelings associated with the end of a long training run. I love feeling empty, clean, worn out, starving, and sweat-purged. I love the good ache of muscles that have done me proud. I love the way a cold beer tastes later that afternoon. I love the way my body feels light and sinewy.

Cycling is not impactful. Its just like when you are injured, have a knee surgery or something, there are so many things that you can still do, you just have to find that other passion that's out there.

It's easy to lose sight of God when life is sweet and easy, but there is something awesome about despair, and it is the closeness of God when we are at our weakest.

Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph.

I think I run my strongest when I run with joy, with gratitude, with focus, with grace. With that strategy in place I can push myself for pleasure, not punishment. Maybe you can only really go when you let go.

The way the Europeans work, most girls get paid by their federation; their country pays them. Essentially the federations say go represent our country, race on whatever trade team you want, and here's your money. So you don't really make you're money on trade teams. Europeans make money through their country's federation. There's not a lot of money for women in cycling in Europe either.

I don't think that the Olympic games are a good place to bring up any political issues because it should be about the athletes and about coming together. This year's motto was One World, One Dream and to take that away it's just not a good time.

I would love to end my European campaign with the World Championship stripes on my back. But everything else that I have in my mind right now is to continue working with and having my little camps for women cyclists.

Unless you have a specific injury or a disease, I think a lot of people don't quite understand. I think a lot of people put arthritis in the same category. There's a real difference from someone whose joints swell, that's probably rheumatoid arthritis, than what I have.

Do the things you used to talk about doing but never did. Know when to let go and when to hold on tight. Stop rushing. Don't be intimidated to say it like it is. Stop apologizing all the time. Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph. Spend time with the friends who lift you up, and cut loose the ones who bring you down. Stop giving your power away. Be more concerned with being interested than being interesting. Be old enough to appreciate your freedom, and young enough to enjoy it. Finally know who you are.

To me, there is no greater way to achieve clarity than to run alone, or share miles with a trusted friend.

If we write our dreams and goals down, we dramatically increase our odds of realization. If we share them with others, they become potent and alive.

When it comes down to it, determination has a greater impact than giftedness.

What I have learned about the sport of cycling is that you have to love it to do it because you're not going to retire off of it.

Cycling is such an endurance sport. I don't think it's the worst thing ever to start when you're in your twenties.

What's really appealing about women's cycling in America? If you took a poll in the women's peloton, I would bet you that 90% of the women have college degrees, and a lot of them have Masters. The women's peloton is very well educated.

Before the Olympics, there's always been a part of me that's wanted to write a book about Women's cycling because there isn't one out there and I think there's a lot to be said.

Without running, I would have missed the joy of rain. What could be considered an inconvenience or a bummer to the inexperienced is actually a gift. Without running, I would miss a lot of things-like seeing cities in a certain way, or knowing certain people all the way to the core. I'm glad we don't experience life through glass, under cover, or from the sidelines. Good things take miles.

Disappointment is a sticky one, because no one can steal contentment, joy, gratitude, or peace - we have to give it away.

That's what our training is for, we practice not panicking, we practice breathing, we practice looking directly at the thing that scares us until we stop flinching, we practice overriding our Can't.

I was a runner and a soccer player living in Okinawa, Japan and I didn't have recruiters coming in to recruit me for sports. So how many kids out there and planning to go to college are super stud athletes but don't have a chance because they come from some podunk town and no one comes to watch them?

What I've learned over the last 6 or 7 years, I would love to teach people. I still have a lot to share with people and especially within the US.

I talk about role models a lot and wanting to be a role model for kids around me because I didn't have that growing up.

I feel like I've done everything I can, and what I wanted to do.

I think, as most of us do, I put such high expectations on myself that this spills over onto other people. And not everyone is wired this way. Some people can shrug expectations off their shoulders like a cardigan, remaining cool and breezy. Others wear them like a parka with a stuck zipper, hot and stifling.

It's funny because when there's something written about me in Velonews or Cyclingnews, the headline isn't "the other" Armstrong; its Armstrong wins another race. With Lance in retirement, everyone I know goes to those sites because they think Lance is racing again.

If people are looking at me in my hometown, then every woman that races against me in the peloton is as well. I can tell you, every one of them now believes that they can do it. When I go to a Cascade or Nature Valley and they race against me, the girls that are say 30 seconds from me at the races are all of a sudden saying 'I'm 30 seconds from gold I mean why can't I do this.'

I love the sport, I haven't made millions off of it so maybe that's why I just feel like a normal person, I just feel regular, so that when I walk out of my house now with people requesting autographs in the middle of Albertson's aisles. I realize that I did go to the Olympics and did come back with a gold medal, but this is all strange. Somebody pinch me please, because I'm just here on my couch at night watching the Olympics now like everyone else in the world.

I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.

When the seasons shift, even the subtle beginning, the scent of a promised change, I feel something stir inside me. Hopefulness? Gratitude? Openness? Whatever it is, it's welcome.