During our lives...we experience so many setbacks, and fight such a hand-to-hand battle with failure, head down in the rain, just trying to stay upright and to have a little hope.

I don't think history is stupid.History ultimately rectifies a lot of these things. If you had to ask me what I think happens in 50 years, I don't think it sits empty in 50 years. Maybe somebody else's name is there. But you can't leave it empty.

I rode, and I rode, and I rode. I rode like I had never ridden, punishing my body up and down every hill I could find. I rode when no one else would ride.

Through my illness I learned rejection. I was written off. That was the moment I thought, Okay, game on. No prisoners. Everybody's going down.

I've read that I flew up the hills and mountains of France. But you don't fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully up a hill, and maybe, if you work very hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else.

Your past forms you, whether you like it or not. Each encounter and experience has its own effect, and you're shaped the way the wind shapes a mesquite tree on a plain.

It's tough to be a 15- or 16-year-old athlete competing around the country. There's tension, there's media. I had no idea what I was getting into.