Rivalries don't necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.

That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again.

The only thing you can never change is your values.

You owe it to yourself to find your own unorthodox way of succeeding, or sometimes, just surviving.

You can't control what the other athlete is going to do; you can't control anything except for your competition and how you execute the race or how you execute the task.

It is important that you strive for humility, but not humiliation, for a cool, level-headed confidence, not a stiff, delusional arrogance.

The only one who can beat me is me.