A Life Without Limits: A World Champion's Journey

When things are tough, you get tougher.

Pick your battles, and accept yourself for who you are.

Some sessions are stars and some sessions are stones, but in the end they are all rocks and we build upon them.

To be happy with myself and always make others happy. To be confident and give others confidence in themselves. To smile, to surf, to laugh and make others laugh. To read more widely. To try to be more tolerant of my weaknesses and of others, and not to be so hard on myself all the time.

Just seize every opportunity you have, embrace every experience. Make a mark, for all the right reasons.

...Life is nothing but a habit. Get to work.

If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl.-Martin Luther King

I'm a warrior and a fighter, I race fair and I race clean.

I had to make the most of it; I had to make the most of me. There could be no slack, anywhere, not in my time, not in my head, not across my skin. If there were any, the guilt wouldn't bear thinking about.

Live... More than your neighbors. Unleash yourself upon the world and go places. Go now. Giggle, no, laugh. No... stay out past dark, And bark at the moon like the wild dog that you are. Understand that this is not a dress rehearsal. This is it... your life. Face your fears and live your dreams. Take it in. Yes, every chance you get... come close. And, by all means, whatever you do... Get it on film.

...some sessions are stars and some sessions are stones, but in the end they are all rocks and we build upon them.

i think, then i pick, and then i stick. and nothing shifts me more from my view. no bad races, no bad sessions, no bad moods.

The key is not to be afraid of failing.

She transcends her sport, which is what any sport needs...And she does it while smiling the whole time. It's kind of a joke, but then again it's not, especially if you're a male pro trailing in her wake. To have this woman in the middle of such a suffer fest out there crushing people and smiling all the way...

This may be the final note and closure of a very special part of my coaching career. The last piece of the puzzle that I wanted to see complete from our first meeting has been delivered. I gained incredible satisfaction from your race at the weekend. No, not from the race performance--that didn't interest me--- but to see you in full happiness in the arms of your man, looking up with all the admiration one can summon in a most happy and fulfilling time.

I want to give thanks to my wonderful mum and dad, my brother and sister-in-law, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and cousins for providing me with a family cocoon of love, support and encouragement; to Tom for teaching me the meaning of true love; to my friends around the world, most of whom have known me long before triathlon, and whose support means more to me than they could ever know.

The trip did me the world of good. I did think of ironman, but it seemed a long way away. I was able to find myself again, to feel independent.

My first instincts as a fiercely independent woman were to rebel against him, which I would find myself doing a few times in the months ahead.

We lost ourselves in a bubble of family and celebrations, which carried on over to lunch the next day. It meant that Tom and I returned to Boulder on 1 May full of the joys and ready to take on anything.

Because it is the recreational athletes who inspire me through the tough times, the everyday heroes who juggle training with a full-time job, a family and other commitments.

Friends and family are the thread that runs throughout our lives, no matter where those lives take us.

Develop a mind bank of positive images and thoughts – family, friends, previous successes, favourite places, a big plate of chips.

We would be put up by a family, go on daytrips, experience a new country, new food.

To my amazement, at so many stages along the way, the limits that I thought I could see in the distance dissolved as I approached them. They turned out not to be real at all, but mere assumptions. And that has been the most exciting revelation of them all.

There is never a destination, just the impulse to grow. My only policy through has been to keep an open mind and whatever I may do, to give it my all.

I didn’t want anyone to say to me even something as innocuous as, ‘You look well’, because we all knew what that was a euphemism for.