When you're competing, you don't have the choice of what the weather will be like. It really doesn't affect me. I ran one of my fastest times in the New York Diamond League meeting last year. It was raining pretty hard then.

To me, the flag represents the greatest ideals of the United States of America, not the worst, but different people look at different things and have different feelings about it. That's what freedom of expression is all about.

There are times when a golfer is tempted to throw her clubs away and forget the whole 'humblin' business.' At other times, she wouldn't trade places with a queen-that's when the shots are long and true, and putts are dropping.

When you change defenses, it's the same thing a lot of times. But different terminology means different things in that new defense. So you have to get accustomed to that. You have to study. Get in your books and pay attention.

The idea of prosthetics is a tool. Most people's cell phones are prosthetics. If you leave your cell phone at home, you feel impacted by not having it. It's an important part of your daily function and what you can do in a day.

It will be good fun finding out what sport baby's good at; perhaps it will be something obscure. My parents were fantastic at taking me to training sessions and letting me try lots of different sports, so I want to do the same.

I have run two Olympic 'A' standard times over the past 12 months and with the time I ran at the African Championships last week I know my speed and fitness are constantly improving so that I will peak in time for the Olympics.

It almost hurts me to walk down a road and have people grab my hand and ask for my autograph and not sit and talk. When I'm finished I'm not going to be on the front page, but I'm going to be just as happy without the publicity.

Probably the biggest thing around not training correctly is eating. You've got to fuel your system correctly, and I think what we're very unfortunate with in this country [UK] is the [lack of] education around food and nutrition.

Your spikes, which were really quite long then, would catch the material of the track and your shoe would get heavier. I was simply filing them down and rubbing some graphite on the spikes. I thought I would run more effectively.

If we want to discover the full potential in our humanity, we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths and those glorious disabilities we all have. It is our humanity and all the potential within it that makes us beautiful.

I had a series of childhood illnesses... scarlet fever.... pneumonia.... Polio. I walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports.

Various kinds of fish provide an abundant source of protein and are often leaner than other animal sources, so if I want my bodyweight to come down a bit, I can focus a bit more on fish and a bit less on protein sources like steak.

Being at school, being who I am, being an athlete, it was hard to find people like me. There's not many athletes that can be at my level. That was kind of hard finding people who love something so much they want to keep on doing it.

Jumping isn't as important to my training as you might think; I'm only in the sandpit once a week. There's a high risk factor of injury doing it, so instead, I rely on my progress in the gym to judge how far I'll jump on the big day.

One of the pillar ideas of how CrossFit thinks of physical fitness is how competent an individual is at cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, agility, and balance.

When I started playing the game I was just worried about making that next tackle. Especially as a rookie, you're figuring out what you're doing and where you're supposed to be going, what the defense is, and trying not to make mistake.

Coming over to Europe you can always put on weight really easily because you are not doing your normal routine at home. It is just a bit more discipline and not eating breads and pastas which are my favourite foods in the entire world.

You know when there's a star, like in show business, the star has her name in lights on the marquee! Right? And the star gets themoney because the people come to see the star, right? Well, I'm the star, and all of you are in the chorus.

First of all, we love football. We want to be on the football field as much as we can be. If we can be out there, it may be stupid, it may be dumb, call me dumb and stupid then, because that's what... I want to be on the football field.

Success doesn't come overnight and there's certain things you can't do. I've missed so many weddings, christenings and birthdays, but I know all my family are there behind me, wanting me to do really well and it was worth the sacrifice.

If the legs did provide such an advantage that some of the people are claiming they did, then there would be a lot more amputees using the exact same prosthetic legs I have, running the exact same times I have - and that's not the case.

What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.

If we want to discover the full potential in our humanity, we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have...it is our humanity, and all the potential within it that makes us beautiful.

Your spikes, which were really quite long then, would catch the material of the track and your shoe would get heavier. I was simply filing them down and rubbing some graphite on the spikes, so that I thought I would run more effectively.

Playing behind a first-ballot Hall of Famer, who also is the all-time record holder for consecutive starts by a quarterback, it's a different mind-set. You just have to challenge yourself in ways that you never challenged yourself before.

The triumph can't be had without the struggle. And I know what struggle is. I have spent a lifetime trying to share what it has meant to be a woman first in the world of sports so that other young women have a chance to reach their dreams.

As you get older, the summer is less of a vacation and more of a training period by yourself away from the team. It's exciting for me. I felt like I've been really getting better as far as my conditioning every single season as I get older.

The advice I have for beginners is the same philosophy that I have for runners of all levels of experience and ability -- consistency, a sane approach, moderation and making your running an enjoyable, rather than dreaded, part of your life.

The beauty of our country is that when it was founded that they took some time to lay out civil liberties in the first 10 Amendments - the Bill of Rights. I'm a firm believer in those civil liberties and the ability to have your own opinion.

I've gotten to learn what's important in life and what's not important, and what to spend energy on and what not to. I don't have a family like some of my teammates, but I have a lot of things pulling at me that I have to put my energy into.

I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'

Kids are naturally curious about what they don't know, or don't understand, or what is foreign to them. They only learn to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way and censors that natural curiosity.

To have been selected to represent Team South Africa at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the individual 400m and the 4x400m relay is a real honor and I am so pleased that years of hard work, determination and sacrifice have all come together.

In my case, I thoroughly enjoy running 100-odd miles a week. If I didn't I wouldn't do it. Who can define happiness? To some, happiness is a warm puppy or a glass of cold beer. To me, happiness is running in the hills with my mates around me.

I definitely look to people like Usain Bolt and Sanya Richards and especially Allyson Felix, being an American athlete who went pro right after high school. Of course I would like to replicate that career, but obviously as a 1500-meter runner.

Whether we athletes liked it or not, the 4-minute mile had become rather like an Everest: a challenge to the human spirit, it was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it, an irksome reminder that men's striving might be in vain.

You get very tired, and there was a certain amount of pain and you slow up. Your legs are so tired that you are in fact slowing. If you don't keep running, keep your blood circulating, the muscles stop pumping the blood back and you get dizzy.

But I'm after medals more than anything. Championships don't get taken away from you but records do, so I think I'd rather have medals at every championships rather than times. A world record would be a bonus, but I'm still only 25 in 17 days.

See I'm used to seeing myself with hair now, so it's not a big deal. Now when I see pictures of me bald I'm like 'ew.' But people are used to seeing me bald so when I'm walking around without the hat on, I see people doing a lot of double takes.

It seems that nearly every week there is a problem where information is leaked or computers hacked. I'm conscious of keeping my details as safe as possible. I might be old but I'm still bright and prefer to go into my local branch and see a face.

Everyone always asks if I'm going to 'make my kids do CrossFit.' I'll never make them do anything. I will, however, make sure that they're physically active in some way, that they'll play some type of sport or do gymnastics or dance or something.

I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me. You can't possibly speak for a diverse group of people. I don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy.

I draw a lot of comparisons with Cam Newton and E.J. Manuel. But for the mental part, I like to view myself as Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and those guys. Because they're so ahead of everyone else when it comes to that part of the game.

I've been to CrossFit affiliates all over the world and the programming varies, the coaches are different, but it feels the same. Always welcoming, always fun. Whereas with a regular gym you go in, put your headphones on and don't talk to anybody.

When I was doing poorly at school, my father yanked me out and got me a job in a shoe factory. After three weeks, I begged him to give me another chance at doing well in school. I learned that discipline is necessary to accomplish anything in life.

It's a special honor to be one of the leaders of this football team. But I said it once, I'll say it again, no one person wins a game by themselves. Individually, it's top of the mountain, my sport, my profession. It's what you dream about as a kid.

At some point in every person's life, you will need an assisted medical device - whether it's your glasses, your contacts, or as you age and you have a hip replacement or a knee replacement or a pacemaker. The prosthetic generation is all around us.

We live in a society in which female weight is both fetishized and also under so much scrutiny. And so trying to shame somebody into losing weight is just such, I mean, an emotionally, psychologically and mentally traumatizing way to coach somebody.

It's just dumb that people think that. 'Why did you help that guy up after you tackled him?' Because I wanted to. What's the big deal? 'Butkus would have never done that.' Well, I'm not Dick Butkus. I'm Brian Urlacher, and sometimes I help people up.

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