My only talent is that I have a so-called big engine. I can attack on successive days - well maybe now not so often - or ride tempo at the front of the peloton for a week. I'm not a climber or a sprinter. Whatever makes the race sticky, fast and difficult is good for me. I'm just a big motor - I think I'm allowed to say that - and a fighter. I'll do whatever it takes to make the race.
I can always do five, five-minute rounds, any day, even if I was drinking yesterday or doing whatever. I'm a seasoned athlete, an endurance athlete, and I'm always working out.
I've been an exercise maniac most of my adult life, running marathons and triathlons, doing that as a regular way of life. I ran eight miles a day, every day for 29 years.
My biggest weakness as a endurance athlete has been in not drinking enough water after training, thereby racing sometimes while dehydrated.
I am a lonely runner, but I am a long-distance runner.
There's only one thing I love more than race day: the morning after! The morning after the Marathon, New York catches running fever. The Hudson River bike path on Manhattan's west side was like a traffic jam of joggers on Monday morning. No doubt the great race fires up the endurance athlete in all of us - and it's beautiful.
I have never doped … I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.
My school career was absolutely crucial to me. As an endurance athlete, some of the most important years are maybe when you are 16, 17, and 18. For me, getting that right was very important, and my school allowed me to do that.
What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potential embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint.
