Kristin Armstrong
Without running, I would have missed the joy of rain. What could be considered an inconvenience or a bummer to the inexperienced is actually a gift. Without running, I would miss a lot of things-like seeing cities in a certain way, or knowing certain people all the way to the core. I'm glad we don't experience life through glass, under cover, or from the sidelines. Good things take miles.Collection: Running
Embrace your sweat. It is your essence and your emancipation.Collection: Essence
A run has never returned me exactly the same. I go, I grow.Collection: Running
I find significance in all kinds of small details when I run; I'm hyper aware of my surroundings, the sensations in my body, and the thoughts running through my mind. Everything is clearer, heightened. I might be more addicted to this clarity than I am to running itself.Collection: Running
In the midst of regular life, running is the touchstone that breathes adventure into my soul.Collection: Running
Thank God for running. It is the ultimate detox for me, whether my poison is bubbles, a foul mood, or a bad attitude. If I combat inertia, get out, and get moving, eventually every kind of toxin works its way out.Collection: Running
Every mile marker can be met with some measure of trepidation, in a race or in life. Am I on target? Do I have what it takes to finish strong? Am I taking care to stay nourished so I can endure? Is my training proving to be sufficient? Am I prepared for the hills? It is impossible to fathom the full distance, so we make our way to the next mile marker, and the next, checking in with ourselves as we go.Collection: Strong
We can thank God for everything good, and all the rest we don't comprehend yet.Collection: Thank God
We postpone the finality of heartbreak by clinging to hope. Though this might be acceptable during early or transitional stages of grief, ultimately it is no way to live. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past.Collection: Grief
That's what our training is for, we practice not panicking, we practice breathing, we practice looking directly at the thing that scares us until we stop flinching, we practice overriding our Can't.Collection: Practice
Running is a grownup's lost link to playing outside.Collection: Running
Running is always an exercise in humility.Collection: Running
I'm not the kind to go out and tell people 'Oh yeah I'm a gold medalist.'Collection: People
I think I run my strongest when I run with joy, with gratitude, with focus, with grace. With that strategy in place I can push myself for pleasure, not punishment. Maybe you can only really go when you let go.Collection: Letting Go
Learn to say no, so your yes has some oomph.Collection: Learn To Say No
Take care of yourself. Eat well, rest, train hard and smart, make time to think and breathe. Be intentional with your time.Collection: Smart
I love the thought of not knowing how things will turn out but the willingness to invest anyway.Collection: Knowing
Sweat has the power to end a pity party in such a way that even the hostess is happy.Collection: Party
What I've learned over the last 6 or 7 years, I would love to teach people. I still have a lot to share with people and especially within the US.Collection: Years
I think once an athlete always an athlete and once you have a competitive nature about you, in general, it's hard to let go. Whether you're going to take it into medicine or take it into sport, the competitive drive never really leaves.Collection: Sports
Whatever you may be missing right now - a person, a place, a feeling, maybe you are injured and missing running - whatever it is, have peace and take heart - remember that any goodbye makes room for a hello.Collection: Life
I became a lot more educated on this arthritis thing when I was diagnosed with it, but basically OA is a degenerative disease, which is definitely something that you're not going to be able to stop because it's going to be ongoing, but there are certain things you can do to slow down the progression.Collection: Disease
When I was a runner and competing in triathlons I was having pains in my hip and just treating it as an injury. I would ice it and take anti-inflammatories, but it just wouldn't go away. I finally went into my doctor and we did x-rays and had an MRI and diagnosed it as osteoarthritis. At that point I stopped doing anything that was impactful to my hip joints.Collection: Pain
It's tough though because of the whole part about getting sponsors and people out to watch women's cycling. I think the only way that women can really work it is that we have to work our way more into these big grand tours that the men have like the Tour de Georgia, Tour of Utah, and Tour of California.Collection: Men
US Cycling is doing a lot now with camps in different towns or different regions, but I think a great place, and I'm not sure how much it's been hit, is camps for people that are involved in other sports. Why not put on camps for high school kids that are cross-country runners, because those are the some of the best cyclists.Collection: Sports
It truly is a little intimidating to go speak at a middle school. Sure, on one hand the kids are only around 13 years old, but on the other hand, merely going back there reactivates the dorky, miserable feeling of being that age again. It isn't easy. As soon as I arrived I could almost feel the braces on my teeth, the don't-look-at-me slouch of my shoulders, the feathered wings of my bangs.Collection: School
In high school you just kind of go with it, you belong to a sport and you're lettering and there is a very social part. With cycling, a lot of people will steer away because you can't letter, and lettering is still cool and it's very important for scholarships and other stuff.Collection: Sports
I'm still making my decision in the next few days on what path I'm going to take. What really makes me excited now is to continue to give back to the sport.Collection: Sports
I love the sport, I haven't made millions off of it so maybe that's why I just feel like a normal person, I just feel regular, so that when I walk out of my house now with people requesting autographs in the middle of Albertson's aisles. I realize that I did go to the Olympics and did come back with a gold medal, but this is all strange. Somebody pinch me please, because I'm just here on my couch at night watching the Olympics now like everyone else in the world.Collection: Sports
I think that with some education there are real possibilities at the high school and college level, but more so at the college level, to bring people into cycling.Collection: Real
I didn't know that you could race your bike until after college. I didn't know anything about cycling except that I rode my bike from class to class or to my friend's house. But here I am an athlete, I ran, I played soccer, I swam and people are riding their bikes and racing them? I had never seen a bike race.Collection: Soccer
I don't think it's the worst thing ever to start when you're in your twenties. You're not burnt out, you're going to stick around and most of the best cyclists are in their 30s.Collection: Thinking
Before the Olympics, there's always been a part of me that's wanted to write a book about Women's cycling because there isn't one out there and I think there's a lot to be said.Collection: Book
The way the Europeans work, most girls get paid by their federation; their country pays them. Essentially the federations say go represent our country, race on whatever trade team you want, and here's your money. So you don't really make you're money on trade teams. Europeans make money through their country's federation. There's not a lot of money for women in cycling in Europe either.Collection: Girl
I think the other thing that's interesting about the women's peloton is that if you ask what their background is most have played college sports, and a lot of times have come off of injury and have gotten on a bike. A lot of us start post college in our mid 20's unlike in Europe where they start 10 years before that.Collection: Sports
Cycling is not impactful. Its just like when you are injured, have a knee surgery or something, there are so many things that you can still do, you just have to find that other passion that's out there.Collection: Passion
If there were any people who were my role models I would just say it was my family's influence and the family and the kids around me.Collection: Kids
The first day I was told that I had osteoarthritis, I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me; I was done. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't run so my life was over. But because I'm a competitive person, I wasn't going to let anything slow me down and I turned it around and made it a positive.Collection: Running
I was told that there are about 900 gold medal winners in American Olympic history. When I thought about the number 900, I wondered how many kids that are influenced by a gold medal ever get to see a gold medal. What I thought was really neat was that I've already had a couple hundred kids touch my gold medal.Collection: Couple
I talk about role models a lot and wanting to be a role model for kids around me because I didn't have that growing up.Collection: Growing Up
Cycling is such an endurance sport. I don't think it's the worst thing ever to start when you're in your twenties.Collection: Sports
Unless you have a specific injury or a disease, I think a lot of people don't quite understand. I think a lot of people put arthritis in the same category. There's a real difference from someone whose joints swell, that's probably rheumatoid arthritis, than what I have.Collection: Real
I had to quit triathlons, I continued to be active and worked in advertising agency .Collection: Agency
I was a runner and a soccer player living in Okinawa, Japan and I didn't have recruiters coming in to recruit me for sports. So how many kids out there and planning to go to college are super stud athletes but don't have a chance because they come from some podunk town and no one comes to watch them?Collection: Soccer
What's really appealing about women's cycling in America? If you took a poll in the women's peloton, I would bet you that 90% of the women have college degrees, and a lot of them have Masters. The women's peloton is very well educated.Collection: College
I avoid the carwash when I think it might rain anytime in the near future, which means I drive around the majority of the time in a pollen and bird poop covered car. This presents a stand off between Neat Freakshow and Practical Pennypincher, and Neat Freak usually triumphs. And then it rains.Collection: Rain
Perhaps love's greatest gift--that it is indeed unconditional--is also its greatest curse.Collection: Love
What I have learned about the sport of cycling is that you have to love it to do it because you're not going to retire off of it.Collection: Sports
In America with the Olympics when you not only have a medal but a gold medal all of a sudden people come out of the wood work and you're treated a little bit differently. I guess that's where my personality is, that's where I just can't get used to all this.Collection: People