KIRSTEN SWEETLAND

I've always found when I'm healthy and happy I perform the best, not necessarily when I've done the most training.

Natural ability is important, but you can go far without it if you have the focus, drive, desire and positive attitude.

I would like to be the best in the world, but that's not the be-all and end-all. I want to have fun in my sport, and I want to take it as far as I can. Obviously, I do have big goals like that. But they don't take over who I am as a person and my family and everything else that's important in my life.

That's something I never want to do: I never want to think I know it all, because I don't. There's always more people with more advice, and I just want to soak all that up and make my sporting toolbox as full as I can get it.

Never in my heart did I want to quit, but I did, at the end of 2012, start to wonder when I was getting fractures from running hardly at all; I started thinking, 'Am I asking too much of my body? Is it not going to do this for me anymore?'

I'm a coffee addict. I think I buy, like, four a day. I'm not even jittery from it any more.

I'm appreciative of things going wrong. At first it sounds crazy, but how boring would life be if you just coasted along without any challenges? Without learning about who you really are through the process of going through the darker times? Without feeling the sense of elation when you reach even a small stepping stone?

I'm a coffee addict. I think I buy, like, four a day. I'm not even jittery from it any more.

Never in my heart did I want to quit, but I did, at the end of 2012, start to wonder when I was getting fractures from running hardly at all; I started thinking, 'Am I asking too much of my body? Is it not going to do this for me anymore?'

I'm appreciative of things going wrong. At first it sounds crazy, but how boring would life be if you just coasted along without any challenges? Without learning about who you really are through the process of going through the darker times? Without feeling the sense of elation when you reach even a small stepping stone?

Natural ability is important, but you can go far without it if you have the focus, drive, desire and positive attitude.

I would like to be the best in the world, but that's not the be-all and end-all. I want to have fun in my sport, and I want to take it as far as I can. Obviously, I do have big goals like that. But they don't take over who I am as a person and my family and everything else that's important in my life.

I've always found when I'm healthy and happy I perform the best, not necessarily when I've done the most training.

That's something I never want to do: I never want to think I know it all, because I don't. There's always more people with more advice, and I just want to soak all that up and make my sporting toolbox as full as I can get it.