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To me, when people say, 'Oh, you're a freak athlete,' it's bittersweet. It's a huge compliment to say, 'O.K., you have physical abilities that are kind of above and beyond.' But at the same time, I feel like it diminishes the mental side of the game.

The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it's extremely important when you're winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second.

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

Among the world elite there are a handful of athletes who are physically capable of winning it.

I mean, as an athlete, as a competitor, you have to have that belief in yourself.

All athletes speak about the mental element of athletics, and it usually boils down to the same thing: if you can remove your ego from the game, you can function with much more clarity and you are more likely to succeed. Wouldn't it be interesting if we all began speaking about the mental element of our lives in this way?

I think nowadays it's so easy as an athlete to become a statistic whether or not you lose everything or having trouble or whatever it may be.

Competing in sports has taught me that if I'm not willing to give 120 percent, somebody else will.

I'm not the perfect model of what an athlete should be, mentally or physically.

Baseball is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical.