Find your passion, set a goal, go to work, evaluate, reassess, and repeat.
People win medals in all shapes and sizes! And I can't help but say that finding a fiance who loves me unconditionally at any size has played a huge role in my body confidence.
Growing up, most girls have this image of how they want their wedding to be and things like that. I had none of that except for the cake I wanted, and that's what I got. The cake was the first thing we ordered.
There's times when I'll be out in the middle of the track, standing in the curve, and I'll just laugh. 'What the heck am I doing right now? I'm sliding down the hill at crazy speeds and standing in freezing cold weather.'
I converted from softball. We've got volleyball, we've got track and field. Athletes come from anywhere and then convert into bobsled.
I'm a squat person: I love squats. I love back squats, things like that.
Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. Just shows you how powerful beliefs are and how you have the ability to change your situation and affect what happens to you. The mind is a powerful thing.
For most people, they only thing they know about bobsled is 'Cool Runnings.' Well, 'Cool Runnings' was, of course, four men in a bobsled, and four-man is considered the highlight of our sport. It's what everybody knows. It's what everybody watches. And it's the big dog of our sport.
Being southern and doing bobsled was difficult from the standpoint that I had no idea how to handle the cold and how to dress in the cold, let alone warm up and compete in the cold - so it was a definite shock. I didn't even own a coat when I first started bobsledding!
My mom has never cared if I did sports or not. Obviously, she's proud of me, and she loves the fact that I'm an Olympian and she's got these trinkets to hang around with the medals and whatnot. But if I wanted to do whatever, if I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or whatever, she was going to support me regardless.
Being a brakeman is very physical, and success is mostly determined by how fast you can push a sled for about 30 meters.
I don't like cold weather.
I'm not big on protein shakes - I think they're pretty gross, actually - so I have to make sure I eat enough meat, fish, and other good protein sources.
The Midland community is huge into softball. They have a lot of competitive men's teams. We played at a beautiful stadium, and our games would be packed every weekend. I'm pretty sure people have my signature on softballs and they don't even know. Because we would just sign so many autographs all of the time.
In bobsled, you work as a team - a driver and a brakeman. Both athletes push, but the brakeman's biggest responsibility is to push as fast as she can and get in and ride down in a good aerodynamic position. The driver helps to push but gets in first and then steers the sled down the track. We aren't just along for the ride, despite how it looks!
A guy like Usain Bolt would be sick behind a bobsled.
Bobsledding is an expensive sport.
Bobsled is best for athletes who are fast and strong, which were my strengths in softball.
My father was an NFL running back, so I feel like I might be more susceptible, genetically, to CTE.
I grew up playing softball, and at the age of nine, I decided I was going to be an Olympian. I didn't really know what that meant at the time. I thought it might be in a warm summer sport like softball, but I played a variety of sports growing up - basketball, soccer and track. I really didn't care. I just wanted to be an Olympian.
