You know, obviously I've been around for a while, so I've got a little sweat and blood equity built up.
I feel like I'm playing more of a role walking down the red carpet than when I'm playing an ordinary woman covered in sweat.
Up to 30 years old, I was carried by natural talent, combined with a good level of professionalism. But since turning 30, I've gained a desire to sweat in the real sense of the word, to understand where I need to improve. Competitiveness, now, is essential.
Most days, I have a slice of toast, then lie in a hot bath for an hour to get up a sweat. I have a sauna at the racecourse and then go and ride. On the way home, I might stop at a service station and have a bar of chocolate and a Diet Coke. And that's it, basically.
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.
For a while, I could only wear sweat pants because I was that intermediate size that you're not a small, you're not a large.
On some summer days in New York City, the air hangs thickly visible, like the combined exhalations of eight million souls. Steam rising from vents underground makes you wonder if there isn't one giant sweat gland lodged beneath the city.
I wake up every morning in a cold sweat, regardless of how well things went the day before. And put that I said that in a somewhat but not completely tongue-in-cheek way.
You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms.
As Americans, we realize that there is no taxpayer money that wasn't first earned through the sweat and toil of one of our citizens.