Last week I had the opportunity to speak at a luncheon at the the Democtratic National Convention.  I spoke on behalf of my headgear sponsor Eli Lilly.  I pasted the speech that I gave below.

Thank you Scott,

I am honored to be here today to share my story and a bit of Lilly’s story with you. I have been intertwined with Lilly since 2002 to show children with diabetes that there is no need for limits when it comes to there ambitions and dreams. As the summer Olympics came to a close it was apparent to me that the stories of athlete’s triumphs and failures are metaphors for all of our own ups and downs. I think the entire world was inspired by Michael Phelps and his incredible achievement. I aim to inspire a smaller but extremely significant group of people with my story and racing.

One of my staple workouts is the six hour over distance session.  After experimenting with different durations of time I have found that this is the longest workout that I benefit from.  I can hold good technique and snappy movements for the entire workout and recover in about 48 hours.

Many people ask me how I can ski that long.  Physically, I’m just lucky I guess.  Also, my father took me on weekend warrior skis when I was growing up.  We would drive one or two hours to a ski area and he would pay our trail fees.  Then he saw to it that we got our money’s worth.  A typical saturday ski would be a three hour session in the morning and a two hour in the afternoon.   Sometimes this was repeated on Sunday.  I didn’t have to ski that long, I could have sat in the lodge or in the car.  This is what it meant to go skiing for me from the time I was seven until I was twelve.

I won the  Top Notch Triathlon for the third time on Saturday, August 2nd.  The race has a very untraditional format.   It starts with a 6.5 mile uphill mountain bike which is followed by a half mile swim in the ice cold echo lake, and finishes with a 2 mile run up alpine trails to the summit of Cannon Mountain.

The starting line is in the town of Franconia NH.  Because I never know if the race will fit into my schedule I always register on the day its held.  My procrastination puts me in the second of two wave starts.  The waves go off two minutes apart.  Usually this is not a problem for me because the first two and a half miles of the bike are on pavement which gives me enough time to make up the two minutes on most riders in the first wave before we hit the single track trail.  Unfortunately, this year a rule change allowed cyclo-cross bikes into the race for the first time.  The narrower wheels on these bikes allowed more riders to reach the woods before me.  I race on a full-suspension Gary Fischer XC mt bike with slick tires.  I was the first rider from my wave to make it to the woods but I had about six cyclo-cross riders to get by on the muddy single track.  One of the riders fell right in front of me and took me out on a descent.  I bruised my IT band pretty severely and broke the strap of my swim goggles in the crash.  I made a quick recovery, cursed the cyclo-cross guy in m customary fashion, and got back on track.