Living up to others' expectations was one of the harder demands. I think the ones who become and remain champions are the ones who live up to their own expectations and not to others', what's important to them and not to everybody else.
The important thing with public appearances is timing. You have to keep your priorities. If you have time and want to do them, that's fine, but you have to be able to say no too.
If you have a good system for dealing with public appearances, someone else can say no for you. Agents can be good as a buffer zone.
Dealing with the media comes with the territory. We have the media there every single day, every practice, every road trip. If you don't learn to handle the media, you're going to have a hard time your whole career.
I found that you weren't going to get away from them [the media], and it's better to have good press than bad press and a lot more of a hassle to block them out than to deal with them quickly and pleasantly. I gave them what they wanted, simple answers.
I would get 25 calls a day. To me you're supposed to get those calls. That's why you trained the hardest. Now the key is to pick the right ones. When I was competing [in season] I never did many appearances. You want to do the ones with the right company and something that appeals to you.
It was a demand in that it took away from training time, and it was sometimes hard to organize your dryland training around them. It wasn't stressful on me in the beginning because I liked it and the attention. Later on I found them very exhausting. I was swarmed with people. You have to put a system in place to deal with demands or you will be swamped.
