Ben Edlund

I used to a play a role-playing game called Dungeons and Dragons, and that was about levels of experience; as you gained experience, you were able to deal with much greater and far more kind of global creatures.

It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants, crowded together around the Hill, blackening the ground, that you begin to see the whole beast, and now you observe it thinking, planning, calculating. It is an intelligence, a kind of live computer, with crawling bits for its wits.

The thing about dancing - what it taught me all those years - is it gives you an amazing sense of discipline in forcing yourself to do things that you know are good for you but you don't really want to do.

The closer I get to retirement, the more I feel it will be a huge change, a shock, because athletics has been the core of my whole life. I know I'll miss the feeling of running fast, the adrenaline rush, and hearing the crowd cheering me on.