Successful like my two uncles, who were paper industry magnates.

A nurse, because my grandmother was a midwife. I was named after her but never got to meet her.

Golfer, priest, police officer, teacher and, after going to the movies, actor.

A teacher and a nightclub singer.

I just like to get to the start line knowing there was nothing else I could have done, that there wasn't a single session I didn't give 100 per cent. The physical certainty means you can relax mentally and let the performance come.

Those lactate sessions were the worst. I'd be in a lab on a turbo trainer and I'd do four 30-second efforts at 100% effort. It sounds so innocuous but the difference between 99% and 100% is huge. You can finish at 99% and you'll be hurting but if you push a tiny bit more – and that's the bit that makes the difference to your training – your legs just grind to a halt. It's like your engine is seizing up. My coach would unclip my feet and pull my leg over the saddle so I could just slide off onto a mat and curl up in a ball.

A road track car, a Porsche GT3. I’ve done the 24-hour race in Le Mans, which was a dream come true.

The real problem is that the pain actually gets worse. You have created massive acidosis in your muscles so there is a huge quantity of hydrogen ions and the pH in your blood changes. For 15 minutes you lie there thinking, "God, this is really bad. I'm going to die. It has never been this bad before." And every time you think exactly the same thing. You have to lie to yourself by saying you're not doing a second set. Then, without moving for 15 minutes, almost to the second, I would roll over and think, "OK, I think I can do a second set now." During those sessions I have never felt more alive or so close to death.

Max Levy, a German sprint cyclist who came second behind me a lot.

The six Olympic gold medals, because at school I was never great at sport. When I look back on my career I think, how on Earth did that happen?