1 . Chris Turnbull, 39, finished the touching 3,856 km run on September 16, in the Sydney suburb of Manly, becoming the quickest runner from Perth to Sydney. He _________ the current record holder Achim Heukemes, who completed the distance in 43 days in 2005. To _________ the new world record, he was wholeheartedly _________ to preparing himself.

Mr Turnbull had a(n) _________ for running at a young age. He ran his first half marathon at 9 and since then he had been _________ at plenty of ultra marathons at different times in his life.

Mr Turnbull had run every single day from his beachside home in the Sydney suburb of Clontarf to his _________ on work days. The daily cross country run _________ him to see the sights of Australia, meet amazing people and most importantly, _________ himself physically and mentally.

With his 40th birthday _________ next year, to see what was his physical and mental limit, he wanted to __________ himself to the new record.

To make it in record time, Mr Turnbull was running between 100 km and 105 km daily.He had to __________ huge trucks rushing past him on major highways, blisters(水泡), aching muscles, and being __________ of sleeping well due to the pain his body was feeling

Mr Turnbull’s wife, along with their two kids, had been tracking his __________   on a map from their home as he made his way across the continent. They were __________ waiting there at the finish line in Manly for Mr Turnbull’s falling into their arms for a loving post- run __________.

2 . The Olympic spirit is about a lot more than winning medals and setting records. Just look at the story of _________ Eric.

The boy from Equatorial Guinea found his_________ for swimming shortly after high school._________ he found it difficult to get a swimming pool to learn swimming. Eventually, he_________ a 13-meter hotel pool that he could only use three hours a week. On days he could not practice in the pool, he_________ in rivers. After about eight months of swimming, he_________ the chance to compete in the 2000 Summer Olympics.

On the 100m freestyle, Eric was in the first_________ along with the other two strong swimmers. Both swimmers were_________ to carry on competition for starting too early,_________ Eric as the only man in his race. Not only were the eyes of the 17,000__________ at the scene entirely on him, but the billions__________ the Games that day, from all over the world.

When he heard the crowd shouting, encouraging him to ‘Go, go, go.   he gathered all his__________ to finish the race with a time of 1:52.72,the slowest__________ time in Olympic history. But the fans did not care,__________ him as if he had broken the world record.

Although he is not outstanding in performance, he has made__________ for his motherland and has left an everlasting chapter(篇章)in the swimming field.

3 . I have always wondered how far I could push myself. What are my ________ limits?

Our bodies, of course, set ________ for each of us. Even with newer running shoes and better ________ , there will always be limits to how fast people can ________ or how much weight they can lift. Also, although we can get ourselves in ________ shape, some of us are just genetically more suited to strength and ________ . But, more importantly, it’s a person’s ________ that determines how far he or she can go.

So, how could I best test myself?

John Collins was living in Hawaii when he ________   this question. One night, he was listening to a few friends argue about whether runners or swimmers were in better shape. He ________ the argument by turning it into an idea for a competition. Each ________ would swim3. 9 kilometers, bike 180 kilometers and then run 42 kilometers. The first one to ________ would be given the title Ironman!

I decided to take the advice. Preparing for the Ironman race started with food. I started ________ five to seven times a day to give myself more energy as I ________ .

Swimming, cycling and running began to ________ a large part of each day for me. In between, there were workouts in the gym.

Finally, the day arrived. Seventeen hours after starting, I arrived at the finish line. I ________ wasn’t the first, but I had challenged myself and felt like a winner!

4 . I had been skiing since childhood. I’d _________ fallen, I’d never crashed into anything, and I’d _________ mostly to the “blue” trails — the ones for intermediate (中级水平的) skiers. Therefore, for my first day on the mountain, I decided to _________ a blue run, one I had done many times before.

When I reached the top of the blue trails — only chairlift (缆椅), though, something in the atmosphere _________. Why was it so cold? Were the blue trails always this sharp? The rhythm of the chairlift started to sound less _________.

It _________ that simply having skied “many times before” didn’t mean I was getting better at it. There’s a large body of _________ showing that practice—or even just doing — doesn’t make us any better at the activity, so it is with skiing. The joy of getting better sometimes comes along with the _________ of getting worse.

One afternoon, I took a chairlift with a retired ski _________ named Bob. When I told him I was struggling, he __________ to watch me take an easy slope and assessed what I was doing wrong.

Bob __________ me that the learning process looks a lot like backsliding (倒退). When babies first learn to walk, they progress from __________ imitation. Sometimes it seems that we’re losing ground, but we’re actually __________ a new skill. An __________ attempt is often a sign that you’re learning.

“You’re skiing better already!” he shouted at me.

“Thank you!” I yelled back.

Then I skied a few more feet and __________.

5 . On Oct. 11, hundreds of runners competed in a cross-country race in Minnesota. Melanie Bailey should have _________ the course earlier than she did. Her _________ came because she was carrying a _________ across the finish line.

As reported by a local newspaper, Bailey was more than two-thirds of the way through her _________ when a runner in front of her began crying in pain. She _________ to help her fellow runner, Danielle Lenoue. Bailey took her arm to see if she could walk forward with _________. She couldn’t. Bailey then _________ to let Lenoue climb onto her back and carried her all the way to the finish line, then another 300 feet to where Lenoue could get _________ attention.

Once there, Lenoue was _________ and later taken to a hospital, where she learned that she had serious injuries in one of her knees. She would have struggled with extreme __________ to make it to that aid checkpoint without Bailey’s help.

As for Bailey, she is more __________ about why her act is considered a big __________. “She was just crying. I couldn’t __________ her,” Bailey told the reporter. “I feel like I was just doing the right thing.”

Although the two young women were strangers before the __________, they’ve since become friends. Neither won the race, but the __________ of human kindness won the day.

6 . I crossed my arms as I waited for my volleyball coach to finish talking to the officials. There was a(n) _________ with the score. But did it really matter？The Lions were ahead of us, 24-14，and the game would end at 25.

The Lions’ number 8 must have thought the _________ thing, as she covered her mouth and _________. At this, I waved to the five teammates on the floor. “Listen,” I said in a very _________ voice once we’d made a circle. “The Lions think this game is over. But we’ll make the Lions know getting that last point is never _________ work. From here on, nothing drops.”

We got ready immediately at the _________. As I returned to my _________, I checked the scoreboard, which now read 24-15.We couldn’t win this game, but we could _________ that number 8 from yawning again.

24-20, we were still _________. Kait served for the sixth time. The Lions hit and the ball __________ over our fingertips. At this moment Zoe dove and somehow managed to keep the ball off the floor. It’s my __________! I pushed the ball away with my closed fist. It floated up and was over the net to number 8.She hit the ball hard and it hit the floor on our side. Game over. The Lions __________ number 8, shouting with excitement.

I watched their __________ from the floor. Did I make the right call in the first place？I wondered. Should we have saved our __________ for the third and final game of the match?

But then Zoe __________ her hand to pull me to my feet. “Maybe this game is over, but the match isn’t. Nothing drops!”