Distance Running Quotes

Good things come slow, especially in distance running.

Stadiums are for spectators. We runners have Nature, and that is much better.

It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse.

The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.

The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.

Go in any direction..seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.

The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.

Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.

We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves...The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable.

I love short stories. They're like small imploding universes. They are very tightly bound and controlled. I'd been wanting to write one for ages but just got tangled up in novels. The novel is the same in the sense that it is also a universe, but it explodes outwards with all that shrapnel going in several different directions. I don't see too much difference in the forms except for the fact that writing short stories is like sprinting rather than long-distance running.

The essential thing in life is not so much conquering as fighting well.

You shall become the person you are.

The mile has a classic symmetry....It's a play in four acts.

The gun goes off and everthing changes... the world changes... and nothing else really matters.

I have a saying 'train, don't strain.' The Americans have the saying 'no pain, no gain' and that's why they have no distance running champions. They get down to the track with a stopwatch and flog their guts out thinking that it'll make them a champion, but they'll never make a champion that way.

Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of. This is what we do. This is what it's all about.

If you run 100 miles a week, you can eat anything you want - Why? Because (a) you'll burn all the calories you consume, (b) you deserve it, and (c) you'll be injured soon and back on a restricted diet anyway.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love-everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires'-it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run.

A lot of people don't realize that about 98 percent of the running I put in is anything but glamorous: 2 percent joyful participation, 98 percent dedication! It's a tough formula. Getting out in the forest in the biting cold and the flattening heat, and putting in kilometer after kilometer.

I guess I am basically most comfortable when I'm alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time.

Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.

Those who say that I will lose and am finished will have to run over my body to beat me.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative.

For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

I haven't seen too many American distance men on the international scene willing to take risks. I saw some U.S. women in Barcelona willing to risk, more than men. The Kenyans risk. Steve Prefontaine risked. I risked - I went through the first half of the Tokyo race just a second off my best 5000 time.

Mind is everything. Muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind.

I run to see who has the most guts.

Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'.

My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus.

Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like the muscles of the body.

There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.

Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic.

Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.

You have to wonder at times what you're doing out there. Over the years, I've given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

I've always felt that long, slow distance produces long, slow runners.

I always loved running... it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

I always loved running.... It was something you could do by yourself and under your own power.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.

When the meal was over we all had a quiet rest in our rooms and I meditated on the race. This is the time when an athlete feels all alone in the big world. Opponents assume tremendous stature. Any runner who denies having fears, nerves or some kind of disposition is a bad athlete, or a liar.

To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who's never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind.

My whole feeling in terms of racing is that you have to be very bold. You sometimes have to be aggressive and gamble.

A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they're capable of understanding.

Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

Big occasions and races which have been eagerly anticipated almost to the point of dread, are where great deeds can be accomplished.