Prefontaine on winning & chicken-sh!t
Bill Bowerman: 13:12 for the 3-mile. You satisfied?
Steve Prefontaine: I’m satisfied I did the best I could on Saturday.
Bill: I think you could’ve gone 6 seconds better. The first quarter cost you.
Pre: How do you figure?
Bill: 4:18 was too quick for the first mile so you dropped to 4:27s for the last two. If you’d have gone out slower, say a 4:24, you could’ve repeated the 4:24 and then come home in 4:18. Made your last lap your fastest. That would’ve added up to 13:06 compared with the 13:12 you ran, your need to take the lead from the start cost you a good 6 seconds.
Pre: OK.
Bill: Pre, the Olympics are in two years – the blink of an eye. You’ll face the best middle distance runners in any games I can recall. Ian Stewart…
Pre: … Yeah, Kip Kano, Goumoodi…
Bill: They all have strong kicks. Any one of them been near you on Saturday they’d a had you dead to rights.
Pre: Well maybe on Saturday, Bill, but not two years from now.
Bill: Pre, can I ask you a question off the record?
Pre: Were we on the record, Bill?
Bill: Where does this compulsion come from?
Pre: What compulsion?
Bill: Front running.
Pre: Look, Bill. Running any other way is just plain chicken-sh!t.
Bill: Chicken-sh!t?
Pre: Chicken-sh!t. What else do you call laying back for 2 1/2 miles and then stealing a race in the last 200 yards.
Bill: Winning!
Pre: Well I don’t want to do that.
Bill: You don’t want to win?
Pre: I don’t want to win unless I know I’ve done my best and the only way I know to do that is to run out front, flat out, until I have nothing left. Winning any other way is chicken-sh!t.
Bill: What do you think a track coach does, Pre?
Pre: He teaches you how to run.
Bill: Run what? A factory? A bowling alley?
Pre: A race.
Bill: In order to?
Pre: Win it.
Bill: Yeah… yeah. That’s pretty much what I thought too. I don’t understand you, Pre.
Pre: Well, if it’s any help, Bill, I don’t understand you either.
https://analternateroute.com/2010/steve-prefontaine-quotes-without-limits-movie/#prechickenshit