Running Quotes?????????????????????????????????????

"Sometime before the end get in front of everyone and don't let anyone pass you before you cross the finish."

-Grandpa

"I felt like an exploded flashlight" -Roger Bannister

"Crikey you're weak" Bill Baillie to Peter Snell on a long run.

"Crikey I could use a fag" - Herb Elliot- I think he meant a cigarette.

"Bad Berries" x3000 -Gerry Lindgren

" Though I am tired, he is more tired. If he goes, I must go" -Carlos Lopes during most cross country races.

?Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside of them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.?

?It's not about how fast you can run or how far, It's about how you feel when your body's on empty and you hear a voice below, ?three more miles,? you think of all the excuses you've made in your life, but in your heart you know they stop here." ?Martin Martinez

?I will never do this again. This is crazy. Even Kenyans get tired after running that far.? ?Paul Mbugua after running his first marathon in 2:19. He went on to run 2:17, 2:14, and 2:16.

?Heart has nothing to do with it. In the final straight, everyone has heart.? ?John L. Parker (Once A Runner ? p226)

?What was the secret, they wanted to know in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trail of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that?? ?John L. Parker (Once A Runner ? p210)

?Running to him was real, the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond; it made him weary beyond comprehension. But it also made him free.? ?John L. Parker (Once A Runner ? p110)

?You may not believe in mileage, but you sure as hell run mileage.? ?Bruce Denton (Once A Runner- p34)

?The first lap is lost in a flash of adrenaline and pounding hooves??? ?Once A Runner

"It's at the borders of pain and suffering where the men are separated from the boys." ?Emil Zatopek

?To keep from decaying, to be a winner, the athlete must accept pain - not only accept it, but look for it, live with it, learn not to fear it.? ?George Sheehan

?Only those who will risk going to far can possibly discover how far they can really go.?

?It isn?t hard to be good from time to time in sports. What?s tough is being good everyday.? ?Willie Mays

?If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds worth of distance run?

Yours is the Earth and everything that?s in it,

And?which is more?you?ll be a Man, my son!? ?Rudyard Kipling

?Within each of us is a hidden store of energy. Energy we can release to compete in the marathon of life. Within each of us is a hidden store of courage, courage to give us the strength to face any challenge. Within each of us is a hidden store of determination, determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost.?

?Anybody can train when he's psyched up, but it's the guy who can go out and force himself to run when he doesn't feel like it who is going to eventually succeed.? ?Marty Liquori

?There are two types of people: Those who run and those who should.?

?Run with your heart instead of your mind. When you think with your mind, you think of the things you can and can't do. But when you run with your heart you forget about what you can't do, and you just go out and do it.? ?Gerry Lindgren

?I realize now what I want in life. I know I won't be able to run like this forever, and when I stop, I'll be OK. But until then, this is what I want. I want to run.? ?Alan Webb

?Bathed in sweat, bent over and gasping for breath at the finish line, the athlete might have wondered aloud if this is what death must feel like. In time, this same athlete will surely realize the opposite. Indeed, this is what life feels like.?

?Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.? ?Herodotus

"The prevailing training philosophy in 1977 was 'more is better', and weekly mileage was the stuff of competition. If Derek Clayton was quoted as running 160 miles per week, then someone else would try 175 miles per week... This approach to training may sound harsh - and it was - but it reaped rewards. Distance running in the U.S. improved markedly, and although there were a few casualties along the way, pure hard work generally paid dividends." - Pete Pfitzinger, two-time Olympian and exercise physiologist

"We ran twice a day, sometimes three times. Twenty miles a day, sometimes more. There were a couple of 170-mile weeks... All we did was run - run, eat, and sleep." - Frank Shorter detailing his training with Jack Bacheler and Jeff Galloway prior to the 1972 Olympics (Frank won the gold medal in the marathon)

"You must have a training routime so that what you do happens automatically. If I got up in the morning and thought about going for a run there would often be a number of possible arguments against it. The thing is to get out and run. Later you can wonder whether you should have or not." - Rob de Castella, former marathon world record holder (2:08:18 PR)

"Running well is a matter of having the patience to persevere when you are tired and not expecting instant results. The only secret is that it is consistent, often monotonous, boring, hard work. And it's tiring." - Robert de Castella

"It became a matter of singular concentration, discipline, monomania. I had to zero in on one thing; I had to make it so nothing else mattered. I just made up my mind to work and see how good I could be. I didn't want to quit and say for the rest of my life, 'Well, maybe I could have been.'" - Frank Shorter on his decision to train with Jack Bacheler in Florida

"...one of the best things about running is that no matter how fast you've run in the past, running fast in the future does not come easily or with any guarantees." - Weldon Johnson, 28 minute 10K runner

"Then there is just running - I love it. I would go out and just run a 30-mile trail run if it didn't make me feel like crap for a week." - Dathan Ritzenhein

"Workouts are like brushing my teeth; I don't think about them. The decision has already been made." - PattiSue Plumer

"I started hammering out the miles last summer. I haven't had a day off since track season ended in June. It was tough to get used to it at first. It really builds your strength and endurance, which is what cross-country is all about. Cross-country is just hard for a long time." - Dathan Ritzenhein (talking about his 80-90 miles per week summer)

"If one can stick to the training throughout the many long years, then will power is no longer a problem. It's raining? That doesn't matter. I am tired? That's besides the point. It's simply that I just have to." - Emil Zatopek

"I have never been a killer. I'm not an aggressive personality and if I can remember any emotion I felt during a race it was fear. The greatest stimulator of my running was fear." - Herb Elliott

"Keep the post-workout beer cold. Don't worry about returning phone calls or feeding the kids. I repeat: Keep the beer cold." - Scott Tinley, world-class triathlete and beer drinker

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent." - Calvin Coolidge

"I don't run to be regarded as anything by anybody. I don't care whether people think I'm the greatest runner ever or the greatest bum ever. I don't run for other people; I don't run for my country. I'm not very nationalistic. Derek Clayton comes first in my book." - Derek Clayton

"I train very hard, until I am sick. Sometimes I train like a foolish man who has no mind." -Hicham el-Guerrouj

"If you want to win a race, you have to go a little beserk" - Bill Rodgers

"I'm going to go out a winner if I have to find a high school race to win my last race." - Johnny Gray

"If you start to feel good during an ultra, don't worry you will get over it" - Gene Thibeault

More:

"Run like hell and get the agony over with." - Clarence DeMar

"I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards." - Alberto Salazar

"Somewhere in the world, someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win." - Tom Fleming

"The earliest in the day I ever got drunk and smoked a cigarette was 7:30 a.m., which I did because I woke up and realized that even though I was in Key West, I still wasn't on the damn Olympic team." - Kristy Johnson 2nd place finisher at 2000 Olympic Trials Marathon in an interview with author Scott Douglas

'the only reason i get to the top of the hill is someone told me there was beer up there' - Rod Dixon

My toughest competition isn't on the track. It's all around me, all the time. It's waking up at the crack of dawn, it's hearing about the party I can hardly ever go to. It's realizing that being a great runner isn't a sport, it's a way of life.

My personal favorite, " the lean wolf leads the pack."

For all of us thin guys that have image problems, when standing next to a big Football dude.

"i'm on drugs!"

-regina

We run because we must

Through the great wide spaces.

Within each man exists a demon

Some men are able to quiet it,

Other men are driven by it.

In being driven

They encounter loneliness.

But, they discover themselves

And find exhilaration,

They find too, a peace,

Which many men seek,

But few attain,

I congratulate the long distance

Runner for his self discipline.

I share with him his loneliness,

I envy him his peace.

Pierre Eliot Trudeau

The opening of some marathon back in the 70s (Springbok or Commonwealth Games????)

Take the f***** lead or get the f*** of my heels.

In some kind of mental jag, the following occured to me last month. The month of February is like the third quarter of a mile race. You tolerate it, look forward to it ending to get to the best part that follows. The shortest month of the year seems to drag like no other.

HAH. i don't think you can really quote that.

Going out to train each day is like asking someone to shoot you in the face. You know it's going to hurt like hell.

Our goal is to live "on the periphery of existence" and "suffer as much as we can to see how good we can be, safety be damned."

- Paraphrase of Mark Wetmore describing his coaching ethic in Running with the Buffaloes.

I ran 4:32 as a freshman and from then on, I was addicted to improvement. And once you get that time in your head, that you've got to run faster and faster and faster, then nothing else matters ? nobody that you are racing against. That's the whole way I took my career ? I've got to push myself to run faster and faster.

- Todd Williams in Let's Run.com interview

I like this quote because it describes my addiction. I don't care who I beat, I just want to get better.

all i wanna do is run, drink beer, and have sex.

me too

"A runner is someone who goes to bed feeling tired and who wakes up feeling more tired." Brendan Foster

"It was the whiskey." Neil Cusack after a horrible race at the Newark 12 mile in the late 70s.

"When I do not drink, there is no fire in my heart for running." Henry Rono

"Train. Don't strain." Arthur Lydiard

"Training on the track is spiritually destructive." Herb Elliot

"The first time you shit in a pair of shorts with those built-in briefs they're ruined." Sheldon Karlin, winner of the 1972 NYC marathon