Running Quotes

"Who runs in circles never gets far."
Thornton W. Burgess, Bowser the Hound

"I run because it's my passion, and not just a sport. Every time I walk out the door, I know why I'm going where I'm going and I'm already focused on that special place where I find my peace and solitude. Running, to me, is more than just a physical exercise...it's a consistent reward for victory!"
Sasha Azevedo, Runner Athlete

"There are actually people who cheat at race walks; they enter a race walk, then run to win. You know you've given up in life when you cheat at a race walk. You've decided that you're so pathetic the only way you can win is by cheating against people who aren't even competing!"
Michael Logsdon

"When you run like I do, top tens are hard to come by and it usually means a lot of good runners don't show up."
The Rage on Running in a Thin Field

"A good hill definitely levels the playing field for a lot of runners, which means more of us not only will run closer together, but we will get a quality workout that would not be the same otherwise"
The Rage on Beating Your Buddies

"...just like Charlie don't surf..trout don't run...they swim. Runners have slimey protective coatings too, after a few hard laps... but that's where it ends, baby...If trout ran...they would understand that pain is just a state of mind...they would not need a bunch of tree huggers to sympathize with their plight..."
The Rage on Wimpy Trout

"Scientific testing can't determine how the mind will tolerate pain in a race. Sometimes, I say, 'Today I can die."
Gelindo Bordin

"...rapid motion through space elates one."
James Joyce

"No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes."
Don Kardong

"There is no time to think about how much I hurt; there is only time to run."
Ben Logsdon

"Even if you fall flat on your face, at least you are moving forward."
Sue Luke

"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."
Carl Lewis

"The longer the race, the shorter the champ."
Manciata

"No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable."
Sir Roger Bannister

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

"The mile has all the elements of a drama."
Sir Roger Bannister

"The trouble with a rat race is that even when you win, you're still a rat."
Lily Tomlin

"I don't believe in burnout. I believe in losing your appetite."
Pat Tyson

"Your shoes are only as good as the laces they're attached to."
Greg Sampson

"Some people endure pain better than others. All things considered, the ability to withstand-or even deny-pain would seem to be a valuable ally for the long distance runner in search of significant improvement. In truth, it is probably a double-edged sword, since medical experts tell us that pain is the body's warning signal to back off, and that to ignore such schedules is to roll the dice with both body and mind"
Mark Will-Weber, The Quotable Runner

"Top results are reached only through pain. But eventually you like this pain. You'll find the more difficulties you have on the way, the more you will enjoy your success."
Juha "the Cruel" Väätäinen

"Stadiums are for spectators. We runners have nature and that is much better."
Juha "the Cruel" Väätäinen

"There will come a point in the race, when you alone will need to decide. You will need to make a choice. Do you really want it? You will need to decide."
Rolf Arands

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."
Tom Sobal, World Snowshoe Racing Champion

"Let's face it. Handicaps were made for golfers and bowlers. There's no reason to hold back and sandbag a 10k time. Despite press and media devoted to the contrary, running was never intended to feel good. Running is not a lifestyle choice. Simply put, It's a sport."
Manciata

"I ran and ran every day, and I acquired a sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never, give up, no matter what else happened."
Wilma Rudolph, US track star

"It's better to burn out than to fade away"
Tom Petty

"Road racing is rock 'n roll; track is Carnegie Hall.”
Marty Liquori

"Sure you have to know your capabilities. An untested, out of shape person should walk if he or she is feeling exhausted in practice or in a race. But the pain felt racing is the temporal price one has to pay for the ephemeral experience of a race well run."
Manciata

"It's probably the toughest distance race in the world to win. World class runners from 1500m to the marathon contest it and instead of just three runners from each country, like in the Olympics or World Championships, in the senior men's race there are nine."
Paul Tergat of Kenya, comments about the IAAF World Cross Country Championships

"The single biggest change in middle-distance running, from the 1500 metres to 10,000 metres, has been the track surface." Herb Elliott

'"'The greatest stimulator of my running career was fear."
Herb Elliott

"Most mistakes in a race are made in the first two minutes, perhaps in the very first minute."
Jack Daniels, Exercise Physiologist and Coach

"I feel the earth and the wind and the trees. I feel its spirit. It puts me in the moment. I feel the rhythm of the race. It's like music. When the rhythm gets dissonant and chaotic, it is either a jazzy driving force behind me or demons inside me."
Gabriel Harmony Jennings, talking about winning the 1,500 meter

"It's an incredible feeling, 110,000 people energy at that level. What I realized from watching the first day of competition was that athletes that got excited and happy and got the fans into it and clapping, they did better. The athletes that took it too seriously, they didn't do as well as they'd hoped."
Gabe Jennings, talking about his Olympic 1500-meter semifinal, in which he finished ninth not qualifying for the final

"Inevitably, there's some official bellowing: "Come on! Run through the chute! Keep it movin'... Keep it movin'!" But you're bent over, gasping, admiring with salt-stung eyes the good, honest mud of battle, the trickle of blood from a spike wound, splattered on your still-quivering legs and too-old (but still lucky) racing shoes. What could be more beautiful?"
Description of the finish of a Cross Country Race from The Quotable Runner

"Most men take the straight and narrow. A few take the road less traveled. I chose to cut through the woods."
Unknown

"Tell the truth and run."
Yugoslav Proverb

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

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

"It's the road signs, 'Beware of lions'."
Kip Lagat, Kenyan distance runner, during the Sydney Olympics, explaining why his country produces so many great runners

"Coming off the last turn, my thoughts changed from 'One more try, one more try, one more try...' to 'I can win! I can win! I can win!"
Billy Mills

"Worry about him? I never even heard of him."
Ron Clarke, Australian distance runner, on Billy Mills 10,000 victory in the Tokyo Olympics, 1964

"Everyone in life is looking for a certain rush. Racing is where I get mine."
John Trautmann

"After I left the podium in Atlanta, I felt so fulfilled in my career that I lost my desire to compete at that level again."
Carl Lewis, after the Atlanta Olympics

"It is suicidal for other runners to copy my hill sessions without adequate background."
Pekka Vasala, Finnish Middle Distance Runner who outkicked Kip Keino at Munich Olympics in 1972 winning the 1500 meters in 3:36.3

"It was a very strange, disappointing race in that no one wanted to take it out. That's why I took the lead. I wanted some people to run the real distance and that was frustrating. So I took the pace around the second lap, which in some ways is suicidal...but I wanted the pace to be honest."
Marla Runyan commenting on the Women's 1500 meters at the Sydney Olympics in which she finished eighth

"I wanted to run my race. I didn't want to sit there and play games and see who could kick the hardest. I wanted it to be a race."
Marla Runyan, Olympian

"When the gun shoots, you got to go."
Ato Boldon

"The start of a World Cross Country event is like riding a horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede. It's a thrill if you keep up, but one slip and you're nothing but hoof prints."
Ed Eyestone

"When I was about 14 or 15, and running in a pretty muddy cross country race, one of my shoes stuck in the mud and came off. Boy, was I wild. To think that I had trained hard for this race and didn't do up my shoelace tightly enough! I really got aggressive with myself, and I found myself starting to pass a lot of runners. As it turned out, I improved something like twenty places in that one race. But I never did get my shoe back."
Rob de Castella

"If you can't win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record."
Unknown

"I made the school team, and when I won in a match against another school it was the greatest moment of my life even greater than the European titles. In those school races, I always ran my legs off. There were girls watching and I wanted to impress them. I was foaming and vomiting, but I won"
Juha Väätäinen of Finland

"Americans have not had the same successes because of the fact that most grow up in the lap of luxury. They don't tolerate the type of pain that distance running demands. You can pass your Physical Education classes in school by walking a mile maybe twice a year. It seems that the few Americans who do make it on the international level have a tremendous drive and tolerance for discomfort. I think the main reason Africans succeed in distance running is many have to and we don't."
Ryan Wilson

"No one competes with the reckless abandon they should. What is a race? A race is a complete all out effort. With a few exceptions, runners run hard, (or think they are running hard) but the races are too controlled. When was the last time you saw an American distance runner finish a race and then collapse on the ground? Ten, fifteen years? I'd personally rather watch someone who runs his guts out, throws his breakfast up and passes out at the end of the race."
John Schiefer

"You make it all sound so simple. Run your guts out...collapse at the finish, throw up, that makes a good runner. Sounds like you regret not being more like Prefontaine....Everyone gripes to me that American marathoners are 'lazy-no-good-for-nothings'. My point is, many people have criticisms, but few have valid answers. I'd like to know what happened to the guys that kicked my ass in high school."
Keith Brantly, in response to John Shieffer's criticism of American distance runners

"A miler's kick does the trick...A miler's kick does the trick..."
Rod Dixon's mental refrain as he chased down and beat Geoff Smith in the last half mile of the 1983 New York City Marathon. Dixon won bronze in the 1500 at the Munich Olympic

"Long slow distance makes long slow runners."
Jim Bush, coach at UCLA

"The only tatics I admire are do-or-die."
Herb Elliott

"First is first, and second is nowhere."
Ian Stewart

"Thank God, it's over."
Neil Cusack, 1974 marathon winner