Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.
— Oprah Winfrey
Blissful Distance Runner quotations
In running it is man against himself, the cruelest of opponents.
The other runners are not the real enemies. His adversary lies within him, in his ability with brain and heart to master himself and his emotions.
When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.
Go in any direction..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.
Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'.
Long-distance runners have to be very strange people.
You have to really want to do it. You don't have to win or beat someone, you just have to get through the thing. That's the sense of victory. The sense of self-worth.
They say the breaks even up in the long run, and the trick is to be a long-distance runner.
The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.
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.
Stadiums are for spectators. We runners have Nature, and that is much better.
Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.
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.
The mile has a classic symmetry....It's a play in four acts.
There is nothing more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Running hills breaks up your rhythm and forces your muscles to adapt to new stresses. The result? You become stronger.
It is true that speed kills. In distance running, it kills anyone who does not have it.
Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not.
The real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit
We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves
Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be.
The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank.
In golf, as in life, you get out of it what you put into it.
If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
Workouts are like brushing my teeth; I don't think about them, I just do them. The decision has already been made.
Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.
Run like hell and get the agony over with.
Dream barriers look very high until someone climbs them. They are not barriers anymore.
A runners creed: I will win; if I cannot win, I shall be second; if I cannot be second, I shall be third; if I cannot place at all, I shall still do my best.
Swimming is probably the ultimate of burnout sports.
It's ironic because millions of people who swim as their regular exercise love the meditation aspect of it; you don't wind up with any orthopedic injuries. But when you swim at a world class level for hours and hours - the loneness of the long distance runner.
Onions make me sad. A lot of people don't realize that.
Finland has produced so many brilliant distance runners because back home it costs $2.50 a gallon for gas.
I want to be a lawyer, a dancer, an actress, a mother, a wife, a childrens author, a distance runner, a poet, a pianist, a pet store owner, an astronaut, an environmental and humanitarian activist, a psychiatrist, a ballet teacher, and the first woman president.
The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life.
Top results are achieved only through pain. But eventually you like this pain.