Running Quotes

If you want to tell something to an athlete, say it quickly and give no alternatives. This is a game of winning and losing. It is senseless to explain and explain.
Paavo Nurmi

It is true that speed kills. In distance running, it kills anyone who does not have it.
Brooks Johnson

Every athlete has doubts. Elite runners in particular are insecure people. You need someone to affirm that what you are doing is right.
Lynn Jennings

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

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

"Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, like the muscles of the body." Lynn Jennings

"If you want to win a race you have to go a little berserk." —Bill Rodgers

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

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." —Juma Ikangaa

"All I want to do is drink beer and train like an animal." —Rod Dixon

"First is first, and second is nowhere." —Ian Stewart, British 1500/5000 star

"Second place is not a defeat. It is a stimulation to get better. It makes you even more determined." —Carlos Lopes, Portugal, prior to 1984 Games

"I tell our runners to divide the race into thirds. Run the first part with your head, the middle part with your personality, and the last part with your heart." —Mike Fanelli, club coach

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

"A runner's 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." —Ken Doherty

"If you have got in front you will, as already advised, use your utmost endeavors to keep there. It's the best place to be, you know." —Alf Shrubb

"The problem with big kickers is they often lose to other big kickers." —Harry Groves, Penn State coach

No one knows the fear in a front runner's mind more than me. When you set off at a cracking pace for four or five laps and find that your main rivals are still breathing down your neck, that's when you start to panic.
Ron Clarke

The harder your work, the luckier you get.
Anonymous

The hardest thing about climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
Anonymous

Winning isn't everything-it's the only thing.
-Vince Lombardi

Learn as if you were to live forever;
Compete as if you were to die tomorrow.
-John Wooden

One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us.
Anonymous

If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much, and winning is not very exciting.
Anonymous

Mother's, there's a mad man running in the streets,
And he's humming a tune,
And he's snarling at dogs,
And he still has four more miles to go.
Nike ad

  "Sweat cleanses from the inside. It comes from places a shower will never reach."  - George Sheehan

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

"You don’t run against a bloody stop watch, do you hear? A runner runs against himself, against the best that’s in him. Not against a dead thing of wheels and pulleys. That’s the way to be great, running against yourself. Against all the rotten mess in the world. Against God, if you’re good enough."
  - Bill Persons

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 a lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

You know who I look up to? I look up to the 5-minute milers. Because they don't get any of the good things I get. They're out there running just as hard. They're the guys with guts, the guys with a lot of inner determination.  - Mark Belger

Ability is what you are capable of doing.
Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it. - Lou Holtz

Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission. - Neil Kendall

You can fight without ever winning, but never ever, win without a fight. - Rush (the Band)

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. - Booker T. Washington

Running is real and relatively simple - but it ain't easy. - Mark Will-Weber

Fear of slacking resides deep in the heart of every runner. - Mark Will-Weber

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.  - Fred Shero

"If you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch!"
Matt Wood

"It isn't the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it is the size of the fight in the dog!"



Why Do Runners Run?
By Dan Crowe
  have seen their tortured faces.
I have heard their pounding hearts.
I have seen their heads bowed in the sorrow of defeat.
I have seen their hands hoisted in salute to the goddess of victory.
I have wondered why do runners run?
I have seen long lines running in the park.
I have seen them run to the accolades of a thundering crowd.
I have seen them run in the solitude of a rain-swept street.
I have wondered why do runners run?
Is it a burning inside or a thing called pride?
The search for an inner peace or the quest of a golden fleece?
I believe the gods decree that some people must run to prove that pain is fun.


The Runners' High
It's no longer sport,
No longer just a game.
It has become a way of life.
Every breath is a stride,
Every heartbeat a string of silence.
It is a compulsion from deep within.
It is a passion for glory.
To go through the torment.
To last through the waiting.
To gain that one moment,
Alone with myself.
And only the few,
Who chance to strive,
Can know the experience.
To hear nothing but breath.
To feel nothing but heartbeat.
To feel so much like hell,
Running so close to heaven.
This is the Runners' High.
This is the feeling I live for.
This is the goal I strive toward.
If my chance disappears,
Part of my life would end.