1. “Fast running isn’t forced. You have to relax and let the run come out of you”. – Desiree Linden
2. “I’ve learned that it’s what you do with the miles, rather than how many you’ve run” – Rod DeHaven
3. “Running is a thing worth doing not because of the future rewards it bestows, but because of how it feeds our bodies and minds and souls in the present” – Kevin Nelson
4. “When you cross the finish line, no matter how slow or fast, it will change your life forever” – Dick Beardsley
5. “It’s not so much that I began to run, but that I continued” – Hal Higdon
6. “I’m afraid the reason so many new runners quit is because they never get past the point of feeling like they have to run” – John Bingham
7. “Act like a horse. Be dumb. Just run.” – Jumbo Elliot
8. “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 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” –
9. “Running is a road to self-awareness and reliance-you to extremes and learn the harsh reality of your physical and mental limitations or coast quietly down a solitary path watching the earth spin beneath your feet.” – Doris Brown Heritage
10. “Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race to see who has the most guts.” – Steve Prefontaine
11. “Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic.” – Tim Noakes
12. “Remember, the feeling you get from a good run is far better than the feeling you get from sitting around wishing you were running.” – Sarah Condor
13. “A runner must run with dreams in his heart.” – Emil Zatopek
14. “The biggest mistake an athlete can make is to be afraid of making one.” – L. Ron Hubbard
15. “If you want to become the best runner you can be, start now. Don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if you can do it” – Priscilla Welch
16. “I always loved running… it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.” – Jesse Owens
17. “Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you’re young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don’t let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself.” – John Bingham
18. “We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves…The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.” – Roger Bannister
19. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” – Haruki Murakami
20. “Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see.” – Jimmy Buffett
21. “Running isn’t a sport for pretty boys…It’s about the sweat and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It’s about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake the dead. It’s about getting out the door and running when the rest of the world is only dreaming about having the passion that you need to live each and every day with.” – Paul Maurer
22. “In my case, I thoroughly enjoy running 100-odd miles a week. If I didn’t I wouldn’t do it. Who can define happiness? To some, happiness is a warm puppy or a glass of cold beer. To me, happiness is running in the hills with my mates around me.” – Ron Clarke
23. “Run often. Run long. But never outrun your joy of running.” – Julie Isphording
24. “As we run, we become.” – Amby Burfoot
25. “I always thought of running as just dancing forward.” – Tom Hiddleston
26. “Running became the one event in my daily life that I looked forward to. Books and movies paled in comparison to the refuge of my feet slapping paiently in the fresh morning air” – Kate Kinsey
27. “I’m not as fast or flexible as I once was, but running keeps me young” – Nicole DeBoom
28. “Tears streamed down my face as I crossed the finish line. I was a new person, a runner” – Thomas King
29. “Get going… Walk if you have to, but finish the damned race” – Ron Hill
30. “Once you’re beat mentally, you might as well not even go to the starting line.” – Todd Williams
31. “The long run is what puts the in the cat.” – Bill Squires
32. “The runner must be a fanatic for hard work and enthusiastic enough to enjoy it” – Franz Stampfl
33. “Set aside a time solely for running. Running is more fun if you don’t have to rush through it.” – Jim Fixx
34. “Running is real and relatively simple. But it ain’t easy” – Mark Will-Weber
35. “Running is the classical road to self-consciousness, self-awareness, and self-reliance.” – Noel Carroll
36. “It’s time to keep enjoying the best day in running history” – Amby Burfoot
37. “Life is complicated. Running is simple. Is it any wonder that people like to run?” – Kevin Nelson
38. “Running has taught me to love my brain, my body, and what both can do for me when I use them wisely and appreciate them” – Meggie Smith
39. “I’m always nervous. If I wasn’t nervous it would be weird. I get the same feeling at all the big races. It’s part of a routine, and I accept it.” – Allyson Felix
40. “A runner is real when she takes the first step.”
41. “Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired” – Jules Rendard
42. “I was born to be a runner. I simply love to run. It’s almost like the faster I go, the easier it becomes” – Mary Decker Slaney
43. “Running is in my blood – the adrenaline flows before the races, the love/hat of butterflies in your stomach” – Marcus o’Sullivan
44. “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” – John Bingham
45. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” – Dean Karnazes
46. “All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.” – Haruki Murakami
47. “Running isn’t a sport for pretty boys…It’s about the sweat in your hair and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It’s about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake the dead. It’s about getting out the door and running when the rest of the world is only dreaming about having the passion that you need to live each and every day with. It’s about being on a lonely road and running like a champion even when there’s not a single soul in sight to cheer you on. Running is all about having the desire to train and persevere until every fiber in your legs, mind, and heart is turned to steel. And when you’ve finally forged hard enough, you will have become the best runner you can be. And that’s all that you can ask for.” – Paul Maurer
48. “You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.” –
“I’m often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.” – Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
49. “Struggling and suffering are the essence of a life worth living. If you’re not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you’re not demanding more from yourself – expanding and learning as you go – you’re choosing a numb existence. You’re denying yourself an extraordinary trip.” – Dean Karnazes
50. “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.” – Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
51. “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we’d like to be. That’s not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But what you’ve accomplished, rather than thinking of what’s left to be done.” – John Bingham
52. “I want to run. To do what I always do, have always done, for the last five years of my life. Escape, flee into the shadows. But this time, I stand my ground. I’m tired of running.” – Marie Lu, Prodigy
53. “I run because if I didn’t, I’d be sluggish and glum and spend too much time on the couch. I run to breathe the fresh air. I run to explore. I run to escape the ordinary. I run…to savor the trip along the way. Life becomes a little more vibrant, a little more intense. I like that.” – Dean Karnazes
54. “It’s supposed to be hard… The hard is what makes it great”
55. “If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon” – Kathrine Switzer
56. “Make each day your masterpiece” –
57. “You must expect great things from yourself before you can do them.” –
58. “If you don’t believe then who will?”
59. “Today I will run for pure, absolute, joy”
60. “The true but rare runner’s high is a zone that we enter when everything seems to click prefectly, when time stands still, and when we can run almost without effort” – Amby Burfoot
61. “Just move your legs. Because of you don’t thing you were born to run, you’re not only denying history; you’re denying who you are” – Dr. Dennis Bramble
62. “Have a dream, make a plan, go for it. You’ll get there I promise.” – Zoe Koplowitz
63. “Mind is everything: muscle – pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind.” – Paavo Nurmi
64. “There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.” – George Sheehan
65. “We are different, in essence from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.” – Emil Zatopek
66. “The marathon is not really about the marathon, it’s about the shared struggle. And it’s not only the marathon, but the training.” – Bill Buffum
67. “No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life’s most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others.” – George Sheehan
68. “You also need to look back, not just at the people who are running behind you but especially at those who don’t run and never will… those who run but don’t race…those who started training for a race but didn’t carry through…those who got to the starting line but didn’t in the finish line…those who once raced better than you but no longer run at all. You’re still here. Take pride in wherever you finish. Look at all the people you’ve outlasted.” – Joe Henderson
69. “Running is my private time, my therapy, my religion.” – Gail W. Kislevitz
70. “A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways they’re capable of understanding.” – Steve Prefontaine
71. “The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life.” – George Sheehan
72. “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination.” – John Bingham
73. “I often hear someone say I’m not a real runner. We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I never met a fake runner.” – Bart Yasso
74. “Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like the muscles of the body.” – Lynn Jennings
75. “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 or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” – Christopher McDougall
76. “The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” – John Bingham
77. “Running! If there’s any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can’t think of what it might be. In running the mind flees with the body, the mysterious efflorescence of language seems to pulse in the brain, in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms.” – Joyce Carol Oates
78. “There is an itch in runners.” – Arnold Hano
79. “If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.” – Robert Pirsig
80. “If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run.” – John Bingham
81. “I run because it’s so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can’t. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you’re capable of so much more than you thought.” – Arthur Blank
82. “It’s a treat being a runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do.” – Alan Sillitoe
83. “Some people create with words or with or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, ‘I’ve never seen anyone run like that before.’ It’s more than just a race, it’s a style. It’s doing something better than anyone else. It’s being creative.” – Steve Prefontaine
84. “If you can’t win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record.” – Unknown
85. “Runners don’t do drugs, they make their own … naturally.” – E. Neil Culbertson