Running & Motivational Quotes

•”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

•”May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back.”
-Irish Proverb

•”A course never quite looks the same way twice. The combinations of weather, season, light, feelings and thoughts that you find there are ever-changing.”
-Joe Henderson, running writer

•”Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.”
-Michael Johnson, 4-time Olympic Gold medalist in Track and Field

“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

“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

“To know you are one with what you are doing, to know that you are a complete athlete, begins with believing you are a runner.” – George Sheehan

“There is only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything.” – Vince Lombardi

“The only place you find success before work is in the dictionary.” – May Smith

“The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” – Tommy Lasorda

“The athlete who says that something can’t be done should never interrupt the one who’s doing it.” – John Wooden

“The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you’ve got.” – Dr. George Sheehan

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.” -Marine Corps

“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

“The advice I have for beginners is the same philosophy that I have for runners of all levels of experience and ability — consistency, a sane approach, moderation and making your running an enjoyable, rather than dreaded, part of your life.”
-Bill Rodgers, winner of four Boston and four NYC marathons

“Play not only keeps us young but also maintains our perspective about the relative seriousness of things. Running is play, for even if we try hard to do well at it, it is a relief from everyday cares.” – Jim Fixx

“Methinks that the moment my legs began to move, my thoughts began to flow.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Many people shy away from hills. They make it easy on themselves, but that limits their improvement. The more you repeat something, the stronger you get.” – Joe Catalano

“It is better, I think, to begin easily and get your running to be smooth and relaxed and then to go faster and faster.”
– Henry Rono

“Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.”
-Edward Stanley

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” -Muhammad Ali

“To get to the finish line, you’ll have to try lots of different paths.” -Amby Burfoot

“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

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.” -Bill Bowerman

“We may train or peak for a certain race, but running is a lifetime sport.” -Alberto Salazar

“No one ever drowned in sweat.” -Author Unknown

“Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like the muscles of the body.” -Lynn Jennings

“Anybody can be a runner. We were meant to move. We were meant to run. It’s the easiest sport.” –Bill Rodgers

“Watching the world’s best compete fires you up to achieve your own feats of greatness. When it comes to running, participation and spectating go hand in hand.”
-Kara Goucher, U.S. elite marathoner

“Spend at least some of your training time, and other parts of your day, concentrating on what you are doing in training and visualizing your success.” -Grete Waitz

“When it’s pouring rain and you’re bowling along through the wet, there’s satisfaction in knowing you’re out there and the others aren’t.” -Peter Snell

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great!” -Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

“Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring.” -Jimmy Carter

“There is an itch in runners.” -Arnold Hano

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” -Les Brown

“What distinguishes those of us at the starting line from those of us on the couch is that we learn through running to take what the days gives us, what our body will allow us, and what our will can tolerate.” -John Bingham, running writer and speaker

“I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we’re all cowards.”
-Alberto Salazar, three-time winner of the NYC marathon

“Running long and hard is an ideal antidepressant, since it’s hard to run and feel sorry for yourself at the same time. Also, there are those hours of clearheadedness that follow a long run.” -Monte Davis

“Every day is a good day when you run.” -Kevin Nelson

“Keep varying the program. Your body will tell you what to do.”
– Joan Benoit Samuelson, 1984 Olympic Gold medalist and women’s running pioneer

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” -William Faulkner

“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

“Running should be a lifelong activity. Approach it patiently and intelligently, and it will reward you for a long, long time.”
-Michael Sargent

“Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re probably right.” -Henry Ford

“The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” -John Bingham, running speaker and writer

“I succeed on my own personal motivation, dedication, and commitment. My mindset is: If I’m not out there training, someone else is.” – Lynn Jennings
American long-distance runner

“We all have dreams, in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort.” – Jesse Owens
Olympic gold-medalist runner

“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.”
-Sir Roger Bannister, first runner to run a sub-4 minute mile

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
-Jim Ryun

“Nobody’s a natural. You work hard to get good and then work hard to get better.” -Paul Coffey

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” -Stacy Jones

“It’s easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top.”
-Henry Ward Beecher

“Doing nothing is very tiring because you can’t stop and take a rest.” -Author Unknown

“Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'”
– Peter Maher, Canadian marathon runner

“Ask yourself: ‘Can I give more?’. The answer is usually: ‘Yes’.”
-Paul Tergat, Kenyan professional marathoner

“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, running speaker and writer

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
-Sir Edmund Hillary

“More powerful than the will to win is the courage to begin.”
-Unknown Author

“In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, ‘I have finished.’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that.”
-Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder

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

“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

“If Only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.” -Mercedes Lackey

“Challenge yourself with something you know you could never do, and what you’ll find is that you can overcome anything.” – Anonymous

“The mind is everything. What you think, you become. – Buddha

“You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.” – Prefontaine