"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."
- Juma Ikangaa, Tanzania

"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."
- Bill Dellinger, Oregon coach

"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, Irish-Canadian Olympian and sub-2:12 marathoner

"Fear is a great motivator."
- John Treacy, 1984 Olympic silver medalist

"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 gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
- Inspirational sign on a runner's office wall

"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going."
- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

"Mind is everything: muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind."
- Paavo Nurmi

"Run hard, be strong, think big!"
- Percy Cerutty

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."
- Steve Prefontaine

"Once you're beat mentally, you might was well not even go to the starting line."
-Todd Williams

"The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy...It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed."
- Jacqueline Gareau, 1980 Boston Marathon champ

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

"If I faltered, there would be no arms to hold me and the world would be a cold and forbidding place."
-Sir Roger Bannister

"Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks."
- Sir Roger Bannister

"There are people who have no bodies, only heads. And many athletes have no heads, only bodies. A champion is a man who has trained his body and his mind, who has learned to conquer pain for his own purposes. A great athlete is at peace with himself and at peace with the world; he has fulfilled himself. He envies nobody. Wars are caused by people who have not fulfilled themselves."
- Coach Sam Dee The Olympian

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 hump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable."
- Sir Roger Bannister

"God determines how fast you're going to run; I can help only with the mechanics."
- Bill Bowerman

"If a man coaches himself, then he has only himself to blame when he is beaten."
- Sir Roger Bannister

"I still bother with runners I call hamburgers. They're never going to run
any record times. But they can fulfill their own potential."
- Bill Bowerman

"A teacher is never too smart to learn from his pupils. But while runners differ, basic principles never change. So it's a matter of fitting your current practices to fit the event and the individual. See, what's good for you might not be worth a darn for the next guy."
- Bill Bowerman

"Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win."
- Tom Fleming's Boston Marathon training sign on his wall

"Running is a lot like life. Only 10 percent of it is exciting. 90 percent of it is slog and drudge."
- Dave Bedford, English distance runner who occasionally put in 200 miles a week in training

"You have to go through cycles of extreme poverty and suffering for a while; they are used to that...They get up early, run hard, rest drink tea, get out and run hard again. Wehn Simon Dirorie gets up at 4 a.m. - I'm dedicated, but I'm not that dedicated."
- Keith Brantly, on why the Kenyan runners are so good, 1993

"I think people can handle 150 to 200 miles a week. But something has to give somewhere. If he's a student, how's he going to study? He may be at the age of chasing and courtship, and that's an important form of sport and recreation, too."
- Bill Bowerman

"Workouts are like brushing my teeth; I don't think about them, I just do them. The decision has already been made."
- Patti Sue Plumer, U.S. Olympian

"Ill train like a madman, un loco. Well, not like a madman, perhaps, but as if it were my last race."
- Rudolfo Gomez, prior to the Los Aneles Olympic Games

"The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat."
- Bill Squires

"If someone says, 'Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?' ignore him! What the hell difference does it make?.... The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles."
- Bill Bowerman

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

"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 race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they're capable of understanding."
- Steve Prefontaine