Running Quotes

Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teamate. It gave back a game shudder. He was crusing now, darkness be damned, stripping off his sweatshirt and his long underwear top without breaking stride.

Chad Harbach

Right before you head out running, it can be hard to remember exactly why you're doing it. You often have to override a nagging sense of futility, lacing up your shoes, telling yourslef that no matter how unlikely it seems right now, after you finish you will be glad you went. It's only afterward that it makes sense, although even then it's hard to rationalize why. You just feel right. After a run, you feel at one with the world, as though some unspecified, innate need has been fulfilled.

Adharanand Finn

...the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test the limits of the human heart.

-Without Limits

Running is a brutal and emotional sport. It's also a simple, primal sport. As humans, on a most basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run.

Adharanand Finn

For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight.

George Sheehan

Perhaps it is to fulfill this primal urge that runners and joggers get up every morning and pound the streets in cities all over the world. To feel the stirring of something primeval deep down in the pits of our bellies. To feel "a little bit wild." Running is not exactly fun. Running hurts. It takes effort. Ask any runner why he runs, and he will probably look at you with a wry smile and say, "I don't know." But something keeps us going. We may obsess about our PBs and mileage count, but these things alone are not enough to get us out running... What really drives us is something else, this need to feel human, to reach below the multitude of layers of roles and responsibilites that societ y has placed on us, down below the company name tags, and even the father, husband, and son, labels, to the pure, raw human being underneath. At such moments, our rational mind becomes redundant. We move from thought to feeling.

Adharanand Finn

If we push on, we begin to feel a vague, tingling sense of who, or what, we really are. It's a powerful feeling, strong enough to have us coming back for more, again and again.

Adharanand Finn

Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.

Abe Gubegna

When you undertake a daunting task, an adventure bigger than you ever thought you'd take on, you don't get to know what challenges the universe will present to you on the way. You can decide where you will go and how much money you'll spend and what your activities will be, but there will always be something unexpected, a hurdle of sorts, that offers you an opportunity to learn something about yourself if you take it in stride.

Cami Ostman

Finish: Even if you run a slower than expected time, you succeed in any marathon when you finish.

Hal Higdon

The act of running is simple, one foot in front of the other. The art of becoming a runner is achieved through a new mindset and commitment to change, especially if it’s new to you. It’s tough, challenging, painful, sometimes lonely, regularly uncomfortable and often excruciating…but the rewards are second to none.

Terry Lander

The essential thing is to run period!And to do it for a long time and consistently and then everything will take care of itself.

Bernd Heinrich

Today, I run for pure, absolute joy.

Lopez Lomong

I always pushed myself. Whenever I felt I needed to stop, I made myself run faster.

Cecelia Ahern

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

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

‎As I get older I see that running has changed for me. What used to be about burning calories is now more about burning up what is false. Lies I used to tell myself about who I was and what I could do, friendships that cannot withstand hills or miles, the approval I no longer need to seek, and solidarity that cannot bear silence. I run to burn up what I don't need and ignite what I do.

Kristin Armstrong

Life is for participating, not for spectating.

Kathrine Switzer

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

Running is just such a monestary-- a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.

George Sheehan

Every day is a good day when you run.

Kevin Nelson

It's only when movement becomes the most natural state in our lives that we can finally begin to enjoy the motion. And it's only when standing still becomes impossible that we can finally embrace the kinds of changes that are inevitable in our lives.We were not designed to stand still. If we were, we'd have at least three legs. We were designed to move. Our bodies are bodies that have walked across vast continents. Our bodies are bodies that have carried objects of art and war over great distances. We are no less mobile than our ancestors. We are athletes. We are warriors. We are human.

John Bingham

Running was Clover's favorite thing to do, after reading. She loved the way the cement felt hard and unforgiving under her feet until she reached the park and the dirt path that wound its way alongside the Truckee River.She liked the wind in her face and how it smelled like water. And the way Mango ran beside her, keeping her company. But most of all she liked the way the steady pace untangled her thoughts.

Shaunta Grimes

If you're on the treadmill next to me, the answer is YES, we are racing.

Loves Running

Start slow, then taper off

Walt Stack

And while these pounds were being shed, while the physiological miracles were occurring with the heart and muscle and metabolism, psychological marvels were taking place as well. Just so, the world over, bodies, minds, and souls are constantly being born again, during miles on the road.

George Sheehan

A runner's high doesn't come from thinking about the end result, only of the moment, one step, one breath, one heartbeat at a time. It's the same for a writer ...

C.J. Heck

There were moments in life, Marion thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahead of you.

Erica Bauermeister

If you can run six miles on a summer day then you, my friend, are a lethal weapon in the animal kingdom. We can dump heat on the run, but animals can't pant while they gallop.

Christopher McDougall

Simplicity itself is the key. Education in ballet, dance, martial arts, etc., is done through poses, or to be more precise, through a countless series of poses. Perfection of movement is achieved through the flow of perfectly rehearsed poses.

Nicholas Romanov

Run, leap and celebrate for you are alive today!

Bryant McGill

Running, the music flew into him, became the wind that pushed back his hair and the slap of his own feet on the pavement.

Ann Patchett

In an era when man can no longer dash out of his cave and slay a mammoth, he simply slips on his Lycra and goes for a run.

Phil Hewitt

[Running] is a hard, simple calculus: Run until you can’t run anymore. Then run some more. Find a new source of energy and will. Then run even faster.

Scott Jurek

Success breeds success on a marathon route. If you can prove to yourself that you are doing well, then invariably you will do even better.

Phil Hewitt

Friedrich Nietzsche got pretty hung up on the notion of human will; really all he needed were some running shoes, Lycra and a place in the Berlin Marathon.

Phil Hewitt

In a sprint, if you don't have perfect form, you're doomed. The ultra distance forgives injury, fatigue, bad form, and illness. A bear with determination will defeat a dreamy gazelle every time.

Scott Jurek

Fleet kept running,” Kaladin growled, getting back under Elhokar’s arm.“What?”“He couldn't win, but he kept running. And when the storm caught him, it didn't matter that he’d died, because he’d run for all he had.”“Sure. All right.” The king sounded groggy, though Kaladin couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or the blood loss.“We all die in the end, you see,” Kaladin said. “So I guess what truly matters is just how well you've run. And Elhokar, you've kept running since your father was killed, even if you screw up all the storming time.”“Thank you?” the king said, drowsy.

Brandon Sanderson

You need songs that make you feel. Some make you string, some make you weak. Some build determination, some tear you apart. But you need all of those...Run through the pain.

Jessica Park

You can’t be miserable when you’re running. It’s such a simple and pure way to feel alive.

Veronica Rossi

Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad. Then work on light. Make it efforthless, like you don't give a shit how high the hill is or how far you've got to go. When you've practiced that so long, that you forget you're practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won't have to worry about the last one - you get those three, and you'll be fast.

Christopher McDougall

At age 43, when I decided to run again, I realized that the images used to describe runners didn't fit me. I wasn't a rabbit. I wasn't a gazelle or a cheetah or any of the other animals that run fast and free. But I wasn't a turtle or a snail either. I wasn't content anymore to move slowly through my life and hide in my shell when I was scared.I was a round little man with a heavy heart but a hopeful spirit. I didn't really run, or even jog. I waddled. I was a Penguin. This was the image that fit. Emperor-proud, I stand tallto face the elements of my life. Yes, I am round. Yes, I am slow. Yes, I run as thought my legs are tied together at the knees. But I am running. And that is all that matters.

John Bingham

Then, I started running. And everything was as good as it could be.

Stephen Chbosky

Remember, it’s the pace that kills, never the distance.

Bill Jones

The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other, he understood, but to be with each other.

Christopher McDougall

Disease, then, is one of those bad experiences that turns information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. The bad experiences that make you love yourself and your body and the world. And make you know that you are in a game that has to have a happy ending.

George Sheehan

There are some people who think runners are snobs. These people are called non-runners. And they're right, of course. There is a certain hubris you develop when you do things no one else does.

Jennifer Graham

CARE - Commitment Attitude Respect Effort

Katherine Karagiannis Richards

Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.” ― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami

Running a race assigns a point to a sport that often feels very pointless. It's an exuberant payoff to months of tedium. It's a way of crafting an end boss for a particularly cumbersome video game. It's a fun, monstrous reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other. So, do yourself a favor: go build a monster.

Matthew Inman

Under every layer of pain, another layer of recovery lies in wait, the sweet, forever surprising truth of endurance.

Carrie Snyder

Running is a simple activity. Just lace up your shoes and go, one step at a time, like each breath.

Adharanand Finn

When he ran, he even loved the pain, the hurt of the running, the burning in his lungs and the spasms that sometimes gripped his calves. He loved it because he knew he could endure the pain, and even go beyond it. He had never pushed himself to the limit but he felt all this reserve strength inside of him: more than strength actually—determination. And it sang in him as he ran, his heart pumping blood joyfully through his body.

Robert Cormier

As a runner, you have to face the truth about yourself on a regular basis, and it makes you more honest. You can't pretend to be faster than you are. You can't pretend that you are better prepared than you are. You cannot pretend to be a runner, you actually have to run.

John Bingham

Of course, we all go through our own experiences. If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.

Sakyong Mipham

Everyone’s running from something.

Peter Watts

...I couldn't see him anymore, and I couldn't see anybody, and I knew what the loneliness of the long-distance runner running across country felt like, realizing that as far as I was concerned this feeling was the only honesty and realness there was in the world and I knowing it would be no different ever, no matter what I felt at odd times, and no matter what anybody else tried to tell me

Alan Sillitoe

So as soon as I tell myself I'm the first man ever to be dropped into the world, and as soon as I take that first flying leap into the frosty grass of an early morning when even birds haven't the heart to whistle, I get to thinking, and that's what I like. I go my rounds in a dream, turning at lane or footpath corners without knowing I'm turning, leaping brooks without knowing they're there, and shouting good morning to the early cow-milker without seeing him. It's a treat being a long-distance runner, out in the world by yourself with not a soul to make you bad-tempered or tell you what to do.

Alan Sillitoe

We knew not where we were going. We only knew that we must run, run to the end of the world, run to the end of our days.

Ayn Rand

It had been said that the marathon doesn't really begin until mile twenty. I say mile twenty-six would be more appropriate. The final two-tenths of a mile is filled with emotion. No matter how desperately you're struggling at this point, thoughts typically drift away from the immediate task at hand (ie, survival) to broader feelings.

Dean Karnazes

1 2 3 … 7 Next

Running Quotes

Related Topics