Winning times in the New York City Marathon have not dropped all that much over the years, but rather U.S. runners went backward. In 1983, there were 267 U.S. men who broke 2:20 in a marathon, and by 2000 that number was down to 27.

I've found that my athletes run their best races after about 10 weeks of intense training.

The marathon is like a bullfight.

Trust me, my runners aren't going to run one event while looking past it to the second event. When they get on the line for the 10K, that's a do-or-die situation for them.

An athlete who tells you the training is always easy and always fun simply hasn't been there. Goals can be elusive which makes the difficult journey all the more rewarding.

I think in running, to be honest, that even though athletes are very dedicated and are willing to train and do whatever they need to do to prepare, more often than not they're not in a very professional environment where you've got a high performance director and a coach that are really monitoring your daily activities.

I didn't give myself enough breaks during the training year to recover. I didn't understand the power of periodization.