I've run a lot of miles over the years, some fast and some not so fast. I've won some big races and I've had some big disappointments, but I enjoy the freedom of running and the challenge of training and competition as much now as when I first started back in high school.

I'd rather run a gutsy race, pushing all the way and lose, than run a conservative race only for a win.

You have to change things in order to get to where you want to go. And things might get worse. But if you're not getting where you want to be, already, in a sense, it's as bad as it can get.

The marathon is like a bullfight.

There are a lot of guys out there now who know they are not working as hard as other people. I can't fathom how they think.

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

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.