If you want to achieve a high goal, you're going to have to take some chances.

I like the marathon because it's one race where you can find out who's really the toughest. On the track, sometimes a guy can just pull away, and you want to stay with him but you don't have the leg speed. The marathon is slow enough that anyone can stay with you if he wants, if he has the will. The marathon is ultimately a test of will.

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

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

I'm doing great heart-wise. I get a complete stress test once a year, and those have gone well. I have stents in two arteries, and they are holding up. My other arteries haven't shown any additional clogging.

Early in my career I was accused of being overconfident and even cocky, but I really was confident that I had done the training and didn't see any other reason to say otherwise.

I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards.