No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes.

If you run 100 miles a week, you can eat anything you want - Why? Because (a) you'll burn all the calories you consume, (b) you deserve it, and (c) you'll be injured soon and back on a restricted diet anyway.

Eventually, competition and adventure wane, and I enter my ibuprofen phase. Tweaky hamstrings and achy knees restrict mileage, but I continue running for health, sanity, and the ritual of a Sunday trail run with like-minded buddies. We discuss the nagging injuries that bedevil us, and remember the good old days when we were kings.

Avoid any diet that discourages the use of hot fudge.

Grizzly bears eat people without the benefit of music.

I know runners who have suffered a tick bite and ended up with Lyme disease. Ill take an angry moose any day.

Runners like to train 100 miles per week because it's a round number. But I think 88 is a lot rounder.