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

We (ultra runners) alternate between depression and stupidity.

Coaches know that a parent publicly scolding his kid after a race will not help the athlete perform better.

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.

In those long, lonely miles you put in during the off-season, and in those knife-in-the-gut repetitions and hill repeats that buckly your knees - at that moment in almost every race when you ask yourself how much you're willing to hurt to catch one more runner - you can draw strength and inspiration from your running mates.

You entered a marathon with hills? You idiot.

The key to running a good marathon is to not listen to anyone's advice the last week before the race. That's when people tend to do stupid things that disrupt all the input and training of the previous months.