You don't run 26 miles at five minutes a mile on good looks and a secret recipe.

As I've been able to once again gain the benefits of speed work, I'm enjoying my running more and more.

You can actually suffer a little bit more going slowly than when you're going really fast. A faster marathon might even be easier than a slow one, in terms of what it takes out of you mentally.

There's obviously some validity to it. But I think it also points out that you obviously can do it on your own because people have been doing it long before they had the stuff.

I also held several masters running titles.

Being in school is the best place to be if you are an athlete because you can structure your own time.

For the novice runner, I'd say to give yourself at least 2 months of consistently running several times a week at a conversational pace before deciding whether you want to stick with it. Consistency is the most important aspect of training at this point.