The study of motivation goes back to the Greeks. Their sports were essential to their education. They saw in sports the integration of body, mind and soul, the creation of beauty, the mastering of athletics, and the challenge of competition. A French sociologist points this out. "Sports," he wrote, was part of the education of the citizen. He was expected to engage in exercise for a whole series of reasons that had to do with the shaping of the citizen; the relation between moral good and physical good; and the growth of a person.

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

The real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit

Like everyone else, I want to be challenged. I want to find out whether or not I am a coward. I want to see how much effort I can put out . . . what I can endure . . . if I measure up. Running allows that.

The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life.

Exercise is done against one's wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse.

Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not.