Every runner is an experiment of one.

People begin running for any number of motives, but we stick to it for one basic reason-to find out who we really are.

The music of a marathon is a powerful strain, one of those tunes of glory. It asks us to forsake pleasures, to discipline the body, to find courage, to renew faith and to become one's own person, utterly and completely.

There is no substitute for learning to live in our bodies.

The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal.

Life is a positive-sum game. Everyone from the gold medallist to the last finisher can rejoice in a personal victory.

If you want to find the answers to the Big Questions about your soul, you'd best begin with the Little Answers about your body.