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.

It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.

Do not tell me what to do, tell me what you do. Do not tell me what is good for me, tell me what is good for you. If, at the same time, you reveal the you in me, if you become a mirror to my inner self, then you have made a reader and a friend.

There are as many reasons for running as there are days in the year, years in my life. But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be.

To make your life a work of art, you must have the material to work with. The race, any race, is just such an experience.

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