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.

Exercise: you don't have time not to

The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you've got.

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

Of all the races, there is no better stage for heroism than a marathon.

I will not last forever. But I am damn well going to know I have been here.

I have a bumper sticker that Bowen created that says Regardless of my kids grades, they have an 'A' in my book'. Without play the child that still lives in all of us will always be incomplete. And not only physically, but creatively, intellectually, and spiritually as well.