For every finish-line tape a runner breaks -- complete with the cheers of the crowd and the clicking of hundreds of cameras -- there are the hours of hard and often lonely work that rarely gets talked about.

You've got to look for tough competition. You've got to want to beat the best.

Spend at least some of your training time, and other parts of your day, concentrating on what you are doing in training and visualizing your success.

Everyone wins the marathon. We all have the same feeling at the start-nervous, anxious, excited. It is a broader, richer, and even with twenty-seven thousand people-more intimate experience than I found when racing in track. New York is the marathon that all the biggest stars want to win, but has also been the stage for an array of human stories more vast than any other sporting event.

Not only is [a half marathon] a good test for the marathon, it is also good for those who feel they were just getting going in a 10K and are physically and mentally primed to go further. A half marathon is a good test of your endurance, without the physical punishment of going the full 26.2 miles. More so even than the 10K, it will teach you about patience, pacing, and how to negotiate a wider range of physical and emotional cycles.

For a couple of days after chemotherapy, food tastes really bland, even the best foods. I haven't been sick, but have been a little tired. I haven't lost any weight.

One day you are happy and laughing and the next you are crying.