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

Sustained motivation is essential to achieving your potential.

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.

Exercise and sports are greatly affected by what goes into the mind, and the mind is greatly affected by sports and exercise as well. This is true among exercisers at all levels, despite their different goals. A major element in mental training is visualization ... Visualizing a positive outcome can create a pattern of success, as long as you set realistic and specific goals.

When I came to New York in 1978, I was a full-time school teacher and track runner, and determined to retire from competitive running. But winning the New York City Marathon kept me running for another decade.

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.

You go into the disease as one person and come out of it as a different person. It has changed my perspective on everything. Things that used to upset me no longer do.