Marathon training doesn't have to be a grind. By running for about 30 minutes two times a week, and by gradually increasing the length of a third weekly run-the long run-anyone can finish a marathon.

The more you frame the marathon as a stressful experience, the more negative messages you'll receive. But it's just as easy to frame it as a positively challenging journey.

I spent the first twenty years of my running career trying to run as many miles as I could as fast as I could. Then I spent the next twenty years trying to figure out how to run the least amount of miles needed to finish a marathon. And I've come to the conclusion the second way is much more enjoyable.

We are designed to run and we increase our chance of daily happiness when we do so.

The marathon is a competition between your will and your possibilities

There's an old adage that for every second too fast per mile in the first half of the race, you'll run at least 2 seconds slower at the end.

Here is the start, there is the finish line. Between that, you have to run.