The Quotable Runner: Great Moments of Wisdom, Inspiration, Wrongheadedness and Humor

by Mark Will - Weber (Editor)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1996

  $3.28

  Contents IntroductionThe Starting LineVoices from the Midpack (and Elsewhere)CoachesEat, Drink, But Be WaryTrainingFearRacingRecordsCross-CountryHillsIn the Footsteps of AtalantaThe MarathonThe MileMind Over MatterThe International RunnerPainThe OlympicsMedals and MoneyThe Finish Line: RetirementVictories and DefeatsWho's Who A few of our favorite quotes: Bid me run and I will strive with things impossible. --Shakespeare Long distance running is particularly good training in perseverance. --Chairman Mao Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos. --Don Kardong Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, like the muscles of the body. --Lynn Jennings If you want to win a race you have to go a little berserk. --Bill Rodgers Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. --Oprah Winfrey The mile has all the elements of drama. --Roger Bannister Mind is everything. Muscle -- pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind. --Paavo Nurmi The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare. --Juma Ikangaa Start slowly, then taper off. --Walt Stack Records are made to be broken. --Anonymous Introduction by Mark Will-Weber Compiling a book of quotations is a bit like prospecting. For long, unrewarded hours you sift through the silt, murk, and bottom mud which comprise the great body of sports literature and journalism--all for that rare nugget of gold. I began work on The Quotable Runner without actually realizing that I was doing it. (I highly recommend this method for any lengthy task if you can arrange it.) The first few hundred quotations that I gathered were used at the bottom of race results, in batches of five or six quotes per race, which I passed on to the cross-country runners at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As their coach, I thought it might be a fun way to jazz up the results sheets and inspire the runners to train with diligence and a new spark. Maybe a line from Zatopek, Nurmi, or Benoit would ignite a dre