147 Motivational Quotes For Runners

Running is more than just a physical activity; it's a journey of determination, resilience, and self-discovery. Whether you're a seasoned marathoner or a casual jogger, the right words can spark the motivation needed to push through challenges and reach new heights. In this collection, we've gathered 147 of the most inspiring motivational quotes tailored specifically for runners. These quotes are like a burst of energy, igniting your passion and fortitude. So lace up your shoes, let these words fuel your spirit, and embrace the road ahead with renewed vigor and enthusiasm.

1. “The miracle isn't that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.” - John Bingham

2. “I don't get it,' Caroline said, bemused. 'She's the only one with wings. Why is that?'There were so many questions in life. You couldn't ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.It's so she can fly,' I said. Then I started to run.” - Sarah Dessen

3. “Struggle is the food from which change is made, and the best time to make the most of a struggle is when it's right in front of your face. Now, I know that might sound a bit simplistic. But, too often we're led to believe that struggling is a bad thing, or that we struggle because we're doing something wrong. I disagree. I look at struggle as an opportunity to grow. True struggle happens when you can sense what is not working for you and you're willing to take the appropriate action to correct the situation. Those who accomplish change are willing to engage the struggle.” - Danny Dreyer

4. “You would run much slower if you were dragging something behind you, like a knapsack or a sheriff.” - Lemony Snicket

5. “It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination. We have a better chance of seeing where we are when we stop trying to get somewhere else. We can enjoy every moment of movement, as long as where we are is as good as where we'd like to be. That's not to say that you need to be satisfied forever with where you are today. But you need to honor what you've accomplished, rather than thinking of what's left to be done (p. 159).” - John Bingham

6. “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” - Dean Karnazes

7. “Everything you need is already inside.” - William J. Bowerman

8. “People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life—and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.” - Haruki Murakami

9. “Running! If there's any activity happier, more exhilarating, more nourishing to the imagination, I can't think of what it might be. In running the mind flees with the body, the mysterious efflorescence of language seems to pulse in the brain, in rhythm with our feet and the swinging of our arms.” - Joyce Carol Oates

10. “Encourage kids to enjoy running and play in athletics. Don't force them to run too much competition.” - Arthur Lydiard

11. “Athletes need to enjoy their training. They don't enjoy going down to the track with a coach making them do repetitions until they're exhausted. From enjoyment comes the will to win.” - Arthur Lydiard

12. “Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.” - Haruki Murakami

13. “Some seek the comfort of their therapist's office, other head to the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I chose running as my therapy.” - Dean Karnazes

14. “Imagine your kid is running into the street and you have to sprint after her in bare feet," Eric told me when I picked up my training with him after my time with Ken. "You'll automatically lock into perfect form--you'll be up on your forefeet, with your back erect, head steady, arms high, elbows driving, and feet touching down quickly on the forefoot and kicking back toward your butt."You can't run uphill powerfully with poor biomechanics," Eric explained.” - Christopher McDougall

15. “Nearly all runners do their slow runs too fast, and their fast runs too slow." Ken Mierke says. "So they're just training their bodies to burn sugar, which is the last thing a distance runner wants. You've got enough fat stored to run to California, so the more you train your body to burn fat instead of sugar, the longer your limited sugar tank is going to last."-The way to activate your fat-burning furnace is by staying below your aerobic threshold--your hard-breathing point--during your endurance runs.” - Christopher McDougall

16. “All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.” - Haruki Murakami

17. “At paces that might stun and dismay the religious jogger, the runners easily kept up all manner of chatter and horseplay. When they occasionally blew by a huffing fatty or an aging road runner, they automatically toned down the banter to avoid overwhelming, to preclude the appearance of show boating (not that they slowed in the slightest). They in fact respected these distant cousins of the spirit, who, among all people, had some modicum of insight into their own days and ways. But the runners resembled them only in the sense that a puma resembles a pussy cat. It is the difference between stretching lazily on the carpet and prowling the jungle for fresh red meat.” - John L. Parker Jr.

18. “He wanted to impart some of the truths Bruce Denton had taught him, that you dont' become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could he make them understand?” - John L. Parker Jr.

19. “Though Jack Nubbins was extremely talented, Quenten Cassidy had viewed the Specter; when he reached down through the familiar layers of gloom and fatigue he generally found more there than a nameless and transient desire to acquire plastic trophies. He and Nubbins were not even in the same ball park.” - John L. Parker Jr.

20. “There was no let-up. The tempo was always moderate but steady. If a new guy decided to pick up the pace, that's where it stayed, whether he finished with the group or not. You showed off at your peril.” - John L. Parker Jr.

21. “He ran his hand up and down his left achilles tendon. Very tender; better pay attention to it and back off if it gets any worse. Maybe ice it. The old Injury Evasion Fandango. Did it ever end?” - John L. Parker Jr.

22. “Hey listen, I already have a complete list of silver linings. It's the goddamn cloud that's killin me.” - John L. Parker Jr.

23. “He was filled with loss and an off-brand of nostalgia for events that were supposed to become part of his past but now wouldn't at all. In the mind's special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists in the real world; it is all out on the train somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there. He and Mize had been through two solid years of such regular time-warp escapes together. There was something different about that, something beyond friendship; they had a way of transferring pain back and forth, without the banality of words.” - John L. Parker Jr.

24. “...there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love *running*. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you've got, being patient and forgiving and... undemanding...maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.” - Christopher McDougall

25. “Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.” - Stephen King

26. “He removed his unvaluable valuables and dumped his shirt, pants, and skivvies into a letter slot.” - Stephen King

27. “He had never been a social man. He had shunned causes with contempt and disgust. They were for pig-simple suckers and people with too much time and money on their hands” - Stephen King

28. “He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood.” - Stephen King

29. “The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it.” - Stephen King

30. “Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived.” - Dean Karnazes

31. “In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives. . . .” - Stephen King

32. “You got one guy going boom, one guy going whack, and one guy not getting in the endzone.” - john madden

33. “I thought about the days i had handed over to a bottle..the nights i can't remember..the mornings i slept thru..all the time spent running from myself.” - Mitch Albom

34. “Searching for nothingWondering if I’ll changeI’m trying everythingBut everything still stays the sameI thought if I showed you I could flyWouldn’t need anyone by my sideI'm running backwardsWith broken wings I know I’ll die” - Sully Erna

35. “As long as my heart's still in it, I'll keep going. If the passion's there, why stop?...There'll likely be a point of diminishing returns, a point where my strength will begin to wane. Until then, I'll just keep plodding onward, putting one foot in front of the other to the best of my ability. Smiling the entire time.” - Dean Karnazes

36. “I run because if I didn’t, I’d be sluggish and glum and spend too much time on the couch. I run to breathe the fresh air. I run to explore. I run to escape the ordinary. I run…to savor the trip along the way. Life becomes a little more vibrant, a little more intense. I like that.” - Dean Karnazes

37. “How to run an ultramarathon ? Puff out your chest, put one foot in front of the other, and don't stop till you cross the finish line.” - Dean Karnazes

38. “Struggling and suffering are the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not demanding more from yourself - expanding and learning as you go - you're choosing a numb existence. You're denying yourself an extraordinary trip.” - Dean Karnazes

39. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” - Haruki Murakami

40. “You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn’t live to love anything else…We were born to run; we were born because we run” - Christopher McDougall

41. “I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue.” - Haruki Murakami

42. “Running is real and relatively simple…but it ain't easy.” - Mark Will-Weber

43. “People think I'm crazy to put myself through such torture, though I would argue otherwise. Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness. Dostoyevsky had it right: 'Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.' Never are my senses more engaged than when the pain sets in. There is a magic in misery. Just ask any runner.” - Dean Karnazes

44. “That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middle--behold, the Running Man.Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everyhing else we ove--everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires' it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run. We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known.” - Christopher McDougall

45. “There are two goddesses in your heard. The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, giver her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” - Joe Vigil

46. “There's one rule of thumb that suggests that you need one day of recovery for every mile run in a race. Another rule of thumb...suggests one day...for every kilometer run in anger.” - Hal Higdon

47. “We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.” - Christopher McDougall

48. “Running to him was real; the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as a diamond; it made him weary behond comprehension. But it also made him free.” - John L. Parker Jr.

49. “This means that I don't have to run faster than the psychotic-maniac-vampire-cannibal, I just have to run faster than whoever is with me when the psychotic-maniac-vampire-cannibal starts chasing us.” - Jim Benton

50. “He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tired to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time.” - Anna Godbersen

51. “The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky.” - Haruki Murakami

52. “He was onto something. Something huge. It wasn't just how to run; it was how to live, the essence of who we are as a species and what we're meant to be.” - Christopher McDougall

53. “Running isn't a sport for pretty boys...It's about the sweat in your hair and the blisters on your feet. Its the frozen spit on your chin and the nausea in your gut. It's about throbbing calves and cramps at midnight that are strong enough to wake the dead. It's about getting out the door and running when the rest of the world is only dreaming about having the passion that you need to live each and every day with. It's about being on a lonely road and running like a champion even when there's not a single soul in sight to cheer you on. Running is all about having the desire to train and persevere until every fiber in your legs, mind, and heart is turned to steel. And when you've finally forged hard enough, you will have become the best runner you can be. And that's all that you can ask for.” - Paul Maurer

54. “I often lose motivation, but it's something I accept as normal.” - Bill Rodgers

55. “I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards.” - Alberto Salazar

56. “O.K. I'm running out of appetite. Let this swirl— a bit like Crab Nebula— do for now.” - Charles Olson

57. “They say a good love is one that sits you down, gives you a drink of water, and pats you on top of the head. But I say a good love is one that casts you into the wind, sets you ablaze, makes you burn through the skies and ignite the night like a phoenix; the kind that cuts you loose like a wildfire and you can't stop running simply because you keep on burning everything that you touch! I say that's a good love; one that burns and flies, and you run with it!” - C. JoyBell C.

58. “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.” - Haruki Murakami

59. “The freedom of Cross Country is so primitive. It's woman vs. nature.” - Lynn Jennings

60. “The footing was really atrocious. I loved it. I really like Cross Country; you're one with the mud.” - Lynn Jennings

61. “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you're the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.” - Christopher McDougall

62. “Vigil couldn't quite put his finger on it, but his gut kept telling him that there was some kind of connection between the capacity to love and the capacity to love running. The engineering was certainly the same: both depended on loosening your grip on your own desires, putting aside what you wanted and appreciating what you got, being patient and forgiving and undemanding.” - Christopher McDougall

63. “Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldn't live to love anything else. And like everything else we love-everything we sentimentally call our 'passions' and 'desires'-it's really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run.” - Christopher McDougall

64. “After joyfully working each morning, I would leave off around midday to challenge myself to a footrace. Speeding along the sunny paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg, ideas would breed like aphids in my head—for creative invention is easy and sublime when air cycles quickly through the lungs and the body is busy at noble tasks.” - Roman Payne

65. “There are two goddesses in your heart,” he told them. “The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.” - Christopher McDougall

66. “Try the meditation of the trail, just walk along looking at the trail at your feet and don’t look about and just fall into a trance as the ground zips by,” Kerouac wrote. “Trails are like that: you’re floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and fluteboys, then suddenly you’re struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak… just like life.” - Christopher McDougall

67. “He ran as he'd never run before, with neither hope nor despair. He ran because the world was divided into opposites and his side had already been chosen for him, his only choice being whether or not to play his part with heart and courage. He ran because fate had placed him in a position of responsibility and he had accepted the burden. He ran because his self-respect required it. He ran because he loved his friends and this was the only thing he could do to end the madness that was killing and maiming them.” - Karl Marlantes

68. “The Tarahumara would party like this all night, then rouse themselves the next morning to face off in a running race that could last not two miles, not two hours, but two full days. According to the Mexican historian Francisco Almada, a Tarahumara champion once ran 435 miles, the equivalent of setting out for a jog in New York City and not stopping till you were closing in on Detroit.” - Christopher McDougall

69. “Poetry, music, forests, oceans, solitude--they were what developed enormous spiritual strength. I came to realize that spirit, as much or more than physical conditioning, had to be stored up before a race.” - Herb Elliott

70. “I don't think my moped could outrun a cheetah.""Hun," Claire says. "There are more important things you need to outrun, and a moped isn't going to help you with any of those.” - Jonathan Messinger

71. “It does no good to run. And it does no good to hide. But I know what it's like. Your brain shuts down, and you follow your instincts. Or, at least, you think you do. But you know what you're really doing? When you flee through the night, or crawl into your little bolt-hole? You know what's really guiding you? Controlling you? Pushing you on? Genre conventions.” - Mike Carey & Peter Gross

72. “Rogue Squadron doesn’t run. Unless we really, really have to.""No, this will be Wraith Squadron’s mission.""We don’t mind running. Even when we don’t have to.” - Aaron Allston

73. “Now... Just run.' [said the Doctor.]One of the things you learn very quickly around the Doctor is never to question him when he says that word. You just run. It's almost like breathing.” - James Goss

74. “A substantial daily intake of alcohol was the perfect way to stay in shape.” - Simon Napier-Bell

75. “The traditional approach to an unknown risk is avoidance.” - James F. Clapp

76. “...the big increases in heart and blood volumes that occur by the 12th week of pregnancy should have the same effect as 'blood doping'. This partially explains the outstanding performances of several female athletes from Eastern bloc countries who were at this stage of pregnancy when they competed in the 1976 Olympics.” - James F. Clapp

77. “Beckendorf, whose legs were now working fine (nothing like being chased by a huge monster to get your body back in order) shook his head and gasped for breath. “You shouldn’t have turned it on! It’s unstable! After a few years, automatons go wild!” - Rick Riordan

78. “The father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And we've done fine tonight. Even Death can't spoil it.” - Ray Bradbury

79. “There is something magical about running; after a certain distance, it transcends the body. Then a bit further, it transcends the mind. A bit further yet, and what you have before you, laid bare, is the soul.” - Kristin Armstrong

80. “...Or we can blaze! Become legends in our own time, strike fear in the heart of mediocre talent everywhere! We can scald dogs, put records out of reach! Make the stands gasp as we blow into an unearthly kick from three hundred yards out! We can become God's own messengers delivering the dreaded scrolls! We can race dark Satan himself till he wheezes fiery cinders down the back straightaway....They'll speak our names in hushed tones, 'those guys are animals' they'll say! We can lay it on the line, bust a gut, show them a clean pair of heels. We can sprint the turn on a spring breeze and feel the winter leave our feet! We can, by God, let our demons loose and just wail on!” - John L. Parker Jr.

81. “We're still on the run. That's for sure.Right on. This time we're on.And we won't stop till we win.” - Koushun Takami

82. “She clutched the train ticket tighter and waited for the sense of escape to come over her as it had a dozen times before, that heady sensation of having just scooted through the clanging gate, of eluding the thrown net. It didn't come. She was running again, but she wasn't escaping. She'd been chased to ground a long, long time ago.” - Connie Brockway

83. “Long Distance training can be a positive & constructive form of selfishness. After all, once you're at the starting line, you're there by yourself. No one can run a single step for you. No one can jump in & help you. No one but you can make the decisions about what to do to keep going. It's all up to you.” - John "The Penguin" Bingham

84. “Crossing the starting line may be an act of courage, but crossing the finish line is an act of faith. Faith is what kepes us going when nothing else will. Faith is the emotion that will give you victory over your past, the demons in your soul, & all of those voices that tell you what you can & cannot do & can & cannot be.” - John "The Penguin" Bingham

85. “Most men either compromise or drop their greatest talents and start running after, what they perceive to be, a more reasonable success, and somewhere in between they end up with a discontented settlement. Safety is indeed stability, but it is not progression.” - Criss Jami

86. “You get hit the hardest when trying to run or hide from a problem. Like the defense on a football field, putting all focus on evading only one defender is asking to be blindsided.” - Criss Jami

87. “A typical race morning usually starts out looking like a scene from a zombie movie: individuals or pairs of people walking down a deserted street, all headed in the same direction.... Inevitably, regardless of the weather, U2's "Beautiful Day" streams out of loudspeakers.” - Sarah Bowen Shea

88. “But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.” - Christopher McDougall

89. “Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.” - Christopher McDougall

90. “We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.” - Christopher McDougall

91. “When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could "wait" for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by "waiting" for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me "Cinderella is a perfect example to be" but I have learned that Cinderella can go fuck herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore.” - C. JoyBell C.

92. “Movement is the essence of life.” - Bernd Heinrich

93. “But most of all I was inspired by the stirring examples of all the other runners. In some pictures they would seem like tiny dots in a mosaic, but each had a separate narrative starting a few months or a lifetime earlier and finishing that day in the New York City Marathon, the race with 37,000 stories.” - Mark Sutcliffe

94. “If you don't think you were born to run you're not only denying history. You're denying who you are.” - Christopher McDougall

95. “And then there's the perverse joy of subtly working in references to marathon training in daily life, say at the post office or while waiting outside my first-graders' classrooms at the end of the school day.” - Sarah Bowen Shea

96. “When I go to the Boston Marathon now, I have wet shoulders—women fall into my arms crying. They're weeping for joy because running has changed their lives. They feel they can do anything.” - Kathrine Switzer

97. “An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to scream, jump, squirm. I ran.” - Lauren Oliver

98. “We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known. But the American approach -- ugh. Rotten at its core. It was too artificial and grabby, Vigil believed, too much about getting stuff and getting it now: medals, Nike deals, a cute butt. It wasn't art; it was business, a hard-nosed quid pro quo. No wonder so many people hated running; if you thought it was only a means to an end--an investment in becoming faster, skinnier, richer--then why stick with it if you weren't getting enough quo for your quid?” - Christopher McDougall

99. “Cassidy's heart tried to leap out through his taught skin and hop into his wet hands. But outwardly it was all very calm, very serene, just as always, and it seemed to last a tiny forever, just like that, a snapshot of them all on the curved parabola of a starting line, eight giant hearts attached to eight pairs of bellows-like lungs mounted on eight pairs of supercharged stilts. They were poised on the edge of some howling vortex they had run 10,000 miles to get to. Now they had to run one more” - John L. Parker Jr.

100. “There are no standards and no possible victories except the joy you are living while dancing your run. You are not running for some future reward-the real reward is now!” - Fred Rohe

101. “But yeah, Ann [Trason] insisted, running was romantic; and no, of course her friends didn't get it because they'd never broken through. For them, running was a miserable two miles motivated solely by size 6 jeans: get on the scale, get depressed, get your headphones on, and get it over with. But you can't muscle through a five-hour run that way; you have to relax into it, like easing your body into a hot bath, until it no longer resists the shock and begins to enjoy it.” - Christopher McDougall

102. “I told her running away from your problems doesn't solve anything. Really it just hurts the people who count on you.” - Kyle Beachy

103. “Every day is a fresh start; don't measure yourself by yesterday's troubles.” - Dagny Scott Barrios

104. “Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day's canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations. When you're angry, a run can be a sharp slap in the face. When happy, a run is your song. And when your running progresses enough to become the chrysalis through which your life is viewed, motivation is almost beside the point. Rather, it's running that motivates you for everything else the day holds.” - Dagny Scott Barrios

105. “Blaming the running injury epidemic on big, bad Nike seems too easy - but that's okay, because it's largely their fault.” - Christopher McDougall

106. “I'll be happy if running and I can grow old together.” - Haruki Murakami

107. “If you don't have answers to your problems after a four-hour run, you ain't getting them.” - Christopher McDougall

108. “I don't run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.” - Ronald Rook

109. “As we run, we become.” - Amby Burfoot

110. “As every runner knows, running is about more than just putting one foot in front of the other; it is about our lifestyle and who we are.” - Joan Benoit Samuelson

111. “The true runner is a very fortunate person. He has found something in him that is just perfect.” - George Sheehan

112. “Vary your training, your running partners, and your environment. Only your imagination limits the ways you can spice up your running routine.” - Bob Glover

113. “For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight.” - George Sheehan

114. “Whatever you may be missing right now - a person, a place, a feeling, maybe you are injured and missing running - whatever it is, have peace and take heart - remember that any goodbye makes room for a hello.” - Kristin Armstrong

115. “When it's pouring rain and you're bowling along through the wet, there's satisfaction in knowing you're out there and the others aren't.” - Peter Snell

116. “As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's different then. It's filled with hope and with bristles of winter sunshine. In the evening, it's like it dies, waiting to be born again the next morning.” - Markus Zusak

117. “Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic.” - Timothy Noakes

118. “Even though I can’t tell others whether they should chase their marathon dreams, I highly recommend they do something completely out of character, something they never in a million years thought they’d do, something they may fail miserably at. Because sometimes the places where you end up finding your true self are the places you never thought to look. That, and I don’t want to be the only one who sucks at something.” - Dawn Dais

119. “Kim was, as always, utterly happy while running, in accord with nature, in harmony with the universe, in touch with the truth that was in him, full of love for all creatures even to the lowliest insect.” - Susan Trott

120. “I came back, Uncle Eddie. Last year, after the Henley, I could have gone to any school in the world -- I could have done anything, but I came back." "You ran away, Katarina." "And now I'm back." "You're still running.” - Ally Carter

121. “What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.” - James Dyson

122. “They'll torture you for months before killing you if you run" Otis shrugged, as if this was an everyday occurrence.” - Heather Brewer

123. “What else is there to do in this world but love other people?” - James E. Shapiro

124. “Start slow, then taper off” - Walt Stack

125. “...the real purpose of running isn’t to win a race. It’s to test the limits of the human heart.” - -Without Limits

126. “Right before you head out running, it can be hard to remember exactly why you're doing it. You often have to override a nagging sense of futility, lacing up your shoes, telling yourslef that no matter how unlikely it seems right now, after you finish you will be glad you went. It's only afterward that it makes sense, although even then it's hard to rationalize why. You just feel right. After a run, you feel at one with the world, as though some unspecified, innate need has been fulfilled.” - Adharanand Finn

127. “Running is a brutal and emotional sport. It's also a simple, primal sport. As humans, on a most basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run.” - Adharanand Finn

128. “Perhaps it is to fulfill this primal urge that runners and joggers get up every morning and pound the streets in cities all over the world. To feel the stirring of something primeval deep down in the pits of our bellies. To feel "a little bit wild." Running is not exactly fun. Running hurts. It takes effort. Ask any runner why he runs, and he will probably look at you with a wry smile and say, "I don't know." But something keeps us going. We may obsess about our PBs and mileage count, but these things alone are not enough to get us out running... What really drives us is something else, this need to feel human, to reach below the multitude of layers of roles and responsibilites that societ y has placed on us, down below the company name tags, and even the father, husband, and son, labels, to the pure, raw human being underneath. At such moments, our rational mind becomes redundant. We move from thought to feeling.” - Adharanand Finn

129. “If we push on, we begin to feel a vague, tingling sense of who, or what, we really are. It's a powerful feeling, strong enough to have us coming back for more, again and again.” - Adharanand Finn

130. “Running is just such a monestary-- a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.” - George Sheehan

131. “And while these pounds were being shed, while the physiological miracles were occurring with the heart and muscle and metabolism, psychological marvels were taking place as well. Just so, the world over, bodies, minds, and souls are constantly being born again, during miles on the road.” - George Sheehan

132. “Constantly stopping to explain oneself may expand into a frustrating burden for the rare individual, so ceasing to do so is like finally dropping the weights and sprinting towards his goals. Those who insincerely misunderstand, who intentionally distort the motives of a pure-intentioned individual, then, no longer have the opportunity to block his path; instead, they are the ones left to stand on the sidelines shouting frustratedly in the wind of his trail.” - Criss Jami

133. “Every day in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.” - Abe Gubegna

134. “There was no girls' cross-country team at our high school, since cross-country courses were two or three miles long, and, at that distance, a girl's uterus could fall out.” - Gretchen Reynolds

135. “Running is a mental sport, more than anything else. You're only as good as your training, and your training is only as good as your thinking.” - Lauren Oliver

136. “My mother always said - "Never run after a man or a bus - there is always another one coming.” - Tessa Kiros

137. “In running, it doesn't matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, 'I have finished.' There is a lot of satisfaction in that.” - Fred Lebow

138. “I'm just a regular guy who up until a few years ago totally underestimated what I felt I was capable of. Since then my experiences have taught me that we are all capable of the extraordinary in our lives.” - Ray Zahab

139. “Heat radiated off Henry's face. Salty snot ran down his upper lip. A majestic fart propelled him to the top of Section 12, just at the springing of the stadium's curve. He slapped the sign as if high-fiving a teamate. It gave back a game shudder. He was crusing now, darkness be damned, stripping off his sweatshirt and his long underwear top without breaking stride.” - Chad Harbach

140. “I always pushed myself. Whenever I felt I needed to stop, I made myself run faster.” - Cecelia Ahern

141. “Believe that you can run farther or faster. Believe that you're young enough, old enough, strong enough, and so on to accomplish everything you want to do. Don't let worn-out beliefs stop you from moving beyond yourself.” - John Bingham

142. “Every day is a good day when you run.” - Kevin Nelson

143. “If you're on the treadmill next to me, the answer is YES, we are racing.” - Loves Running

144. “‎As I get older I see that running has changed for me. What used to be about burning calories is now more about burning up what is false. Lies I used to tell myself about who I was and what I could do, friendships that cannot withstand hills or miles, the approval I no longer need to seek, and solidarity that cannot bear silence. I run to burn up what I don't need and ignite what I do.” - Kristin Armstrong

145. “Life is for participating, not for spectating.” - Kathrine Switzer

146. “There were moments in life, Marion thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahead of you.” - Erica Bauermeister

147. “If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.” - Terry Tempest Williams