99 Motivational Running Quotes

Running doesn't just challenge your body; it empowers your mind and uplifts your spirit. Whether you're hitting the pavement for the first time or training for your next marathon, a little extra motivation can make a world of difference. That's why we've compiled a list of 99 powerful motivational running quotes to inspire and energize you, every step of the way. From elite athletes to everyday joggers, these words of wisdom will help reignite your passion for the sport and keep you moving forward, no matter the distance or the destination. Lace up your shoes and get ready to be inspired!

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

2. “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

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

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

5. “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

6. “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

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

8. “Train, don't strain.” - Arthur Lydiard

9. “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

10. “-The reason we race isn't so much to beat each other but to be with each other. -The Hopis consider running a form of prayer; they offer every step as a sacrifice to a loved one, and in return ask the Great Spirit to match their strength with some of his own.” - Christopher McDougall

11. “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

12. “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

13. “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.

14. “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.

15. “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.

16. “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.

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

18. “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.

19. “...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

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

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

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

23. “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

24. “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

25. “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

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

27. “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

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

29. “But I also realize that winning doesn't always mean getting first place; it means getting the best out of yourself.” - Meb Keflezighi

30. “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

31. “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

32. “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.

33. “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

34. “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

35. “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

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

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

38. “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

39. “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

40. “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

41. “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

42. “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

43. “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

44. “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

45. “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

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

47. “...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

48. “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

49. “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

50. “...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.

51. “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

52. “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

53. “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

54. “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

55. “If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.” - Criss Jami

56. “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

57. “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

58. “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

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

60. “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

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

62. “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

63. “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

64. “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.

65. “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

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

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

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

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

70. “I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!” - Kathrine Switzer

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

72. “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

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

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

75. “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

76. “Winning has nothing to do with racing. Most days don't have races anyway. Winning is about struggle and effort and optimism, and never, ever, ever giving up.” - Amby Burfoot

77. “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

78. “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

79. “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

80. “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

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

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

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

84. “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

85. “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

86. “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

87. “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

88. “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

89. “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

90. “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

91. “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

92. “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

93. “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

94. “Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one in ten enjoyed the place and said he'd come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it another way, it didn't matter if nine out of ten didn't like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business.” - Haruki Murakami

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

96. “Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?” - Peter Maher

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

98. “‎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

99. “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