Inspirational Running Quotes

It takes lots of inspiration and skill to be a runner, and it’s a craft that must be worked on each and every day. The hard work and dedication that goes with being a top notch runner is something to be respected. Some inspirational running quotes to keep you motivated:

If you feel like eating, eat. Let your body tell you what it wants.

~ Joan Benoit Samuelson

I like running because it's a challenge. If you run hard, there's the pain ~ and you've got to work your way through the pain. You know, lately it seems all you hear is? Don't overdo it' and? Don't push yourself.' Well, I think that's a lot of bull. If you push the human body, it will respond.

~ Bob Clarke, Philadelphia Flyers general manager, NHL Hall of Fame.

In a country where only men are encouraged, one must be one's own inspiration.

~ Tegla Loroupe, Kenya, 1994 New York City Marathon champion

No one could have scripted a more celebratory inauguration of the new era that Benoit's victory and the great race she led....A woman was enabled to achieve what Benoit accomplished. A woman was welcomed in that achievement by a roar of acclamation that was unequaled for any male through the whole Games. Women competed with each other to the absolute rigorous limit of their will. And a woman endured utter exhaustion in the sight of millions of people ~ because she chose to do so. I have been astonished that so few feminists outside the USA seemed awake enough to fanfare the magnitude of what was achieved that day.

~ Roger Robinson, Heroes and Sparrows

It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.

~ Emil Zatopek

No pain, no gain.

~ Athletic proverb

Top results are reached only through pain. But eventually you like this pain. You'll find the more difficulties you have on the way, the more you will enjoy your success.

~ Juha the Curel Vaatainen

Out of the silver heat mirage he ran. The sky burned, and under him the paving was a black mirror reflecting sun~fire. Sweat sprayed his skin with each foot strike so that he ran in a hot mist of his own creation. With each slap on the softened asphalt, his soles absorbed heat that rose through his arches and ankles and the stems of his shins. It was a

carnival of pain, but he loved each stride because running distilled him to his essence and the heat hastened this distillation.

~ James Tabor, from The Runner, a short story

It's elevating and humbling at the same time. Running along a beach at sunrise with no other footprints in the sand, you realize the vastness of creation, your own insignificant space in the plan, how tiny you really are, your own creatureliness and how much you owe to the supreme body, the God that brought all this beauty and harmony into being.

~ Sister Marion Irvine, 2:51 PR and 1984 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier

#10

If the furnace is hot enough, it will burn anything.

~ John Parker, Once a Runner

#11

Believe in yourself, know yourself, deny yourself, and be humble.

~ John Treacy's four principles of training prior to Los Angeles 84

#12

The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.

~ Juma Ikangaa, Tanzania

#13

Good things come slow ~ especially in distance running.

~ Bill Dellinger, Oregon coach

#14

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, Irish~Canadian Olympian and sub~2:12 marathoner

#15

Fear is a great motivator.

~ John Treacy, 1984 Olympic silver medalist

#16

I prefer to remain in blissful ignorance of the opposition. That way I'm not frightened by anyone's reputation.

~ Ian Thompson, who ran a 2:09:12 marathon at the 1974 Commonwealth Games

#17

The thing that makes [Bob] Kennedy so good is that he doesn't have a fear of losing. He was willing to go to Europe and get hammered.

~ Frank Shorter

#18

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 a lion or gazelle ~ when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

~ Inspirational sign on a runner's office wall

#19

Dream barriers look very high until someone climbs them. They are not barriers anymore.

~ Lasse Viren

#20

Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always got to make the mind take over and keep going.

~ George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian

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