Ultramarathon Quotes

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.

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.

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.

I run because long after my footprints fade away, maybe I will have inspired a few to reject the easy path, hit the trails, put one foot in front of the other, and come to the same conclusion I did: I run because it always takes me where I want to go.

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.

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.

If you can't run, then walk. And if you can't walk, then crawl. Do what you have to do. Just keep moving forward and never, ever give up.

Somewhere along the line we seem to have confused comfort with happiness.

I'm convinced that a lot of people run ultramarathons for the same reason they take mood-altering drugs. I don't mean to minimize the gifts of friendship, achievement, and closeness to nature that I've received in my running carer. But the longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind - a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.

Sometimes you've got to go through hell to get to heaven.

Sometimes you just do things!

Pain is the body's way of ridding itself of weakness.

The human body has limitations; the human spirit is boundless.

We all lose sometimes. We fail to get what we want. Friends and loved ones leave. We make a decision we regret. We try our hardest and come up short. It's not the losing that defines us. It's how we lose. It's what we do afterward.

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.

We move forward, but we must stay in the present.

When you run on the earth and with the earth, you can run forever. —RARAMURI PROVERB

Every single one of us possesses the strength to attempt something he isn't sure he can accomplish. It can be running a mile, or a 10K race, or 100 miles. It can be changing a career, losing 5 pounds, or telling someone you love her (or him).

You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.

The longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind--a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.

Nature's arena has a way of humbling and energizing us.

We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it's not what's most important. What matters is how we move toward that goal.

We all struggle to find meaning in a sometimes painful world.

Most people never get there. They're afraid or unwilling to demand enough of themselves and take the easy road, the path of least resistance. But struggling and suffering, as I now saw it, were the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not constantly demanding more from yourself--expanding and learning as you go--your choosing a numb existence. Your denying yourself an extraordinary trip.

Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've lost their own dreams become pessimists and cynics. They feel like the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever.

Rational assessments too often led to rational surrenders.

Humans aren't built to sit all day. Nor are we built for the kinds of repetitive, small movements that so much of today's specialized work demands. Our bodies crave big, varied movements that originate at the core of our body.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. —ANONYMOUS

Always do what you are afraid to do. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Run for 20 minutes and you’ll feel better. Run another 20 and you might tire. Add on 3 hours and you’ll hurt, but keep going and you’ll see—and hear and smell and taste—the world with a vividness that will make your former life pale.

Injuries are our best teachers.

Some sessions are stars and some sessions are stones, but in the end they are all rocks and we build upon them.

I wasn't born with any innate talent. I've never been naturally gifted at anything. I always had to work at it. The only way I knew how to succeed was to try harder than anyone else. Dogged persistence is what got me through life. But here was something I was half-decent at. Being able to run great distances was the one thing I could offer the world. Others might be faster, but I could go longer. My strongest quality is that I never give up.

Here’s a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don’t want to be out there saying, “Well gee, my leg hurts, I’m a little dehydrated, I’m sleepy, I’m tired, and it’s cold and windy.” And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.

Sure I'm cut but not for the sake of vanity...

You could carry your burdens lightly or with great effort. You could worry about tomorrow or not. You could imagine horrible fates or garland-filled tomorrows. None of it mattered as long as you moved, as long as you did something. Asking why was fine, but it wasn't action. Nothing brought the rewards of moving, of running.

The reward of running—of anything—lies within us.

The point was living with grace, decency, and attention to the world, and breaking free of the artificial constructs in your own life.

Not all pain is significant. (on Dave Terry)

Let the beauty we love be what we do. —RUMI

We can live as we were meant to live—simply, joyously, of and on the earth. We can live with all our effort and with pure happiness.

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. —HIPPOCRATES

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. —KURT COBAIN

Random thinking is the enemy of the ultramarathoner. Thinking is best used for the primitive essentials: when I ate last, the distance to the next aid station, the location of the competition, my pace. Other than those considerations, the key is to become immersed in the present moment where nothing else matters.

Running efficiently demands good technique, and running efficiently for 100 miles demands great technique. But the wonderful paradox of running is that getting started requires no technique. None at all. If you want to become a runner, get onto a trail, into the woods, or on a sidewalk or street and run. Go 50 yards if that's all you can handle. Tomorrow, you can go farther.

My injury provided a great excuse to lose. But I didn’t want an excuse.

Only the most saintly and delusional among us welcomes all pain as challenge, perceives all loss as harsh blessing.

Altogether, our modern inclination toward sloth, the easy availability of processed food, and the prevalence of life-saving medical treatments have made us a long-lived, unhealthy people.

Middle-aged women are likewise no strangers to the lead pack in ultramarathons. Pam Reed was forty-one when she outran all the men to win the 135-mile Badwater ultra across Death Valley in 2002; the following year, she returned and did it again. Diana Finkel was just shy of forty when she led for the first ninety miles of the brutally hard Hardrock 100, finishing second overall.

You want to get the promotion at work, or the girl, or the guy, or the personal best in the 5K race, of course. But whether you get what you want isn’t what defines you. It’s how you go about your business.

Don’t work towards freedom, but allow the work itself to be freedom. —DOGEN ROSHI

But you can be transformed. Not overnight, but over time. Life is not a race.

The more you know, the less you need. —YVON CHOUINARD

The best way out is always through. —ROBERT FROST

That’s one of the many great pleasures of an ultra-marathon. You can hurt more than you ever thought possible, then continue until you discover that hurting isn’t that big a deal.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go. —T. S. Eliot

Let’s improve ourselves as human beings, let’s become more compassionate, let’s become bigger, let’s become stronger, let’s become nicer people.

The most common mistake runners make is overstriding: taking slow, big steps, reaching far forward with the lead foot and landing on the heel. This means more time on the ground, which means the vulnerable heel hits the ground with more force on landing, creating more impact on the joints. Training at a stride rate of 85 to 90 is the quickest way to correct this problem. Short, light, quick steps will minimize impact force and keep you running longer, safer. It also will make you a more efficient runner.

Not all pain is significant.

You’re tougher than you think you are, and you can do more than you think you can.

A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods. —Rachel Carson

Ultramarathons are a personal journey, but sharing that journey with others enhances it.

I started running for reasons I had only just begun to understand. As a child, I ran in the woods and around my house for fun. As a teen, I ran to get my body in better shape. Later, I ran to find peace. I ran, and kept running, because I had learned that once you started something you didn’t quit, because in life, much like in an ultramarathon, you have to keep pressing forward. Eventually I ran because I turned into a runner, and my sport brought me physical pleasure and spirited me away from debt and disease, from the niggling worries of everyday existence. I ran because I grew to love other runners. I ran because I loved challenges and because there is no better feeling than arriving at the finish line or completing a difficult training run. And because, as an accomplished runner, I could tell others how rewarding it was to live healthily, to move my body every day, to get through difficulties, to eat with consciousness, that what mattered wasn’t how much money you made or where you lived, it was how you lived. I ran because overcoming the difficulties of an ultramarathon reminded me that I could overcome the difficulties of life, that overcoming difficulties was life.

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.

But struggling and suffering, as I now saw it, were the essence of a life worth living. If you’re not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you’re not constantly demanding more from yourself—expanding and learning as you go—you’re choosing a numb existence. You’re denying yourself an extraordinary trip.

We all lose sometimes. We fail to get what we want. Friends and loved ones leave. We make a decision we regret. We try our hardest and come up short. It’s not the losing that defines us. It’s how we lose. It’s what we do afterward.

The empty mind is a dominant mind. It can draw other minds into its rhythm, the way a vacuum sucks up dirt or the way the person on the bottom of a seesaw controls the person on the top. When I hear a runner say he “runs his own race,” what I hear is bushido.

Some seek the comfort of their therapist’s office, others head for the corner pub and dive into a pint, but I choose running as my therapy. It was the best source of renewal there was. I couldn’t recall a single time that I felt worse after a run than before. What drug could compete? As Lily Tomlin said, “Exercise is for people who can’t handle drugs and alcohol.” I’d also come to recognize that the simplicity of running was quite liberating. Modern man has virtually everything one could desire, but too often we’re still not fulfilled. “Things” don’t bring happiness. Some of my finest moments came while running down the open road, little more than a pair of shoes and shorts to my name. A runner doesn’t need much. Thoreau once said that a man’s riches are based on what he can do without. Perhaps in needing less, you’re actually getting more.

You could carry your burdens lightly or with great effort. You could worry about tomorrow or not. You could imagine horrible fates or garland-filled tomorrows. None of it mattered as long as you moved, as long as you did something. Asking why was fine, but it wasn’t action. Nothing brought the rewards of moving, of running.

Laura Vaughan, who set a women’s record at the Hardrock in 1997, the only year she ran it, also was the first person to finish the Wasatch Front 100 for ten consecutive years and the first woman to break 24 hours. That makes her fast. What makes her tough, though—what makes her a bona fide Hardrocker—is that in 1996, nine weeks after giving birth to a son, she ran the Wasatch and breastfed her baby at the aid stations. Her ten-year ring from the event is engraved “Lactating Laura.” Tough?

[Bill] Gates said he connected with [Eddy] Izzard even though it would appear they have nothing in common — but that might be the point the author is trying to communicate. "I've recently discovered that I have a lot in common with a funny, dyslexic, transgender actor, comedian, escape artist, unicyclist, ultra-marathoner, and pilot from Great Britain. Except all of the above," Gates wrote. "We're all cut from the same cloth. In his words, 'We are all totally different, but we are all exactly the same

Usually when I approach the end of a marathon, all I want to do is get it over with, and finish the race as soon as possible. That’s all I can think of. But as I drew near the end of this ultramarathon, I wasn’t really thinking about this. The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there’s an end doesn’t mean existence has meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence. It’s very philosophical—not that at this point I’m thinking how philosophical it is. I just vaguely experience this idea, not with words, but as a physical sensation.

For those hours on the Tonto Trail, we didn’t know anything except the land and the sky and our bodies. I was free from everything except what I was doing at that very moment, floating between what was and what would be as surely as I was suspended between river and rim. Finally I remembered what I had found in ultrarunning. I remembered what I had lost.

Snow. Sun. Sandstone. Sky. He was doing what he liked and knew. It was now. And this now had no pressure, just permission. —James Galvin

If it comes easy, if it doesn’t require extraordinary effort, you’re not pushing hard enough: It’s supposed to hurt like hell.

Eating raw was like getting a Ph.D. in a plant-based diet—hard work, but worth it.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Running efficiently demands good technique, and running efficiently for 100 miles demands great technique.

I didn’t go up there to die, I went up there to live.

Runners can be having an absolutely miserable race and yet still be cognizant of the fact that they are undertaking something amazing. I

Лежать без движения было замечательно. И даже не так стыдно, как я себе представлял. Эта мысль позволяла сохранять остатки самоуважения.

To run 100 miles and more is to bring the body to the point of breaking, to bring the mind to the point of destruction, to arrive at that place where you can alter your consciousness.

She died on March 22. Those last hours I didn’t stop stroking her hair or telling her, “Don’t worry, I’m here.” I told her that I was a good cook because of her. I told her I ate fresh fruit and vegetables because of her. I told her I ran because of her. I told her I could still picture the little garden on our dead-end road. I could feel the rough wooden spoon, my hands clutching it, hers covering mine. I told her I remembered that, how warm her hands felt. I told her I loved her and that she would always be with me. I didn’t tell her I was lost.

In a sprint, if you don't have perfect form, you're doomed. The ultra distance forgives injury, fatigue, bad form, and illness. A bear with determination will defeat a dreamy gazelle every time.

Everything that came before had to happen for us to be the person we are now. And the greatest moments of clarity come when we look back and we realise that it was all necessary and all beautiful.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. —Leo Buscaglia

Asking why had somehow led me to the thing that I loved—the feeling of moving over the earth, with the earth, the sensation of being in the present, free from chores and expectations and disappointment and worry.

Возможно, мне просто хотелось, чтобы время остановилось. Может быть, это и была моя судьба – лежать тут, в пустыне, глядя в небо, и спрашивать себя, почему я бегу в этой духовке, ради чего я заставил себя пройти через эту пытку?

Albert Mummery, that eminent alpinist, described being in the mountains in this way: ‘Above, in the clear air and searching sunlight, we are afoot with the quiet gods, and men can know each other and themselves for what they are.

We either don’t run, or if we do then running has become an ‘exercise’, something that either we are told to do, or we tell ourselves to do. Something that is measured in terms of value and benefit, rather than being an expression of feeling.

Running has often been the tool that I use as a way to explore, to learn, to live. It takes me to a place of balance – physical, mental, emotional. Running or not is irrelevant. It is the finding something that lets us delve deeper into our own story that matters.

Hunter S. Thompson said: ‘Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow!” What a Ride!

The most famous long-distance race with a Greek origin is the marathon, which celebrates the arduous journey of the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens, a distance of 26.2 miles, to announce Greece’s victory over the Persians in 490 B.C.; he then dropped dead from exhaustion.

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The turmoil of emotion that permeates my every day – the doubts, the fears, the hopes, the apprehensions, the joy – is held in suspension. There is a quiet within my movement. I think. But my thoughts are not my master. For the moment I am simply running. Identity and purpose are irrelevant. To be running is enough. Because if I am running then I am alive. And to be alive is everything.

As Carl Sagan said: ‘We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.’2 Racing and the training it demands force me to ask myself questions. To find the time, the discipline and the motivation to train I have to decide what among the myriad of obligations of daily life is most important to me. It cultivates self-awareness, I start to become more mindful.

In Last Child in the Woods we are told the current generation is not going out in the woods enough, is not leaving the protective supervision of playgrounds in subdivisions, is losing the imagination nature wants us to develop. I am from two generations back. There are days when I feel I do not go out enough, days when I should stay out longer, but I seldom miss a day. These are my woods most of the time, the place my imagination plays. I am but an old child wandering along, unsupervised.

Running efficiently demands good technique, and running efficiently for 100 miles demands great technique. But the wonderful paradox of running is that getting started requires no technique. None at all. If you want to become a runner, get onto a trail, into the woods, or on a sidewalk or street and run. Go 50 yards if that’s all you can handle. Tomorrow, you can go farther. The activity itself will reconnect you with the joy and instinctual pleasure of moving. It will feel like child’s play, which it should be.

For the better part of my adult life I’d been making deadlines and chasing the next deal. It had been so long since I had stopped to reflect, I wasn’t sure what was important any longer. Things were moving so fast that there was no time to look below the surface. Everyone around me seemed to be operating on the same level, and it just fed on itself. We were all caught up in a whirlwind of important meetings and expensive lunches, do-or-die negotiations, lucrative deals conducted in fancy hotels with warmed towel racks and monogrammed robes.

We all have one. It is that run. Its physical location may change as we move house, region, country, continent. But it is the run that is always with us. It is the run that we can trust ourselves to. It is the run that is waiting to enfold us back again after injury, absence or discouragement. It is where we go in the cool of the early morning, in the heat of the day, in the fading light of a setting sun. It is a place we go to in all seasons, observing and feeling the changes, until the rhythm of the earth becomes our own, a comforting reminder of the impermanence of all things. It is where we go to seek solace, to seek challenge. It is where we go when we need to push, to hold back. It is where we go when we need to find a fragile peace.