101 Running Tricks

Running tip #100 … save quotes, for yourself and for others.

Here are the first four quotes I ever saved.  They were hand-written, in red and black and purple ink,  inside the front cover page of my 1982 Jim Fixx Day-byDay Running Log and Calendar:

“familiar Romantic feelings … the melancholy, loneliness, and proud isolation of the contemplative wayfarer, sensitive to the pathos of the distant past and never-again.” (definition of Romantic from Norton Anthology of English literature).

 

“For the runner, less is better.  His needs and wants are few; he can be captured in a few strokes. One friend, a few clothes, a meal now and then, some change in his pockets, and for enjoyment, his thoughts and the elements.”  (from an essay by George Sheehan, re-printed in the New York Times).

 

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”  (Henry David Thoreau)

 

“You give but little when you give of your possessions.  It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” (Khalil Gibran, The Prophet).

Running tip #101 … play outside every day!

From my earliest memory, I was always that kid who couldn’t wait to go outside and play.  In school I watched the clock until the recess bell rang and after school I raced home to throw my things on the kitchen counter, change into my play clothes, then bolt outside.  I think I became a professional runner (and a coach) because it was the only way I could get paid for playing outside every day.

Don’t be an “exerciser” who begrudgingly grouses, “I have to run.”

Be a runner-for-life who joyfully affirms, “I get to run!”

And now for my final trick … a vanishing act.

Thanks for reading <3