1/18/18 addition(s): "My fear is always that I'll make arrows as I go and then realize I'm going the wrong way :-)" - Keith Blom "I'm amazed I've never gotten lost there. It's really just a curvy trail with curvy cross trails, and you just stay on the main curvy trail - simpler words than actually doing it." - Keith Blom "The issue isn't so much what the body can do as much what we are willing to make it do :-)" - Keith Blom 9/3/13 addition(s): "Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultra runners know this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being -- a call that asks who they are ..." - David Blaikie 6/22/11 correction: "If you look up, you're going down!" - Eric Steele 6/12/05 addition(s): "Pushing your body past what you thought it was capable of is easy; the hard part is pushing yourself even further ... past what your mind wants to let you. That’s what ultrarunning is all about; introducing you to a self you’ve never known. – Rex Pace 6/12/05 addition(s): "Battling to maintain the delicate balance between hyperfitness and physical collapse." - Megan Liberman, submitted by Mark Ryne "Pain is a wonderful thing and now I was feeling wonderful, really wonderful!!!" - Unknown trail runner on Mt. Baldy, submitted by Mark Ryne "Is this level of athletic competition the ultimate distraction from real life? Or is it a form of prayer?" - Norah Vincent on the Olympics, submitted by Mark Ryne 6/12/05 addition(s): "It's astounding, time is fleeting Madness takes it's toll But listen closely, not for very much longer I've got to keep control." - from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", submitted by Brian Collings & Steve Reagan 11/24/04 addition(s): "Ultras, where the athlete pays and the spectator gets in free." "Keep the rubber side down." "Don't out-run your stomach." "Those of us who finish near the back make the rest of you look good." - Submitted by Tom Kaisersatt 8/6/04 addition(s): "We take these risks not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us." - Submitted by Scott Crabb "I refuse to tip-toe through life only to arrive at death safely." - Submitted by Scott Weber "I decided to go for a little run." - Forrest Gump, submitted by Chase Squires "The best conditioned athlete is a long distance runner". - John Thompson of the Georgetown Hoyas, submitted by Charlie Hesse "Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal." - Luis Escobar, submitted by Kay Blom "You can never run a hill too hard, you will collapse before hurting it." - Submitted by Adam Born 12/17/03 addition(s): "BTW, I still think the WS trail is one of the most beautiful places that I have vomited." - Mary Gorski, 1999 WS attemptee and 2001 finisher 12/5/03 addition(s): "Every man dies, but not every man really lives." - William Wallace (as played by Mel Gibson in "Braveheart") 9/3/03 addition(s): "The way to heaven leads right through the depths of hell." - Peter Bakwin (from Andrea Feucht) 6/16/03 addition(s): "There is no satisfaction without a struggle first." - Marty Liquori "I wasn’t a truly genuine trail ultrarunner until March 7, 1992 at the Wild Oak 50 near Harrisonburg, Virginia. It was a rainy day and simultaneously, while I was piddling on the run, chewing on an energy bar and washing it down with Mountain Dew, my nose was dripping and I farted. That was the ultimate defining moment in my trail running career, if not my entire life." - Bob Boeder "Don't fear moving slowly forward ... fear standing still." - Kathleen Harris at KUTS '03 "It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit." - George Sheehan "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, NHL Hall of Famer "I would rather exercise than read a newspaper." - Kim Alexis "Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams "Find the level of intolerance you can tolerate and stay there." - David Horton earlier addition(s): "I don't remember this bit" - Ross Walker (while scaling a cliff about 25K into an "easy" 20K trail run) "The thing I don't like about Western States is that you show up at the starting line in the best shape of your life and a day later you are in Auburn in the worst shape of your life." - Andy Black, on Western States "Perhaps the genius of ultrarunning is its supreme lack of utility. It makes no sense in a world of space ships and supercomputers to run vast distances on foot. There is no money in it and no fame, frequently not even the approval of peers. But as poets, apostles and philosophers have insisted from the dawn of time, there is more to life than logic and common sense. The ultra runners know this instinctively. And they know something else that is lost on the sedentary. They understand, perhaps better than anyone, that the doors to the spirit will swing open with physical effort. In running such long and taxing distances they answer a call from the deepest realms of their being -- a call that asks who they are ..." - David Blaikie "You're not puking and nothing's broken so get going." - Vivian McQueeney to her husband, Scott, in the middle of the climb to Whitney Portal during Badwater 2000 "The luxurious ache of tired but not weary limbs." - Michael Fairless, 'The Roadmender'. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt, Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910 "Come on, you sons of bitches - do you want to live forever" - Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, USMC, Belleau Wood, June 1918 "Just go out there and simutaneously piss in your shorts, fart like a foghorn and drink from your mud-caked bottle. While you're at it let some liquid dribble down your chin onto your shirt, look up at the starry night and laugh like a raving lunatic. Fook em all. You're doing what you love to do and no one can stop you." - Michael Musca, as told to Will Brown "You guys just shuffle from concession stand to concession stand!" - Helge Zimmet, said to Karen Claire at Way Too Cool "There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." - Ben Zander, according to aspiring ultrarunner Sophia Lewis "Running fast requires conditioning your body, absorbing proper mechanics to the point where they're second nature, and then forgetting the details and letting it rip. It may sound funny to someone who hasn't been there, but the more you can let go, the faster you can go. Look at films of Mohammad Ali in his prime and you'll see how he had that little wrist flick on the end of his jab; if he had to think about doing that, he couldn't have done it. People have things inside them they don't know about until it comes out. When somebody asks me how fast a human being can run, I tell them that however fast they think it is, it'll be faster." - John Smith, UCLA track coach "I gazed in envy at ultra runners whose quadriceps had the kind of definition that tells you Secretariat is somewhere in their family tree." - Liz Zelandais, writing about the Dam 50k Run/Relay "The difference between me and Rick Hogan is that I always leave the rattlesnake for the next guy." - Andy Petterson at Old Dominion, referring to a snake killed by Rick near the Peach Orchard aid station "The moon was out and I saw some sheep. I saw some sheep take a walk in their sleep. By the light of the moon, by the light of a star, They walked all night from near to far. I would never walk, I would take a car." - Dr. Seuss "You can be out there having your worst day, but at the same time the person next to you is having their best day. So there's really no room for crankiness in the sport. At least I try to minimalize it" - Suzie Lister, after '98 Western States "When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on, or we will be taught to fly." - Patrick Overton "Well, there *used* to be a trail here somewhere ... " - Kent Street "Do you think we were supposed to turn back there?" - Skip Eastman at Mackenzie River 50 "Ow." - Stan Jensen at 1995 AC100 "Look Mabel, here comes one who's running!" - Unknown "You'll be wistful for the "wall" of the marathon, when you hit the "death grip" of the ultra." - Bob Glover "Why couldn't Pheiddipedes have died at 20 miles?." - Frank Shorter, 1970 "If you see a fork in the road, take it!" - Yogi Berra "You can't be a schmuck and have great friends." - Buzz Burrell "If you can see the light coming out of the other ear, you're an Ultra runner. - Unknown "I was starting to hurt, but then I burped and took a crap and am feeling much better" - Unknown, heard during the 1997 AR 50 "My doctor told me that jogging could add years to my life. I think he was right. I feel ten years older already." - Milton Berle "A 50K on trails is easier than a marathon on the road." - Unknown "I swear, I'll never do this again." - Unknown "If you can't see over it, walk it." - Unknown "You're better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can!" - Ken Chlouber at Leadville "It all comes down to knowing how to handle situations that are thrown at you in an ultra." - Kevin Setnes "These nuts got guts." - Jeff Stegeman, writing for Durango paper 7/10/98 about Hardrock "We'll tell you when to start and we'll tell you when to stop. In between, don't think, just keep running." - Ken Chlouber at Leadville "A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well." - G. K. Chesterton "If you under-train, you may not finish, but if you over-train, you may not start." - Tom DuBos credits Stan Jensen with this one "The best long distance runners eat raw meat, run naked and sleep in the snow." - Alaska Airlines advertisement honoring Iditarod dogs (from Dana Roueche) "There are times in our lives when we are drawn uncontrollably to some dangerous source of misery." - Suzi Thibeault, in a letter to David Horton during his conquest of the Appalachian Trail: 2144 miles in 52 days, 9 hours, 41 minutes "Common sense is necessary ... more so than high tech. Race to the finish not race from the start, pace yourself, run your own race and don't get sucked into someone else's, walk when you need too, run when you can, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we will hurt." - Kevin Sayers "I love running cross-country ... You come up a hill and see two deer going: 'What the hell is he doing?' On a track, I feel like a hamster." - Robin Williams, film star/comic/runner "When you are 99 miles into a 100-mile running race, your brain is not the same brain you started with". - Paul Huddle "Your talents are wasted as an engineer, Stan. Your calling is elsewhere." - Alex Feldman' AC97 report "Nobody should ever run a race where they are lapped by the sun." - friend of Alex Swenson, referring to 100 mile races "O.K. when you come over the top of Casey Peak look straight down from the top of the mountain and you'll see a tiny blue square down in the valley [Casey Meadows], that's the tarp at the aid station. Run to it ... there's no trail just run down through the boulders but don't go too far off to the left or you'll end up trying to go down a cliff." - Jim Pomroy, R.D. Elkhorn Mountain 100K 1997 "The Barkley, of course. It was 20 hours longer". - Mark Williams, when asked whether Hardrock or Barkley was harder "Any idiot can run a marathon. It takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultramarathon." - Alan Cabelly "Last is just the slowest winner." - C. Hunter Boyd "... so as we walked along the river toward Rucky Chucky, I said the words that most men say to a pretty woman as they walk along the river under a starry night on their first date: "If you were a real hardass, you'd stick your finger down your throat and clear your stomach and if you won't do it, I will." - Stan Jensen, pacing Sarah Lowell at WS'97 "Rewards are on a level with the effort, and the effort is extreme." - an unidentified "Utah runner", from Red Fisher "Don't work towards freedom; let the work be the freedom." - Dogen Roshi, philosopher "Oh man! They should just put me out to stud!" - Len Kuentzm just after finishing his first 50-miler "Anybody running beats anybody walking, and anybody walking beats anybody sitting." - Tom Bunk "Despite what seems like the extraordinary nature of these events, in the end, they make you even more human. - Joel McNamara "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 its 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." - Dick Collins "The Quitter" When you're lost on the trail with the speed of a snail And defeat looks you straight in the eye And you're needing to sit, your whole being says quit You're certain it's your time to die. But the code of the trail is "move forward don't fail" Though your knees and ego are scarred. All the swelling and pain is just part of the game In the long run it's quitting that's hard! "I'm sick of the pain!" Well, now, that's a shame But you're strong, you're healthy, and bright. So you've had a bad stretch and you're ready to retch, Shoulders back, move forward, and fight. It's the plugging away that will win you the day, Now don't be a loser my friend! So the goal isn't near, why advance to the rear. All struggles eventually end. It's simple to cry that your finished; and die. It's easy to whimper and whine. Move forward and fight, though there's no help in sight You'll soon cross the lost finish line. You'll come out of the black, with the wind at your back, As the clouds start to part; there's the sun. Then you'll know in your heart, as you did at the start. You're not a quitter. You've Won!! - by Gene Thibeault "You can sleep when you die." - Roger Rehwald (seen on a T-shirt) "Ultra-runners don't compromise ... they cope." - Bob Sharpley "Exercise is for people who can't handle drugs and alcohol." - Lily Tomlin "As long as you keep making RFM (Relentless Forward Motion), you will finish." - Stacey Page "Find your limits and exceed them." - Lynn Strickland "Road sucks!" - Skip & Tracey "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." - Tim Noakes "Beware of the chair!" - Unknown "I never knew I could DNF and still have so much fun." - Gregg Heinrichs "For all the hardship, I was still excited to be on the trail, testing my endurance, feeling especially alive as strength and fatigue flowed alternately through my limbs." - Colin Powell "No doubt a brain and some shoes are essential for marathon success, although if it comes down to a choice, pick the shoes. More people finish marathons with no brains than with no shoes." - Don Kardong "The runner need not break four minutes in the mile or four hours in the marathon. It is only neccessary that he runs and runs and sometimes suffers. Then one day he will wake up and discover that somewhere along the the way he has begun to see the order and law and love and truth that makes men free." - George Sheehan "... slowed my pace to the point that I could have been rear-ended by a sleepy snail." - Dave Olney "If a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his butt." - Keith Woestehoff "When you're afraid of failure you're more likely to do it." - Gordy Ainsleigh "Succeeding makes you forget the failures." - Harry Cordellos, blind athlete (2:57 at Boston in 1975) "Science can be useful, or it can just get in the way." - Karl King "I want to thank the rest of you for making me look normal." - Gordon Ainsleigh "Far away, there in the sunshine, are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they may lead." - Louisa May Alcott "Nothing ever fatigues me, except that which I dislike." - Jane Austen "Runners can get through the weary and lonely hours only if they are at peace in themselves." - Ayers "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." - Bagehot "No matter how well you know the course, no matter how well you may have done in a given race in the past, you never know for certain what lies ahead on the day you stand at the starting line waiting to test yourself once again. If you did know, it would not be a test; and there would be no reason for being there." - Dan Baglione "If I can't go faster I'll go longer." - Doug Barber "Self-destructive is doing something to hurt yourself. It is doing permanent damage to yourself. I have done neither. As for being obsessive, I am. I love to run." - John Barltrop "The longest hill must end in a valley." - Henry C. Beeching "Don't worry - you're supposed to walk the uphills." - Shelley Black "Speed is sex ... distance is love." - David Blaikie "The road to excess leads to the place of wisdom, for we can never know what is enough until we have experienced too much." - William Blake "In ultrarunning, the pain is inevitable, but the suffering is optional." - Al Bogenhuber "If someone says, 'Hey, I ran 100 miles this week. How far did you run?' ignore him! What the hell difference does it make? ... The magic is in the man, not the 100 miles." - Bill Bowerman "You can't die from a stomach ache. The worst that can happen is that you'll throw up. Then you can eat some more and start running again." - Jack Bristol "A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or else what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning "Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see." - Jimmy Buffett "I like those people. They are calmer and cooler, I think. Personality- wise, they are rich. An ultra runner is not somebody who is normally going to wish you bad. On the contrary if you are down an ultra runner will help you." - Michel Careau "Vincit qui patitur: he conquers, who endures" - Percy Cerutty "If it hurts, make it hurt more" - Percy Cerutty "I think the novelty has worn off." - Jack Chapman "The only way to define your limits is by going beyond them." - Arthur Clarke "The number of miles I have run since I was a toddler would have taken me around the world several times, and I still cannot define precisely my joy in running. There is no sacrifice in it. I lead what I regard a normal life. In my case, I thoroughly enjoy running 100-odd miles a week. If I didn't I wouldn't do it. Who can define happiness? To some, happiness is a warm puppy or a glass of cold beer. To me, happiness is running in the hills with my mates around me." - Ron Clarke "Follow me--I know the way" - Herman Cohen, as he led at large group astray at Nugget 1994 "If you think you won't finish, you won't." - Dick Collins "Champions are born with the right stuff, but still must suffer the stresses of training to achieve full potential." - David Costill "The purpose of training is to stress the body, so when you rest it will grow stronger and more tolerant of the demands of distant running." - David Costill "Speed and strength are of diminishing importance at greater and greater distances." - David Costill "The most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." - Pierre de Courbertin "You can't get lost on this course!" - Joe Dabes "A runner's creed: I will win; if I cannot win, I shall be second; if I cannot be second, I shall be third; if I cannot place at all, I shall still do my best." - Ken Doherty "To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who's never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind." - Jerome Drayton "How many days does it take to run a hundred miles?" - Skip Eastman "The only way to be who you want to be is by being what you haven't yet been." - Sally Edwards "Great spirits often encounter violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." - T.S. Eliot "Do the thing and have the power" - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience" - Ralph Waldo Emerson "The people that I have met are not foolish; they are aware of how tired and cold and hungry and frightened and hurting and discouraged and disoriented and how possibly injured they will become. They know they will face great physical, mental, emotional, and possibly spiritual challenges as they make their way to the finish. This is what they are racing against. This is their challenge. This is what I admire." - Carolyn Erdman "The race continued as I hammered up the trail, passing rocks and trees as if they were standing still." - Red Fisher, Wasatch '86 "If at first you don't succeed, you can always become an ultramarathoner." - Bruce Fordyce "A race is just a race, but a friend who paces you is a friend for life." - Joseph Franko "Trails with high passes and girls with nice asses." - Doug Freese "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." - Robert Frost "Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it." - Goethe "If Klingons were runners, they would be Ultrarunners." - Bryan Hacker "The 10-K is a race. The marathon is an experience. The ultra is an adventure." - Bryan Hacker I cannot do everything, but still I can do something and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." - Edward Everett Hale "I'm tired." - Jussie Hammalainen "A man's got to know his limitations." - Dirty Harry "Drink, drink, drink! Pee, pee, pee!" - Ed Hart "The gulf between what we feel we are doing and what others perceive us to be doing will remain the most ultra of all distances, one that no amount of miles or words can finally bridge." - Hart "Why would anyone want to do this a second time?" - Sue Haupt "The more of us that do it, the harder it is for them to dismiss us as just a bunch of really weird people. Especially when we otherwise appear so normal." - Dan Hawthorne "There's a lot to be said for LSD -- long, slow distance in this case." - Joe Henderson "Why am I doing this?" - Don Herres "It's not the races you enter that count. It's your runs in training and sticking with it. It's how you adjust to injury and how you recover that makes you a good runner." - Dave Hladysh "Run hard, run long!" - Jay Hodde "Boredom and fatigue are very similar experiences." - Al Howie "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Dolores Ibarruri "Because I can." (when asked "Why do you run 100 mile races?") - Tom Johnson "We (ultra runners) alternate between depression and stupidity." - Don Kardong "Grizzly bears eat people without the benefit of music." - Don Kardong "If you run 100 miles a week, you can eat anything you want - Why? Because: (a) you'll burn all the calories you consume; (b) you deserve it; and (c) you'll be injured soon and back on a restricted diet anyway." - Don Kardong "Security is mostly a superstition; it does not exist in nature. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller "All the disruptive arguments among my friends as to whether or not I was sane when I took up marathon running have been entirely resolved since I ran my first 50-miler." - John Kendall "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced" - Kierkegard "If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, keep moving." - Martin Luther King, Jr. "Enjoy your pain, you earned it!" - Pauli Kiriu "You run an ultra largely on concentration ... not letting your form drag and continuing to run. Your body quits and the mind takes over. It's not like a marathon where you think, maybe I can gut it out." - Georgs Kolesnikovs "My advice is that you should use your brains more and train less." - Yiannis Kouros "There is another type of strength. It is being able to extend your energy for a very long distance." - David LaPierre "If one could run without getting tired I don't think one would often want to do anything else." - C.S. Lewis "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we will find the way." - Abraham Lincoln "You've got to be a little bored to be doing really good training." - Marty Liquori "Just remember this: No one ever won the olive wreath with an impressive training diary." - Marty Liquori "The endurance athlete is the ultimate realist." - Marty Liquori "Fatigue makes cowards of us all" - Vince Lombardi "Fear is a part of everything you do ... You have to take great risks to get big rewards." - Greg Louganis "You hear about how runnin' ultras is all mental; well, I sure wish it'd hurry up and get mental, 'cause it's feelin' awfully physical right now." - Ken Loveless "I never met a carbohydrate I didn't like." - David Lygre "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 "It's the pain of the consequences that's all out of proportion." - Kenny Moore "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. The winds will blow their freshness into you, and the storms, their energy. Your cares and tensions will drop away like the leaves of autumn." - John Muir "No matter what hurts at the beginning, by the end of the race something else will hurt worse." - Bob O'Connor "Pain is good. Extreme Pain is Extremely Good ..." - Navy Seals "Never judge a day by the weather." - Dave Nelson "That which does not destroy me makes me stronger" - Nietzsche "Whoever fights monsters should see that in the process he does not become a monster. When you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." - Nietzsche "It just doesn't get any better than this." - Chris Nymann "Never look back, someone might be gaining on you" - Satchel Paige "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection." - Thomas Paine "Each time you run you will receive lessons. You have enrolled in the school of ultrarunning. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid. What you think makes no difference; the lessons will be presented until they are learned." - Keith Pippin "When you run there are no mistakes, only lessons. The art and science of ultrarunning is a process of trial, error and experimentation. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the combination that ultimately works." - Keith Pippin "Once that distance had been passed in training, an important physical and psychological threshold had been crossed. It was no longer a question of *if* it could be done. Rather, it became a question of *how fast* it could be done." - Mike Plant (about Dave Scott) "Self-conquest is the greatest of victories." - Plato "You will get through the tired times, don't give up. There is lots of time. Walk and in a while you will be running again." - Rolly Portelance "The mind learns the body can go at least a bit farther even though it feels increasingly uncomfortable." - Pritikin "Sometimes you should overcome the tiredness and speed up when you'd normally slow down. Great source of strength and power." - Pritikin "If the bone's not showin', just keep goin'!" - Joan Risse at Angeles Crest, 9/95 "Happy trails to you, until we meet again" - Roy Rogers and Dale Evans "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Teddy Roosevelt "Too much is better than not enough." - Kyle Rothweiler "I had as many doubts as anyone else. Standing on the starting line, we're all cowards." - Alberto Salazar "The will to do, the soul to dare." - Sir Walter Scott "Sweetness and release can only taste the way they do after one deserves them." - Shapiro "The body is given out on loan - don't waste it and expect to use it tomorrow." - Shapiro "Ultra runners are daffy about practical matters." - Shapiro "A dozen extra steps becomes a tremendous aggravation when you are pushing your edge out hour after hour." - Shapiro "Enjoy the training and memories of race day, endure the race." - Shapiro "I have met my hero, and he is me." - George Sheehan "Have you ever felt worse after a run?" - George Sheehan "Success rests in having the courage and endurance, and above all, the will to become the person you are. . . " - George Sheehan "It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit." - George Sheehan "Some think guts is sprinting at the end of a race. But guts is what got you there to begin with. Guts start back in the hills with 6 miles to go and you're thinking of how you can get out of this race without anyone noticing. Guts begin when you still have forty minutes of torture left and you're already hurting more than you ever remember." - George Sheehan "I won't last forever, but I'm damn well going to know that I was here!" - George Sheehan "Nothing is more certain than the defeat of a man who gives up." - George Sheehan "That which does not kill us, cripples us for life" - Fred Shufflebarger "Let him that would move the world first move himself" - Socrates "Start slow, then taper off". - Walt Stack "ARRRGH -- what in God's name ever possessed me to think this would be a good thing to do?" - Charles N. Steele "I never met a hill I couldn't walk." - Larry Stice "I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path and I will leave a trail." - Muriel Strode "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Alfred Lord Tennyson "I have to find another port-a-tree." - Ellie Thayer "If you start to feel good during an Ultra, don't worry - you'll get over it." - Gene Thibeault "It's the quitting that really is hard." - Gene Thibeault "Above all, train hard, eat light, and avoid TV and people with negative attitudes." - Scott Tinley "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." - Thoreau "Finish with a smile on your face." - Joe Trask "It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse." - Ann Trason "People think ultra is some kind of spaghetti eating contest for people with no talent to do anything else. But there's a lot going on. I break it down into the physical, the mental and endurance. Physical is the only gender-specific area; men have more muscle mass, the strongest man is always going to be stronger than the strongest woman. But I think physical is only a small percentage of ultra. The mental part includes preparation, strategizing, problem solving. How do you deal with 22 miles through snow, then overheating? How do you avoid allowing someone to lure you into running their race? You have to learn how to run over rocks downhill without trashing your quads; it's like skiing or dancing. And then endurance. An ultra is not about pain - I think a marathon is about pain, about intensity - but it's about hanging in through tiredness and about staying nutritionally fueled. There is some evidence that women may use fat more efficiently. And you have to want it, you have to have the passion, you have to be willing to take the risks. You can never be sure you'll finish." - Ann Trason "There's no tangible reward in anything I do, certainly not in running Western States. It's just an interesting challenge." - Tim Twietmeyer "Run slowly, run daily, drink moderately, and don't eat like a pig!" - Ernst Van Aaken "When you weigh as much as I do, the downhills are glorious!" - Kelly D. Wason "Any race you can walk away from, is a bad race" - Coach Pete Waters "You move from doing things to show other people you could, to where you do things to look into yourself, into your soul, and see who you are and what youre all about." - Scott Weber "There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win." - Elie Wiesel "Too much knowledge can hold you back. Ignorance on the other hand, now that was something that could get you to the finish line." - Mark Will-Weber "You'll have no trouble keeping up. Remember, I'm a 35 minute miler." (when discussing a training run) - Mark Williams, first of 253 people to finish Barkley 100 "Anything worth doing is worth doing to the extreme." - Bruce Wise "Long May You Run" - Neil Young "If I can see it, I can run to it." - Randi Bromka Young "If you get tired on a trail run, lie down in the middle of the trail in such a way that no one could pass you without waking you up - it will insure your finish line position." - Glen Zirbel "If you can dream it, you can do it." - Angeles Crest motto "May the road rise up to greet you, and the wind always be at your back" - Irish proverb "26 miles 385 yards is where racing ends and ludicrous extremes begin." - from "Runner's World" "For yesterday is but a dream, And tomorrow is only a vision, But today well-lived makes Every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day! Such is the salutation of the dawn." - from "The Sanskrit" "The pain is temporary, The pride lasts forever." - Unknown "If you can't learn anything from losing, don't lose." - Unknown "Always enjoy yourself. Never give up. Don't think of being tired. Keep on going until you cross the finish line. Don't be upset if you don't win." - Unknown "Stick a fork in me, I'm done." - Unknown "It used to freak me out when I threw up, now I don't even slow down." - Unknown "Your biggest challenge isn't someone else. It's the ache in your lungs and the burning in your legs, and the voice inside you that yells 'CAN'T", but you don't listen. You just push harder. And then you hear the voice whisper 'can'. And you discover that the person you thought you were is no match for the one you really are." - Unknown "The second 50 is done with the mind." - Unknown "Well, dear, I hope you know what you're doing." - Unknown "I run distance because I want to be in good shape when I die." - Unknown "Look honey, here comes one that's still running!" - Unknown "Adversity introduces a man to himself." - Unknown "Running is a four weather sport." - Unknown "What doesn't kill me sure does make me hungry." - Unknown "Not bad for an old guy." - Unknown "Opportunity is often passed up because it is disguised as hard work." - Unknown "Everywhere is within running distance ... if you have the time." - Unknown "The finish line is just ahead." "The aid station is just ahead." "Trust me ... this is the last hill." "You're almost there." "The trail is well marked." - Unknown "If we do what we did yesterday, we'll be OK. If we do something new we'll be competetive. If we are always looking for new and innovative ways of doing things then we will be the best." - Unknown "There are clubs you can't belong to, Neighborhoods you can't live in, Schools you can't get into, But the roads are always open." - Unknown "It's easy to imagine how you will act when things go according to plan, that's why you must always prepare yourself for what you will do when they don't." - Unknown "The finishing line isn't given; it is earned." - Unknown "God, I must be crazy." - Unknown "It's not the beginning or the end of a race that counts, It's what happens in between." - Unknown "I get to eat *anything* and don't have to worry about putting on weight?" - Unknown "Fear, like pain, may only be God's way ... of hurting us." - Unknown "In an ultra you should eat like a horse, drink like a fish, and run like a turtle." - Unknown "His IQ drops 50 points every time he laces up a pair of running shoes." - Unknown "The race isn't always to the swiftest, but to those who keep on running." - Unknown "If you can't run fast, run far." - Unknown "Frank Hanson promises nothing in his runs, and by God he delivers." - Unknown "If you want to play the game you have to train." - Unknown "Action cures fear" - Unknown "Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it." - Unknown "To achieve all that is possible, we must attempt the impossible - to be as much as we can, we must dream of being more." - Unknown "Been there, done that, don't need to do it again." - Unknown "At some point it doesn't get any worse." - Unknown "Positive mental sickness." - Unknown "The greatest of all victories is to be victorious over yourself." - Unknown "Lead, follow or GET OUTA the way!" - Unknown "Respect the distance or it won't respect you." - Unknown "I didn't go out to fast, I just died too soon." - Unknown "Anyone who thinks the sky is the limit has a limited imagination." - Unknown "Some people dream of worthy accomplishments while others stay awake and do them." - Unknown "Nothing beats experience." - Unknown "The amount of time the body needs to recuperate is not a sign of weakness but a fact of life." - Unknown "Mental fortitude is more important than physical endurance." - Unknown "A pounding heart is a sure sign you are putting forth your best effort." - Unknown "A runner thinks less in terms of beating others, than in simply running the best he has within himself." - Unknown "The duration of an athletic contest is relatively short, while the training for it may take many weeks of arduous work and continuous exercise of self-effort. The real value of sport is not the actual game played in the limelight of applause but the hours of dogged determination and self-discipline carried out alone, imposed and supervised by an exacting conscience. The applause soon dies away, the prize is left behind, but the character you build is yours forever." - Unknown "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 a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." - Unknown "There is no future if we only repeat the past." - Unknown "All things in moderation." - Unknown "All things in moderation, including moderation." - Unknown "MOST things in moderation" - Unknown "No brain, no pain" - Unknown "The first 50 miles are run with the legs, the second 50 miles with the mind." - Unknown "90% of ultrarunning is 100% mental." - Unknown "Nobody is going to finish this damn thing for me, but me." - Unknown