De Castella Quotes & Sayings

The marathon's about being in contention over the last 10K. That's when it's about what you have in your core. You have run all the strength, all the superficial fitness out of yourself, and it really comes down to what's left inside you. To be able to draw deep and pull something out of yourself is one of the most tremendous things about the marathon. — Robert De Castella

And that is ... how they are. So terribly physically all over one another. They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips. They catch each other under the chin, with a tender caress of the hand, and they smile with sunny melting tenderness into each other's face. — D.H. Lawrence

It is presumptuous ridicule of God if someone thinks that only the person who desires great wealth chooses mammon. Alas, the person who insists on having a penny without God, wants to have a penny all for himself. He thereby chooses mammon. A penny is enough, the choice is made, he has chosen mammon; that it is little makes not the slightest difference. The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God. — Soren Kierkegaard

You must have a training routine so that what you do happens automatically. If I got up in the morning and thought about going for a run there would often be a number of possible arguments against it. The thing is to get out and run. Later you can wonder whether you should have or not. — Robert De Castella

We are not our best intentions. We are what we do. — Amy Dickinson

Running well is a matter of having the patience to persevere when we are tired and not expecting instant results. — Robert De Castella

A lot of people don't realize that about 98 percent of the running I put in is anything but glamorous: 2 percent joyful participation, 98 percent dedication! It's a tough formula. Getting out in the forest in the biting cold and the flattening heat, and putting in kilometer after kilometer. — Robert De Castella

Victor Klemperer, a literary scholar of Jewish origin, turned his philological training against Nazi propaganda. He noticed how Hitler's language rejected legitimate opposition: The people always meant some people and not others (the president uses the word in this way), encounters were always struggles (the president says winning), and any attempt by free people to understand the world in a different way was defamation of the leader (or, as the president puts it, libel). Politicians — Timothy Snyder

If you do what you did yesterday you'll be beaten. If you do today what others are doing you'll be competitive. To win you much be doing today what others will be doing tomorrow. — Robert De Castella

Some might say that it's easier to be the runner than the runner's family. — Robert De Castella

When I was about 14 or 15, and running in a pretty muddy cross country race, one of my shoes stuck in the mud and came off. Boy, was I wild. To think that I had trained hard for this race and didn't do up my shoelace tightly enough! I really got aggressive with myself, and I found myself starting to pass a lot of runners. As it turned out, I improved something like twenty places in that one race. But I never did get my shoe back. — Robert De Castella

If you feel bad at 10 miles, you're in trouble. If you feel bad at 20 miles, you're normal. If you don't feel bad at 26 miles, you're abnormal. — Robert De Castella

Jerkish". That was the name of a language of 225 words, developed in Atlanta for mutual communications between humans and chimpanzees - and there was no doubt (...) that more and more unfortunate creatures would be able to talk to each other in jerkish. It occurred to me immediately that at last a language had been found in which the spirit of our age could speak, and because that language would spread rapidly from pole to pole, to the east and the west, it would be the language of the future. — Ivan Klima

I sell my time to get enough money to buy it back. — James Richardson

There are no shortcuts. Be patient and look long-term. It's a foolish idea that if you do a little more, faster, then you'll get better than the rest. It ignores the fact that you must train at your optimal level, not your maximum level. Consistency is the secret to improvement and success. You have to keep training when others lose interest. — Robert De Castella