George Sheehan Running Quotes & Sayings

Nothing is more certain than the defeat of a man who gives up. — George A. Sheehan

There are as many reasons for running as there are days in a year ... But mostly I run because I am an animal and a child. — George A. Sheehan

And while these pounds were being shed, while the physiological miracles were occurring with the heart and muscle and metabolism, psychological marvels were taking place as well. Just so, the world over, bodies, minds, and souls are constantly being born again, during miles on the road. — George Sheehan

At 45, 2 years after the birth of his last child, he started running again. — George Sheehan

The answer to the big questions in running is the same as the answer to the big questions in life: Do the best with what you've got. — George A. Sheehan

So it is not age that is threatened by youth, but the other way around. Youth is threatened by age. — George Sheehan

Life is a positive-sum game. Everyone from the gold medallist to the last finisher can rejoice in a personal victory. — George A. Sheehan

I have met my hero, and he is me. — George A. Sheehan

UNTIL I TOOK UP distance running, I found it easy to take it easy. I had no difficulty following the warnings of the experts. "Avoid stress," cautioned the physicians. I did. "Reduce your tensions," advised the psychologists. I did. "Rest that restless heart," counseled the clergy. I did. Doing these things requires no effort when you are lacking what Santayana called America's ruling passion - a love for business - when you are a lifelong non-joiner whose greatest desire is not to become involved, when almost everyone you meet is less interesting than your own ideas, and when your inner life has more reality than your outer one. — George Sheehan

Sweat cleanses from the inside. It comes from places a shower will never reach. — George A. 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 A. Sheehan

If marathoners finish they win. — George A. Sheehan

People begin running for any number of motives, but we stick to it for one basic reason-to find out who we really are. — George A. Sheehan

The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank. — George A. Sheehan

Once you have decided that winning isn't everything, you become a winner. — George A. Sheehan

Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not. — George A. Sheehan

Disease, then, is one of those bad experiences that turns information into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. The bad experiences that make you love yourself and your body and the world. And make you know that you are in a game that has to have a happy ending. — George Sheehan

Listen to your body. Do not be a blind and deaf tenant. — George A. Sheehan

Out on the roads there is fitness and self-discovery and the persons we were destined to be. — George A. Sheehan

Running is just such a monestary
a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal. — George Sheehan

To keep from decaying, to be a winner, the athlete must accept pain - not only accept it, but look for it, live with it, learn not to fear it. — George A. Sheehan

The desire to run comes from deep within us - from the unconscious, the instinctive, the intuitive. — George A. Sheehan

For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to the rain, and look to the day when it is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight. — George Sheehan

The obsession with running is really an obsession with the potential for more and more life. — George A. Sheehan

The most important thing I learned [from running] is that there is only one runner in this race, and that is me. — George A. Sheehan

Have you ever felt worse after a run? — George A. Sheehan

We who run ... are different from those who merely study us. We are out there experiencing what they are trying to put into words. — George A. Sheehan

To know you are one with what you are doing, to know that you are a complete athlete, begins with believing you are a runner. — George A. Sheehan

With the publication of Running & Being in 1978, George Sheehan's voice became the voice of a movement, sounding a clarion call to hundreds of thousands of people to abandon their sedentary ways, take to the streets, and run. Today, there are millions of us lacing up our running shoes, training for 5-Ks, 10-Ks, half-marathons, and marathons - each trudging the same path of fitness and self-discovery that he blazed decades before. — George Sheehan

The true runner is a very fortunate person. He has found something in him that is just perfect. — George Sheehan

The runner is coming to know, or will know if he runs enough...that the universe is the smallest divisible unit. — George Sheehan

On the roads, I can see truth revealed whole without thought or reason. There I experience the sudden understanding that comes unasked, unbidden. I simply rest, rest within myself, rest within the pure rhythm of my running. And I wait. — George A. Sheehan

Running keeps me at a physical peak and sharpens my senses. It makes me touch and see and hear as if for the first time. Through it I get through the first barrier to true emotions, the lack of integration with the body. Into it I escape from the pettiness and triviality of everyday life. And, once inside,stop the daily pendulum perpetually oscillating between distraction and boredom...It is the swing from boredom to anxiety, from depression to worry, that exhausts and defeats us. The sure knowledge that we can be much more than we are frustrates us. — George Sheehan

I run each day to preserve the self I attained the day before and to secure the self yet to be. — George A. Sheehan

Like everyone else, I want to be challenged. I want to find out whether or not I am a coward. I want to see how much effort I can put out ... what I can endure ... if I measure up. Running allows that. — George A. Sheehan

To make your life a work of art, you must have the material to work with. The race, any race, is just such an experience. — George A. Sheehan

The more I run, the more I want to run, and the more I live a life conditioned and influenced and fashioned by my running. And the more I run, the more certain I am that I am heading for my real goal: to become the person I am. — George A. Sheehan

Fitness is just a stage you pass through on the way to becoming a racer. — George A. Sheehan

Running makes you an athlete in all areas of life ... trained in the basics, prepared for whatever comes, ready to fill each hour and deal with the decisive moment. — George A. Sheehan

The real competition is against the little voice inside you that wants to quit — George A. Sheehan

The key then is to find your own mountain, otherwise you will be competing with people who are not even in your event, and running up against the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' of that world, and the inevitable frustration and depression and feelings of failure. A person can be complete or incomplete, but one thing is sure, he cannot be someone else. — George A. Sheehan

No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life's most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others. — George A. Sheehan