Quotes & Sayings About Training For A Marathon

Listening to your body does not imply a lack of grit but a willingness to honor true physical limits. Kenyan runners have a reputation for listening to their bodies but certainly do not take it easy on themselves; they are among the world's most gifted and accomplished athletes. — Gina Greenlee

All discomfort is not equal. Learning to listen will help you distinguish among effort, fatigue and pain. To what degree, under what conditions and over what period of time your body experiences these sensations will determine how you respond. — Gina Greenlee

This is your first marathon. Possibly, you'll want it to be your last. Focus on future races draws energy from the one in front of you. Like the mileage that comprises them, train for marathons one at a time. — Gina Greenlee

Runners exalt the marathon as a public test of private will, when months or years of solitary training, early mornings, lost weekends, rain and pain mature into triumph or surrender. That's one reason the race-day crowds matter, the friends who come to cheer and stomp and flap their signs and push the runners on. — Nancy Gibbs

When I was training for the Chicago Marathon, I would eat a cup of cereal after an 18-mile long run, and then I'd have to get out the door with nothing but a granola bar in my hand. I can't change my busy schedule with my kids, but I can work harder to improve in this area. I think it's a part of training that most of us find difficult. — Summer Sanders

Each of us has our definition of adventure: ending an unsatisfying
relationship, returning to school, parachute jumping or training for a
marathon. Go ahead. Get your thrill on. — Gina Greenlee

If you've nurtured your Spirit and trained your Mind as well as your Body you'll be prepared with everything you need to draft across the finish. Remember: all the training runs when you didn't feel like running but ran anyway and felt so good physically but also about yourself. Envision the flash of friendly faces waiting to greet you. Celebrate that you have more energy now than you ever dreamed. Revel in the uptick in personal productivity and self-worth. Yes, you will run a marathon. And you will finish. — Gina Greenlee

Boredom has a bad rap. Its true character reveals you are deep inside your comfort zone. Boredom is a docent beckoning toward the edges of a labyrinth. — Gina Greenlee

I also feel it usually takes four or five races to hit your best marathon for your body to be accustomed to the training AND the race itself. — Bill Rodgers

On the other side of that line was freedom - the kind of freedom that can never be taken away from you. It was freedom from our self-imposed limitations. Although through our training we have grown to believe that running 52 consecutive miles was possible, none of us really believed in our heart of hearts that it was probable. As individuals, each of us struggled with their own fear and self-doubt. But the moment we cross that finish line, we have given ourselves the gift of freedom from our fears, our self-doubt, and our self-imposed limitations. — Hal Elrod

I want to encourage people to make healthy life choices, whether it's training for a half-marathon, or eating more vegetables. — Kina Grannis

There's more to marathon day than running long. Learning how your body reacts to the early alarm, light breakfast and warm-up is key. Minimize surprises come race day. Run long the same time of day as the race. — Gina Greenlee

Allow seven months to responsibly train for your first marathon. This will minimize stress to your mind and body and give your existential nature time to incorporate a new way of being. — Gina Greenlee

If you can run six, you can run 10," he said, noshing on an energy bar. "Run 10 and you can run 13. That's how it works. You have three to four more miles in you than you think. — Gina Greenlee

One of the most important ways for you to train, stay healthy and injury free is to listen closely to what your body tells you. — Gina Greenlee

training for the marathon is that in order to maintain a positive attitude about training and running, it is necessary to develop a positive attitude about life in general. It is almost impossible to be positive about — David Whitsett

I try to avoid the temptation with time as a total indicator for what my possibilities are for the marathon. It's the not the best indicator, but it's more how you feel, how you cover the distance and how you are able to do the training afterward. — Ryan Hall

And how was my time? Truth be told, not so great. At least, not as good as I'd been secretly hoping for. If possible, I was hoping to be able to wind up this book with a powerful statement like, "Thanks to all the hard training I did, I was able to post a great time at the New York City Marathon. When I finished I was really moved," and casually stroll off into the sunset with the theme song from Rocky blaring in the background. — Haruki Murakami

A novel is something that stands at the end of a lengthy process called writing. It is not a preexisting Platonic form embedded within the writer... I do not have a Boston marathon inside me waiting to get out. The marathon is a peak experience I am rightly entitled to only as the culmination of years of regular training and love of running. — Victoria Nelson

I do a lot of marathons as training runs. If I'm somewhere and there's a marathon, I'll sign up and just go run it. — Dean Karnazes

Training for a marathon is much like climbing a ladder. Each ring is a short-term goal that must be met in sequence in order to reach the long-term goal at the top of the ladder. — Richard Benyo

The goal of your first marathon is to finish. You have no time goal. You're not endeavoring to win or place in your age category. Being a speed demon serves no purpose other than to court injury. Your only competition is you. — Gina Greenlee

People architect new lives all the time. I know this because I never see them again once they find these new lives. They have children or they move to new cities or even just to new neighborhoods or you hate their spouse or their spouse hates you or they start working the night shift or they start training for a marathon or they stop going to bars or they start going to therapy or they realize they don't like you anymore or they die. It happens constantly. It's just me. I haven't built anything new. I'm the one getting left behind. — Jami Attenberg

The week before the marathon, sleep well. If normally you "get by" with five hours but require seven, make sure you get seven every night. The sleep you get the week leading up to the marathon is more important than the night before. The night before, you probably won't sleep well due to anxiety, excitement and anticipation. — Gina Greenlee

The key to running a good marathon is to not listen to anyone's advice the last week before the race. That's when people tend to do stupid things that disrupt all the input and training of the previous months. — Don Kardong

Karate-do may be referred to as the conflict within yourself, or a life-long marathon which can be won only through self-discipline, hard training, and your own creative efforts. — Shoshin Nagamine

In a life full of work, family, civic responsibilities, commutes and errands, your training runs offer fertile opportunity to lean inward and listen. — Gina Greenlee

Body follows mind. If the mind compares itself to others this could lead to overtraining. Tune out what other runners do and how fast they run. Tune in, instead, to how your body wants to increase speed and distance. — Gina Greenlee

As someone who has spent the last decade training young men and women for Christian service, I have been keen to help them see that the best kinds of ministry are, more often than not, long term and low key. I have tried to prepare them for a marathon, not a short, energetic sprint. In other words, to help them have a lifetime of sustainable sacrifice, rather than an energetic but brief ministry that quickly fades in exhaustion. — Christopher Ash

That was the funny thing. What happened to John would pass for his classmates, but for John it was a long challenging road ahead of him. Who knew where he would be sent, maybe a juvenile detention center? He might keep in touch with a few friends if his parents let him, but he would never return to Wakefield High. His peers had no clue the journey ahead of him, that his life was changed forever.
And they had no idea what lay ahead for Lilly. No one knew she had been given a task by the Archangels to fight a war against pure evil. They had no idea that Lilly would spend most of her free time not training for a marathon, but training to kill demons. John and Lilly were not all too different. — Ellie Elisabeth

A doable goal for me is to finish a marathon under four hours. I'm doing all the training, but the hardest part is eating right. — Sean Astin

Marathon training doesn't have to be a grind. By running for about 30 minutes two times a week, and by gradually increasing the length of a third weekly run-the long run-anyone can finish a marathon. — Jeff Galloway

Training is essential for almost any significant endeavor in life - running a marathon, becoming a surgeon, learning how to play the piano. — John Ortberg

As your training integrates Mind, Body and Spirit, enjoy the process. Your journey to the marathon finish will last a few hours. Your journey to the start will influence a lifetime. — Gina Greenlee

And then there's the perverse joy of subtly working in references to marathon training in daily life, say at the post office or while waiting outside my first-graders' classrooms at the end of the school day. — Sarah Bowen Shea

Analysis is a glittering opportunity for training: it is just here that capacity for work, perseverence and stamina are cultivated, and these qualities are, in truth, as necessary to a chess player as a marathon runner. — Lev Polugaevsky

I find that I get a little depressed if I don't move my body each day, so sometimes it's just as simple as walking, and other times it's training for a marathon or some kind of personal goal that I'm trying to meet. — Ryan Reynolds

Your body provides you with constant feedback that can help improve your running performance while minimizing biomechanical stress. Learn to differentiate between the discomfort of effort and the pain of injury. When you practice listening, you increase competence in persevering through the former and responding with respect and compassion to the latter. — Gina Greenlee

The goal of this book is do for you what Greg did for me: reframe 26.2 miles as accessible and inspire your first marathon journey, one mile at a time. — Gina Greenlee

If running a marathon excites you, create space in your life for it. Adding a new commitment means recalibrating different areas of your world. Logging more miles as your race date approaches means less time invested in other pursuits. Not forever, just during the months you train. Too, you will find how training fits into your world serves not only crossing the finish but other areas of life. — Gina Greenlee

Never run more than 3 hours straight in training, whether your marathon best is 2:42 or 4:24. — Ed Eyestone

If you insist on the chase," I say, my voice much surer than I feel."Then you better start training. 'Cause, dude you're in for a marathon. — Alyson Noel

Just like the body responds with sore muscles when we add mileage, the initial discomfort felt when we listen to the Voice Inside reflects growth. The good news: anxiety initially triggered by listening to our inner dialogue is short-term vs. the unnamed, interminable dread that piggybacks suppression. Even better, we can manage it with self-talk, deep breathing (inherent to running), the Tribe and social support. — Gina Greenlee

Uncertain about an aspect of training? Read, consult others and experiment. In the end, though, listen to the body and the Voice Inside. Instead of dousing it with music, podcasts or talk radio, let the Voice Inside play out and wind past rumination to rich sediment that informs what drives and scares you. — Gina Greenlee

Once flooded with light, our boogeymen diminish, no longer ogres in our imagination. We welcome internal dialogue for its treasures. — Gina Greenlee