The point was living with grace, decency, and attention to the world, and breaking free of the artificial constructs in your own life.
Humans aren’t built to sit all day. Nor are we built for the kinds of repetitive, small movements that so much of today’s specialized work demands. Our bodies crave big, varied movements that originate at the core of our body.
As powerful as our legs are, as magnificent as our lungs and arms and muscles are, nothing matters more than the mind.
We all lose sometimes. We fail to get what we want. Friends and loved ones leave. We make a decision we regret. We try our hardest and come up short. It’s not the losing that defines us. It’s how we lose. It’s what we do afterward.
Every single one of us possesses the strength to attempt something he isn’t sure he can accomplish.
Rational assessments too often led to rational surrenders.
Nature’s arena has a way of humbling and energizing us.
Train where your fitness is NOW, not where you want to be.
We can live as we were meant to live – simply, joyously, of and on the earth. We can live with all our effort and with pure happiness.
Only the most saintly and delusional among us welcomes all pain as challenge, perceives all loss as harsh blessing.
We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it’s not what’s most important. What matters is how we move toward that goal.
We move forward, but we must stay in the present.
What we eat is a matter of life and death.
For me, it’s about optimizing health. It’s about lifestyle and longevity. Then you think about what vegetarian diets can do for the mass population, in terms of lower consumption of resources. When you look at the numbers, it’s pretty staggering.
Overcoming the difficulties of an ultramarathon reminds me that I can overcome the difficulties of life.
Sometimes the road to wellness isnt a well-marked expressway.
I’m convinced that a lot of people run ultramarathons for the same reason they take mood-altering drugs. I don’t mean to minimize the gifts of friendship, achievement, and closeness to nature that I’ve received in my running carer. But the longer and farther I ran, the more I realized that what I was often chasing was a state of mind – a place where worries that seemed monumental melted away, where the beauty and timelessness of the universe, of the present moment, came into sharp focus.
You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.
Run for 20 minutes and you’ll feel better. Run another 20 and you might tire. Add on 3 hours and you’ll hurt, but keep going and you’ll see – and hear and smell and taste – the world with a vividness that will make your former life pale.
You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. – ANONYMOUS.