If movement is a sign of life and stillness is death, running is an example of life most fully lived. It's beautiful.

You can't get where you're going unless you know where you've been. Record your training on a daily basis. In my office, I have a set of loose-leaf notebooks dating back to 1963. I record items such as the date, time, location, surface and conditions, and distance, along with my weight. I also record what I did to warm up and cool down, and any comments concerning the actual run. Various running diaries can be purchased at book stores. Or you can even record your miles on a simple calendar. After you race, you can look back on your training and figure out what you did wrong--or what you did right.

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all cost of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.

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.

When I started running, I thought I had to do everything 'right now' or the opportunity would be gone forever. I thought that if I missed a day of training due to injury, I had to run harder or longer the next day to make up for it. If I ran a bad workout, I had to run a good one the next day. If I missed a race, I had to find another one. Now I know that I have all the time I need. I no longer measure running by what it can do for me today. Instead, I love running for the promise and rewards it brings me year after year.

Sports drinks and other on-the-run fueling products such as gels, beans and Clif Shot Bloks were originally invented to supplement your energy intake. Your body can only take in so much energy in the form of sugar, and when you exceed that level, it causes nauseau and stomach upset. The idea is not to replace the energy lost while running but to only replenish some of what is lost. Keep track along the way, and you'll develop a recipe that works for you.

Running is just you, the work you put in, and the clock. You can't cheat yourself. If you don't put in the miles, you can't go to the starting line thinking you're going to pull a miracle out of nowhere. You get out exactly as much as you put in.

When you run in the morning, you gain time in a sense. It's like stretching 24 hours into 25. You may need to sleep less and get up earlier, but if you can get by that, running early seems to expand the day.

Circumstances can keep you from running where and when you want, but nothing except lack of training can take away your right to run exactly as hard as you want to. The more you run, the more of this freedom you acquire. That's the beauty part.

Having a million things to do is an excuse FOR running, not an argument against it. There are a hundred excuses not to run. Being busy just isn't one of them. Why? Because taking even 20 to 30 minutes for a run will help you organise your thoughts, clear you head, wake up, and return to your tasks with a clarity and energy you can't get from coffee or even a nap. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or overbooked, put the to-do list down and lace up your running shoes. You'll be glad you did.

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens - slow and steady gets you ready.

I am not going to allow myself not to perform well just because I don't feel well. I am bulletproof to the extent that a lot of things can be thrown at me, but it's about how much I am prepared to let them affect me.

The most important thing is not the number of miles or the time it takes to finish a race or reach a goal. The reason to keep running is that out there is where I meet myself. Out there running is where I tell myself stories, where I cry spontaneously, where I am angry and happy, lost and found. As long as my legs work, I'll run.

Excuses always lead to a reckoning. We find reasons not to take that first step out the door, just as we find ways to be - or not to be - our best. Weakness, doubt, and fear are parts of the human condition. Facing them instead of fabricating an elaborate ruse to sidestep them - hoping to avoid them but ultimately carrying them in our hearts and mind and psyche until they whittle away at our being - give us a direct route to hope and dreams. Along the way, we reap all those other by-products that make suffering a tonic for our souls.

Your training partner's name is pain. You start out trying to ignore him. Can't do it. You attempt to reason with him. No way. You try to strike a bargain. Ha. You plead. You say 'Please stop, please go away. I promise never ever to do this again if you just leave me alone.' But he won't. Pain only climbs off if you do. Then you're beaten.

The human body is capable of amazing physical deeds. If we could just free ourselves from our perceived limitations and tap into our internal fire, the possibilities are endless.

Set your goals high because what a person accomplishes is in proportion to what they attempt.

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

You find out a lot about yourself through athletics. If you're cut out to be a winner or a failure or a quitter, athletics will bring it out of you. You're always stripping yourself down to the bones of your personality. And sometimes you just get a glimpse of the kind of talent you've been given. Sometimes I run and I don't even feel the effort of running. I don't even feel the ground. I'm just drifting. Incredible feeling. All the agony and frustration, they're all justified by one moment like that.

Test your shoes periodically for wear, suggest physical therapists Bruce Wilk and William Gutierrez in the American Medical Athletic Association Quarterly. Place the shoes on a flat surface. Do the shoes remain flat or do they wobble? Do they wobble if you push down on the right or left side of the shoe? You want your shoes to hold your feet in a stable position as you run. If they wobble, it's time for a new pair.