Quotes About Achievement

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,That sometime grew within this learned man.

Ask nothing from your running, and you'll get more than you ever imagined!

You were amazing," Scott said. "Yeah," I said. "Amazingly slow." It had taken me over twelve hours, meaning that Scott and Arnulfo could have run the course all over again and still beaten me. "That's what I'm saying," Scott insisted. "I've been there, man. I've been there a lot. It takes more guts than going fast.

Middle-aged women are likewise no strangers to the lead pack in ultramarathons. Pam Reed was forty-one when she outran all the men to win the 135-mile Badwater ultra across Death Valley in 2002; the following year, she returned and did it again. Diana Finkel was just shy of forty when she led for the first ninety miles of the brutally hard Hardrock 100, finishing second overall.

You don't start with today and aim toward your goal. You start with the goal, and aim back toward today. Do it like that, and you'll always find a way.

Wilt Chamberlain, all seven feet one inch and 275 pounds of him, had no problem running a 50-mile ultra when he was sixty years old after his knees had survived a lifetime of basketball.

championships, and went on to break the U.S. record in distances from three miles to the marathon. At the 2004 Athens Games, Deena outlasted the world-record holder, Paula Radcliffe, to win the bronze, the first Olympic medal

Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast. You start with easy, because if that's all you get, that's not so bad. Then work on light. Make it effortless, like you don't give a shit how high the hill is or how far you've got to go. When you've practiced that so long that you forget you're practicing, you work on making it smooooooth. You won't have to worry about the last one—you get those three, and you'll be fast.

more than 90 percent of the female runners come home with a buckle, while 50 percent of the men come up with an excuse. Not even Ken Chlouber can explain the sky-high female finishing rate, but he can damn well exploit it: "All my pacers are women," Chlouber says. "They get the job done.

Sí, pero somos lentos". Estaban centrándose en la velocidad y no alcanzaban a entender que la resistencia podía ser una ventaja.»

in another era the same behavior that is now throttled with Ritalin and disciplinary rap sheets would have been the mark of greatness, the early blooming of a true champion.

When I'm out on a long run," she continued, "the only thing in life that matters is finishing the run.

We're hardwired by nature to find common social ground, to believe that whatever we're doing today is normal and not much different from the way people have always behaved. We assume human achievement is on an upward slope, that learning from the past has made us stronger and smarter than anyone of the past.

I'm supposed to spread my fingers as wide as they were with the rubber band, mash my palms hard into the floor, and pull myself down. When I do, I surprise even myself when my elbows straighten with barely any effort.

The ancient Greeks knew this; their entire culture was built on the premise that everyone is tinged with a touch of the godly. To be a hero, you had to learn how to think, run, fight, and talk—even eat, sleep, and crawl—like a hero.

Here were these little guys wearing sandals who never actually trained for the race. And they blew away some of the best long-distance runners in the world.

Christopher McDougall

The art of the hero wasn't about being brave; it was about being so competent that bravery wasn't an issue. You weren't supposed to go down for a good cause; the goal was to figure out a way not to go down at all.

All my pacers are women," Chlouber says. "They get the job done.

it's like in life, you have obstacles and you train to overcome them. You search for the best technique. You keep the best, you repeat it, and then you get better.

Más allá de lo extremo de la fatiga y el sufrimiento, encontramos cantidades de alivio y poder que nunca habíamos soñado con poseer; fuentes de fortaleza nunca antes puestas a prueba porque nunca habíamos empujado la puerta de oclusión".

Christopher McDougall