You do not run 26 miles at five minutes a mile on good looks and a secret recipe.- Frank Shorter
Yes, winning the gold medal was undoubtedly the biggest day of my career - mostly because I won the way I had prepared to run it. It was a totally satisfying experience.
When you are caring about your children perhaps you always have to remember at what point you can become over involved because of something you need rather than something the child needs.
When I am totally race fit, I do not worry about breathing or technique - they take care of themselves.
What you did was live on very little. I think all of us that were competing - Bill is the same way - you do not need much to live.
To put it another way, Michael Jordan was a gym rat.
There's obviously some validity to it. But I think it also points out that you obviously can do it on your own because people have been doing it long before they had the stuff.
The weather is perfect. The gods are shining on us.
The potential elite runner must realize that hard means hard, easy means easy and they must patiently seek out what combinations work for them. They have to learn to be persistent and patient with their training and racing.
The marathon is all about energy management. I had planned to run it like a track race with strategic surges to blow up my competitors by putting them into oxygen debt, so that is the way I prepared.
The irony of that is, what makes it kind of ironic, is when you do become successful as a professional athlete in particular, a lot of the young children who are emulating these stars do have a different perspective.
So, in a way I was hedging and saying that if the Olympic stuff doesn't work out at least I can be a lawyer.
Running with others can help get you out when you might otherwise blow it off.
Right now, after having had back surgery, I am finally back to running again.
Really, I think that going out and playing with your friends is kind of becoming a lost art, with the kids in the neighborhood.
