Inspiring Track and Field Quotes to Ignite Your Athletic Spirit

"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."

- Carl Lewis

"The best motivation always comes from within."

- Michael Johnson

"Champions aren't made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision."

- Muhammad Ali

"Don't dream of winning, train for it!"

- Mo Farah

"The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start."

- John Bingham

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"The only real limitation is the one you set for yourself."

- Ashton Eaton

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100%."

- Usain Bolt

"The only true limitation is the one you set for yourself."

- Usain Bolt

"Worrying gets you nowhere. If you turn up worrying about how you’re going to perform, you’ve already lost. Train hard, turn up, run your best and the rest will take care of itself."

- Usain Bolt

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in determination."

- Usain Bolt

"The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

- Barack Obama

"The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it."

- Oprah Winfrey

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"It’s very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit."

- George Sheehan

"I run because it’s so symbolic of life. You have to drive yourself to overcome the obstacles. You might feel that you can’t. But then you find your inner strength, and realize you’re capable of so much more than you thought."

- Arthur Blank

"If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you."

- Fred Devito

"Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records."

- William Arthur Ward

"If you can't accept losing, you can't win."

- Vince Lombardi

"We all have bad days and bad workouts, when running gets ugly, when split times seem slow, when you wonder why you started. It will pass."

- Hal Higdon

"Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement."

- Charles F. Kettering

"Every single day of your life you do about a hundred things you have no interest doing. To get through the day. And it starts with getting up!"

- Carl Lewis

"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."

- Muhammad Ali

"To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you."

- Tony Dorsett

"You are truly your own hero in running. It is up to you to have the responsibility and self–discipline to get the job done."

- Adam Goucher

"The pain you feel today will show itself as strength tomorrow."

- Tunde Oyeneyin

"Our running shoes have magic in them. The power to transform a bad day into a good day; frustration into speed; self-doubt into confidence; chocolate cake into muscle."

- Mina Samuels

"If your legs are tired, run with your heart!"

- Tobias Heinze

"No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable."

- Roger Bannister

"I often hear someone say, ‘I’m not a real runner.’ We are all runners, some just run faster than others. I never met a fake runner."

- Bart Yasso

"Run often. Run long. But never outrun your joy of running."

- Julie Isphording

"In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, ‘I have finished.’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that."

- Fred Lebow

"Whether a mile or a marathon, you get there the same way… one step at a time. Such is life."

- Baylor Barbee

"We are designed to run, and we increase our chance of daily happiness when we do so."

- Jeff Galloway

"Find the good. It`s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you`ll start believing in it."

- Jesse Owens

"I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days."

- Ronald Rook

"That’s the thing about running: your greatest runs are rarely measured by racing success. They are moments in time when running allows you to see how wonderful your life is."

- Kara Goucher

"A lifetime of training for just ten seconds."

- Jesse Owens

"I believe you make life what you want it to be; you can reach goals you never thought you could if you keep at it."

- Mike Shine

"It was being a runner that mattered, not how fast or how far I could run. The joy was in the act of running and in the journey, not in the destination."

- John Bingham

"Pressure is nothing more than the shadow of great opportunity."

- Michael Johnson

"Fast running isn’t forced. You have to relax and let the run come out of you."

- Desiree Linden

"Every hurdler I know has hit a hurdle hard, or fell over one. . . . Don’t be afraid to fall, because you’re going to. It’s what you do afterwards that matters."

- Laron Bennett

"You can’t be upset at the results you didn’t get for the work you didn’t do."

- Jess Sims

"Never limit where running can take you. I mean that geographically, spiritually, and of course, physically."

- Bart Yasso

"What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. … Success is often just around the corner."

- James Dyson

"You didn’t get this far to only go this far."

- Ben Alldis

"Train smart. Train hard. Have fun!"

- Matt Wilpers

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

"The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning."

- Pele

"The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible."

- Joel Brown

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

"The biggest thrill wasn't in winning on the field but in surviving."

- Lou Gehrig

"The real glory is being knocked to your feet and then coming back. That's real glory. That's the essence of it."

- Vince Lombardi

"Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"The more I train, the more I realize that it's not about the medals. It's about the journey and the person I become."

- Allyson Felix

"If you run, you are a runner. It doesn't matter how fast or how far. It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run."

- John Bingham

"The only thing that matters is the finish line."

- Mary Cain

"You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy."

- Arthur Ashe

"The more you dream, the farther you get."

- Michael Phelps

"If you want to succeed, you have to let failure be your best friend!"

- Yorck Segatz

"You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning."

- Billy Wilder

"Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can’t handle."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"I am a big believer in visualization. I run through my races mentally so that I feel even more prepared."

- Allyson Felix

"I always want to give more than I gave yesterday."

- Allyson Felix

"Before a race, I block out what's going on in the stadium. It's different for everyone. But for me, I've always been able to block it out. For a sprint race, it's important not to get distracted."

- Allyson Felix

"If you don't have confidence, you'll always find a way not to win."

- Carl Lewis

"Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter: long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best."

- Michael Johnson

"One of the main techniques I used was focusing on the goal and visualizing myself competing in the race before the race started."

- Michael Johnson

"The mind is absolutely instrumental in achieving results, even for athletes. Sports psychology is a very small part, but it's extremely important when you're winning and losing races by hundredths and even thousandths of a second."

- Michael Johnson

"The body does what the mind believes."

- Michael Johnson

"Mind is everything. Muscle - pieces of rubber. All that I am, I am because of my mind."

- Paavo Nurmi

"The body achieves what the mind believes."

- Florence Griffith Joyner

"Your mind is what makes everything else work."

- Marion Jones

"The mind is the strongest muscle in your body. If you can overcome the doubt in your mind, you can achieve success."

- Jesse Owens

"The battles that count aren`t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that`s where it`s at."

- Jesse Owens

"My thoughts before a big race are usually pretty simple. I tell myself: "Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win... channel your energy. Focus."

- Carl Lewis

"The only one who can beat me is me."

- Michael Johnson

"Mental will is a muscle that needs exercise, just like muscles of the body."

- Lynn Jennings

"You must see yourself run the race over and over, time and time again. You must put yourself in critical positions and see how you would react in those positions before the race so when and if they do happen, the feedback is automatic."

- Rodney Milburn

"My concentration level blocks out everything. Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training and concentrate in a meet."

- Edwin Moses

"To be number one, you have to train like you're number two."

- Maurice Greene

"The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy... It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed."

- Jacqueline Hansen

"The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running."

- Wilma Rudolph

"What you believe, you can achieve."

- Mary Decker

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."

- Steve Prefontaine

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

- Steve Prefontaine

"The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare."

- Juma Ikangaa

"Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up."

- Dean Karnazes

"I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability."

- Bruce Jenner

"Embrace the art of visualization and paint a vivid picture of your success."

- Carl Lewis

"Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push beyond where we thought we could go. It helps us to find out what we are made of. This is what we do. This is what it's all about."

- Patti Sue Plummer

"I don’t think limits."

- Usain Bolt

"Kill them with success and bury them with a smile."

- Usain Bolt

"I know what I can do so it doesn’t bother me what other people think or their opinion on the situation."

- Usain Bolt

"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing it."

- Jesse Owens

"I decided I wasn't going to come down. I was going to fly. I was going to stay up in the air forever."

- Jesse Owens

"Ask yourself: 'Can I give more?'. The answer is usually: 'Yes'."

- Paul Tergat

"Few of us know what we are capable of doing... we have never pushed ourselves hard enough to find out."

- Alfred A. Montapert

"You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out."

- Steve Jobs

"They think because I am small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I am not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down."

- Michael Johnson

"Don't worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow."

- Oprah Winfrey

"I am now a legend. I am also the greatest athlete to live. I am in the same category as Michael Johnson."

- Usain Bolt at the 2012 Olympics

"It all goes so fast, and character makes the difference when it's close."

- Jesse Owens

"Life can lure us into this fantasy. A fantasy of fear. We look around and begin to fear we aren’t good enough for the right here and right now, so we create illusions in our minds of what we still need to be — when all we need to be is present in this moment, at this time."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"When you finally realize your gifts and talents, joy and satisfaction come as you walk in your purpose."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"The trials on the road to world harmony are no greater than the courage of those who accept the challenge."

- Carl Lewis

"Scientists have proven that it's impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I dont listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet."

- Carl Lewis

"I am going to go and leave my blood all over the track."

- Nick Rogers

"The art form is to become one with the hurdle, to make it your friend, and I embraced that process."

- Renaldo Nehemiah

"If you want to run, then run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon."

- Emil Zatopek

"Often I visualize a quicker, like almost a ghost runner, ahead of me with a quicker stride. It's really crazy. In races, this always happens to me. I see the vision of a runner ahead of me, maybe just 15, 20 meters ahead of me, and the cadence of that runner, which is actually me in the future, is a little quicker, so if I am going (his rhythm/breathing), then my ghost runner, the vision of me, ahead of me, like opening up and just going for it, is quicker."

- Gabe Jennings

"The mental part is the hardest part."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"One chance is all you need."

- Jesse Owens

"I’ve learned that it’s what you do with the miles, rather than how many you’ve run"

- Rod DeHaven

"Good things come slow—especially in distance running."

- Bill Dellinger

"Don’t compare your chapter one with someone else’s chapter six."

- Ally Love

"Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day’s canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations."

- Dagny Scott Barrios

"People could see in me who I am now, an Olympic champ, the best in the world."

- Cathy Freeman

"You have to take a leap of faith to realize a dream, and this is something that a lot of people aren't willing to do."

- Ron Bramlett

"All pressure is self-inflicted. It's what you make of it or how you let it rub off on you."

- Sebastian Coe

"The important thing was that I got the win. It's good for confidence and the season."

- Usain Bolt

"You’re a dancer; don’t strain, don’t force it. Be one with the hurdle, let it happen, relax while running fast."

- Renaldo Nehemiah

"In order to be great, you have to learn from greatness, which is what I have tried to do."

- David Oliver

"The ultimate winners are willing to take ultimate risks."

- Brooks Johnson

"If I am still standing at the end of the race, hit me with a board and knock me down, because that means I didnt run hard enough."

- Steve Jones

"Run so hard you come in with bloody feet and missing toenails."

- Rob de Castella

"The key thing in the hurdles is that it’s a development event. You might not do a damn thing one year, and then things just click. You really can’t discount athletes who may not stand out immediately. It may take two or three years for an athlete to develop."

- Kevin Young

"If you’re afraid of falling, hitting your knees, afraid of the obstacle, or of any other obstacles in your life, don’t try the hurdles."

- Reggie Towns

"The first thing a hurdler learns is how to fall."

- Tonie Campbell

"To describe the agony of a marathon to someone who has never run it is like trying to explain color to someone who was born blind."

- Jerome Drayton

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those doing it."

- Chinese Proverb

"The gun goes off and everything changes... the world changes... and nothing else really matters."

- Patti Sue Plummer

"Hurdlers are sprinters with a problem. They're not satisfied just to sprint. Anybody can sprint, some not as well as others of course, but anybody can sprint. Not everybody can run hurdles. There's an extra dimension involved. Hurdlers would make a good subject for a thesis in psychology - they are of a persuasion that just needs an extra dimension."

- Denny Moyer

"If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got"

- Mark Twain

"I told Coach, ‘You know, I realize we’ve been working hard for this, but the medal almost doesn’t matter anymore because I feel like you all have elevated me in such a way that I never could have duplicated that.’ The reinforcement of the journey is so valuable, not just the prize or medal hanging around your neck. And we had such a special time pursuing that together."

- Deena Kastor

"Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter."

- Dan Reeves

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."

- Babe Ruth

"There is the truth about the marathon and very few of you have written the truth. Even if I explain to you, you'll never understand it, you're outside of it."

- Douglas Wakiihuri

"I think the summation of Coach Vigil is that he is a coaches' coach, and there are very few of those in this business. The ultimate compliment that any coach has is that you have a go-to person -- and we call those mentors. But then you have a person like Coach Vigil, who is a step ahead of the vast majority of coaches in the United States."

- Lance Harter

"I never really worried about those hurdles. They were just standing there, and I was always zooming past them just to get back on the ground again."

- Rodney Milburn

"To begin, begin."

- Peter Nivio Zarlenga

"My mom is great and I make sure that we pray together before every race. She helps me put everything in perspective and remind me of the real reason I run."

- Allyson Felix

"All top international athletes wake up in the morning feeling tired and go to bed feeling very tired."

- Brendan Foster

"The more I run, the more I like it, and the more I like myself."

- Patience Lister

"People have a moral standard about what they will do and will not do. At the end of the day, someone who cheats has a lower moral standard than someone who does not. And they will cheat in other areas of life as well."

- Carl Lewis

"I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up."

- Jesse Owens

"You got to try and reach for the stars or Enter the 'Gamma Flow State' - Brainwave Enhancement to achieve the unreachable."

- Cathy Freeman

"Friendships are born on the field of athletic strife and the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust."

- Jesse Owens

"When we step into the grace of God, we step out of the confinements of time."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"The only way to prove that you're a good sport is to lose."

- Ernie Banks

"The pain of running relieves the pain of living."

- Jacqueline Simon Gunn

"The reason we race isn’t so much to beat each other… but to be with each other."

- Christopher McDougall

"True disputants are like true sportsmen: their whole delight is in the pursuit."

- Alexander Pope

"The secret of winning football games is working more as a team, less as individuals. I play not my 11 best, but my best 11."

- Knute Rockne

"as if athletics were life; it is not. It is but a corner—and a rich one—of life which will contribute immensely to the holistic development of the individual."

- Joe I. Vigil

"I grew up caring about things. I just carried it over into my work. I knew that people had problems. I knew that my mom had problems. I knew the problems that people on the south side had. I tried to get them all to the next level of success, something you could be proud of. And I just practiced the same principles on the team."

- Joe I. Vigil

"I think life is too short to have anger and resentment. That doesn't get you anywhere. I think favor comes to him because he is constantly paying it forward, helping people, and in turn great things happen to him. I keep seeing that over and over. He's a great example of what it means to pay it forward."

- Peggy Vigil

"The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday."

"Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going."