George A. Sheehan
George A. Sheehan
George A. Sheehanwas a physician, senior athlete and author best known for his writings about the sport of running. His book, "Running & Being: The Total Experience," became a New York Times best seller. He was a track star in college, and later became a cardiologist like his father. He served as a doctor in the United States Navy in the South Pacific during World War II on the destroyer USS Daly. He married Mary Jane Fleming and they raised...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth5 November 1918
CountryUnited States of America
I have met my hero, and he is me.
Of all the races, there is no better stage for heroism than a marathon.
Sport is where an entire life can be compressed into a few hours, where the emotions of a lifetime can be felt on an acre or two of ground, where a person can suffer and die and rise again on six miles of trails through a New York City park. Sport is a theater where sinner can turn saint and a common man become an uncommon hero, where the past and the future can fuse with the present. Sport is singularly able to give us peak experiences where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.
Success rests with having the courage and endurance and, above all, the will to become the person you are, however peculiar that may be. Then you will be able to say, I found my hero and he is me.
Anything that changes your values changes your behavior.
The music of a marathon is a powerful strain, one of those tunes of glory. It asks us to forsake pleasures, to discipline the body, to find courage, to renew faith and to become one's own person, utterly and completely.
People begin running for any number of motives, but we stick to it for one basic reason-to find out who we really are.
There is no substitute for learning to live in our bodies.
The key then is to find your own mountain, otherwise you will be competing with people who are not even in your event, and running up against the 'shoulds' and 'oughts' of that world, and the inevitable frustration and depression and feelings of failure. A person can be complete or incomplete, but one thing is sure, he cannot be someone else.
If you want to find the answers to the Big Questions about your soul, you'd best begin with the Little Answers about your body.
Exercise: you don't have time not to
Sport is an essential element of education.
If marathoners finish they win.
To make your life a work of art, you must have the material to work with. The race, any race, is just such an experience.