Five years, but who is counting?
Straight From the Heart

Joe Gentry
“My feeling is that any day I am too busy to run is a day that I am too busy.” – John Bryant, Deputy Editor of the London Times, 1994
“If one can stick to training throughout the many long years, then will power is no longer a problem. It’s raining? That doesn’t matter. I am tired? That’s besides the point. It’s simply that I just have to.” – Emil Zatopek
“Running is a big question mark that’s there each and every day. It asks you, ‘Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'” – Peter Maher, Irish-Canadian Olympian
“The number of miles I have run since I was a toddler would have taken me around the world several times, and I still cannot define precisely my joy in running. There is no sacrifice in it. I lead what I regard a normal life. In my case, I thoroughly enjoy running 100-odd miles a week. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. Who can define happiness? To some, happiness is a warm puppy or a glass of cold beer. To me, happiness is running in the hills with my mates around me.” – Ron Clarke
“Time is the enemy. Time is what we are fighting in our lives, as we fight it in our running. We can never achieve a total victory, but every time we achieve a partial one, every time we extend the boundaries of man’s capacity, we affirm our human dignity.” – Coach Sam Dee in The Olympian
“Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired … You’ve always got to make the mind take over and keep going.” – George S. Patton, US Army General and 1912 Olympian
“It’s a sin and a shame that people like that can’t spend their whole lives running (referring to runners who burst on the scene, shatter world records, win gold medals … and then, finally inevitably, they disappear, as mere mortals must). After all it keeps them happy, they do no harm, they bring pleasure to people who watch them or support them. God, what a pity people aren’t like insects; how sad they outlive their function. They should be like butterflies: beautiful, flying about for their short span, then expiring, no anticlimax. A runner should live till his legs give out, a singer while she still has a voice, a film star till she’s lost her looks. It would be so much kinder.” – Alan Bell, Olympic Sprinter
“My life is a gift to me from my Creator. What I do with my life is my gift back to the Creator.” – Billy Mills
“We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves … The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, ‘You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.’ The human spirit is indomitable.” – Sir Roger Bannister
“There is no finish line.” – Nike advertising slogan
“Have a dream, make a plan, go for it. You’ll get there, I promise.” – Zoe Koplowitz, Achilles Track Club member with multiple sclerosis, who required 24 hours on crutches but finished the 1993 New York City Marathon.
On June 29, 2022 Julie Riddle, a News Staff Writer chronicled my two-year running streak with a delightful article in the Alpena News. She ended the article with this:
“After he reaches the two-year mark, he’ll take a day off, Gentry said.
Maybe.”
On Monday, June 30, I completed a five-year streak averaging nearly 45 minutes daily, consuming more then 80,000 minutes and covering more than 8,000 miles! Why? My fellow runners quoted above can and do explain it better than I can. As Zoe encourages – Have a Dream. Make a plan. Go for it! You will get there.
Joe Gentry is a lifelong runner. He is also the executive director of the United Way of Northeast Michigan. Reach him at 989-354-2221 or jgentry@unitedwaynemi.org.