Adharanand Finn > Quotes

“The Devil whispered in my ear: ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ I whispered back: ‘I am the storm.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“Right before you head out running, it can be hard to remember exactly why you're doing it. You often have to override a nagging sense of futility, lacing up your shoes, telling yourslef that no matter how unlikely it seems right now, after you finish you will be glad you went. It's only afterward that it makes sense, although even then it's hard to rationalize why. You just feel right. After a run, you feel at one with the world, as though some unspecified, innate need has been fulfilled.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Running is a brutal and emotional sport. It's also a simple, primal sport. As humans, on a most basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“If we push on, we begin to feel a vague, tingling sense of who, or what, we really are. It's a powerful feeling, strong enough to have us coming back for more, again and again.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Perhaps it is to fulfill this primal urge that runners and joggers get up every morning and pound the streets in cities all over the world. To feel the stirring of something primeval deep down in the pits of our bellies. To feel "a little bit wild." Running is not exactly fun. Running hurts. It takes effort. Ask any runner why he runs, and he will probably look at you with a wry smile and say, "I don't know." But something keeps us going. We may obsess about our PBs and mileage count, but these things alone are not enough to get us out running... What really drives us is something else, this need to feel human, to reach below the multitude of layers of roles and responsibilites that societ y has placed on us, down below the company name tags, and even the father, husband, and son, labels, to the pure, raw human being underneath. At such moments, our rational mind becomes redundant. We move from thought to feeling.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Running is a simple activity. Just lace up your shoes and go, one step at a time, like each breath.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“One woman tells me, as we sit on the grass, that she thinks running is like getting drunk in reverse. With drinking, it feels great at first, but the you start feeling awful. With running, you feel awful at first, but then, after you finish, you feel great. That sounds like a much better deal”
― Adharanand Finn

“One woman tells me, as we sit on the grass afterwards, that she thinks running is like getting drunk in reverse. With drinking, it feels great at first, but then you start feeling awful. With running, you feel awful first, but then, after you finish, you feel great. That sounds like a much better deal. *”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the secrets of the fastest people on earth

“Perhaps the pain of running helps numb the pain of the past. In all those hours pushing yourself on the trail, perhaps the feelings of despair, loss, rejection, whatever they are, start to soften, and things get put into perspective" (The Rise of Ultra Runners, 75)”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“I remember being struck by a photograph I saw of the Spanish ultra athlete Azara García, who has a tattoo on her leg that reads (in Spanish): The Devil whispered in my ear: ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ I whispered back: ‘I am the storm.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“author Dean Karnazes had once said, that people mistake comfort for happiness. ‘Happiness needs to be earned,”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“Once you descend into that dark place out on the trail, where everything is crashing down around you, you need to find something real to keep you moving. It could be love or pain, but it has to be real. It certainly won’t be Facebook likes.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“If happiness wasn’t in comfort, was it somehow to be found in being uncomfortable? Was there some need for those of us with no suffering in our lives, to find some?”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“Of course I can't give up. I've come too far for that. Running is a simple activity. Just lace up your shoes and go, one step at a time, like each breath. But the question is, where do I go from here?”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“No empecéis demasiado rápido. Pero tenéis que permanecer en contacto con los que vayan delante. Sabéis que podéis hacerlo.”
― Adharanand Finn, Correr con los Keniatas

“Refined sugar, one of the worst things you can eat, which basically strips your body of vitality and health and has been famously categorised as a poison by the scientist Robert Lustig, is also less abundant in Japan – it is not typical to ritually finish each meal with a dessert like in the west. At the Ritsumeikan training camp, sugar is not on the menu at all.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Way of the Runner

“To live among people who don't think that running is ridiculous, no matter how hard their lives are, but who value running and the opportunity it brings, who revere it, almost. Even if you never become an Olympic champion, or even manage to race abroad, just being an athlete here seems to lift you above the chaos of daily life. It marks you out as one of the special people, who have chosen a path of dedication and commitment. You can see it in the runners' eyes when they talk to you. Even the slowest of the runners talk about their training with an almost religious devotion. [...] Running matters.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Oddly, though, and contrary to Lee’s theories, these big shoes don’t force the Kenyans to run heel first. They virtually all run in a lovely, smooth forefoot-first style—what Lee would term “barefoot style.” The shoes, it seems, make no difference.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Most of the time we exist in a constructed world where everything is designed to keep us comfortable, keep us away from the rawness of life. But we evolved to exist in an environment that would often be tough, difficult, dangerous, and deep down I think we long for a connection to that ancestral existence.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“The Devil whispered in my ear: ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ I whispered back: ‘I am the storm.”

― The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance”
― Adharanand Finn

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance

“« Seuls ceux qui se risquent trop loin savent jusqu’où on peut aller. »”
― Adharanand Finn, Les Ultraterrestres

“Most student runners here normally run about 800km per month.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Way of the Runner: A journey into the fabled world of Japanese running

“As soon as you honour the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.”
― Adharanand Finn, The Rise of the Ultra Runners: A Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance