Those immortal words were written about 30 years ago by Dr. George A. Sheehan, the cardiologist who became one of the iconic Gurus of the running community.
George (I'll continue to use his first name in subsequent reference because he had no pretense for any of that "doctor" stuff) vaulted to the summit of runner-dom through publication of his insightful -- and occasionally inciteful -- articles in Runners' World Magazine.
At first, George's writing counseled the mileage-aching how to alleviate muscle pain by stretching, followed by application of ice, followed by more stretching.
His word-advice to flabby newbies? Start off slowly.
Walk three miles every other day. Then run and walk three miles. Then run three without stopping to walk.
When the body adjusts to running that distance in, say, two or three months, try moving the distance out to five miles -- and take it slowly.
When the five-miler became a piece of cake, George counseled: extend the distance out to 6.2 miles -- the iconic 10-K, the standard benchmark for all serious road runners.
Then, hold the mileage there for a year, allowing the body to adapt and to adjust.
Running, to his estimation, was a long-term investment in oneself. The sport paid cardiovascular dividends in weight loss, lower blood pressure, lower pulse rate, improved diet, more restful sleep patterns, and a greater ability to concentrate.
Yet George's writings also offered more than Guruism on the fitness/orthopedic/cardiovascular fronts.
He moved his words into the realm of philosophy.
Those of us who were "fit" physically were "Good Animals" adhering to millions of years of genetic commands. Running was the modern-day extension of Homo Sapien's Hunter-Gatherer Heritage.
He also wrote that all those aches, injury, fatigue, illness, and ennui were merely challenges to be overcome. All one need do is to listen and to pay close attention to the rhythms of one's own body and one's own pulse rate, and persevere.
By our nature, and if we are in harmony with our bodies, we cannot help to become anything else but Stoics.
The human body is the best teacher. "We are all an experiment of one."
I admired and liked George (more about my employment of the Past Tense in a bit) because he really, really practiced what he preached.
He also wasn't beneath enjoying a cold beer or four after a road race, or offering sage advice ranging from race tactics to the running life-style.
Like just about like every doctor you know (there I go again: another Valley Girl slip) , George could be irascible on occasion. And yet, he was very approachable.
(One, however, would never, ever approach George before a race: one would get his head bitten off for breaking the Good Doctor's pre-race ritual while he focused, like a Zen Master, on internalizing his powers of concentration.)
Throughout his own running career, George seemed to ignore his own advice.
He pushed himself during races -- 10Ks and marathons -- far beyond the point of rational endurance. In exceptionally competitive races, such as those held in Van Courtland Park in The Bronx, he would literally pass out after crossing the finish line.
Dig it: he was an outstanding track star at Manhattan College who went off to medical school, returning to the track on his 45th birthday - a successful, but woefully sedentary medical practitioner seeking his own youth and re-birth.
So he ran around a high school quarter-mile track on that eventful day until he collapsed. Teenaged athletes who witnessed him out there, suffering on the cinders, thought he had lost his mind -- and they came to admire him for his absolute refusal to quit.
And whatever he was looking for, George found it on that day.
The rest of this story, as they say, is history ... almost:
George went on to set an age-group world record in The Mile with a time of 4:47 at age 50!
He also set a few other age-group national records in various other racing distances.
Later in life, he was a highly-sought-after author, celebrity and motivational speaker about the subject of athletic training as it relates to business performance.
And then, fatefully, one evening in the mid-1980s, he detected that something was going drastically wrong within his own body.
It started with night sweats, followed by a precipitous decline in stamina.
The Stoic within him kept him running on the roads -- but with a noticeable sharp pain and increase in his times -- and an agonizingly long increase in the time it took for him to recover his strength from a race.
So he saw his doctor in 1986.
The diagnosis was prostrate cancer.
He continued to run until his legs could no longer carry him.
"Going The Distance" was his last book.
But it wasn't about running: it was about dying.
It was a chronicle about the Ultimate Stoic -- an Experiment Of One.
The processes of dying stimulated his intellectual curiosity.
"Going The Distance" was published shortly after George's death, in 1993.
From my perspective, our Planet is a much-better place because Dr. George A. Sheehan's running shoes had trodden upon it.
Dr. George A. Sheehan
1918 - 1989
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