WE ALL NEED A LITTLE INSPIRATION NOW AND THEN. It was below freezing outside on Saturday morning and I needed something extra to drag myself out of bed and go running with PR Fitness. It didn’t help that my upper body was stiff and sore from my Body Specs workout on Thursday.

Fortunately, the enjoyment I get from running with this group and the need to train properly was enough to get me going. I need to give myself the best shot at achieving my 5K race goal before Dec. 3. But for those occasions where we need that extra boost, the world of fitness and athletics is full of words of inspirational wisdom that we can draw upon. Here are some you may be familiar with:

• “What a man can believe, the mind can achieve.”
• “Quitters never win, and winners never quit.”
• “It ain’t over until it’s over.” (gotta love Yogi Berra)

For more of this sort of thing, here’s a link to a list of The 50 (naturally)  Most Inspirational Sports Quotes in History.

But inspiration comes in multitudinous forms (big word used in honor of National Novel Writing Month), and not necessarily from famous people or world-class events. Since I began running races in 2008, I’ve encountered many examples of inspirational slogans that have stuck with me long after tripe like the quotes above have been relegated to the basement file cabinets of my memory. Here are a select few of them. May you derive as much insight and motivation from them as I have.

Oh, and my 10 miles today took care of my upper body soreness issue; now my lower body is just as stiff and sore as the rest. (Life is all about balance.)