Every single mile...every foot of ground we cover, that's a victory

My dad gave me this book to read when I first began to run, at about age 13. I guess he knew there was a distance runner in me before I did.

''[They] ran because this was the moment which no landlord, no employer, no politician could take from them. They had stood in bread lines, taken handouts and pay cuts, watched while plump politicians had pursued their round of conferences. They had watched, impotent.It had not taken them long to realize that others were going to win the Trans-America, nor had it taken them long to reach their personal decision to continue. They had come to run across America and no one on earth was going to stop them. No, there was no need to ask why they kept running.'' 

"[t]he way I see it, every single mile we put in, every foot of ground we cover, that's a victory. Every time we think of stopping and keep going, that's another victory. Every goddam moment on that road is, too. Out here we grow every day. We grow, don't you see?"

 - Doc Cole, main character in "Flanagan's Run", by Tom McNab (1982).

Penny