Haile Gebrselassie Quotes
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Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.
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Life is a kind of struggle. Life is a sort of fight.
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I will always listen to my coaches. But first I listen to my body. If what they tell me suits my body, great. If my body doesn't feel good with what they say, then always my body comes first.
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At the end of the day, people want to see how fast you run.
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When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.
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What can you do if a part of it is uphill? You can't work out another route. You've just got to run the one they give you. But they tell me London is a nice course. Even the cobbles, I hope, are not very much of a problem for me.
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Age for me is just a number.
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Why should I say I will retire in three or four years? You retire the very moment you utter those words.
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If I don't train enough, of course I'm nervous.
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When I had no shoes I was comfortable - I used to run barefoot. When I wore shoes it was difficult. To run in shoes was ok, but at the beginning of my career it was hard.
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I haven't done a marathon for a long time. So we'll see. I will need good luck.
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I have to change a lot of things before I become a good marathon runner.
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You lose the speed before the stamina.
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I want to avoid injuries by running only road.
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My school was six miles away from where I lived on the farm. I had to walk and run, there and back every day, through gorges and over rivers. If I was late, there was a very big stick waiting for me.
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Like some high official, you have to tell your brain: 'Do it. Come on. I have to do it.'
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I'm a runner first before anything else.
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Many people know that Ethiopia is poor. When I break a world record, maybe people get to know something else about Ethiopia, something good. We can't make planes or cars, we don't have the materials. We do what we can.
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I can't change everything by myself but I can be one of the people who are trying to change the situation.
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In the rainy season, sometimes to get to the first lesson we had to run really quick, because we had to cross the river to school and we'd have to go up and down the bank to find a place to cross because there is no bridge.
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He was not a runner, my father, but he was quick. I always remember it was very difficult to escape from him when he was angry. If he wanted to beat us he would always catch us. Even me, he could always catch me.
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I wanted to experience New York, to look up and see buildings.
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That is not enough. Sport has been great for me, a great learning place that if you want to achieve you can, even if you are from the poorest part of Africa.
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You must do as your people do. If my people are poor, I must be poor. People ask me, 'Why don't you find a personal coach or a private car?' I can't. Then I won't be part of my people.