Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the artistry in running and the creativity involved in making it unique.
In this quote, Steve Prefontaine expresses how running, often viewed merely as a sport or exercise, can be an art form where one can showcase creativity and individuality. He encourages the idea that it's not just about winning a race, but rather about the style, elegance, and personal expression one brings to the act of running, much like artists do with their respective crafts. Prefontaine highlights the joy of making a mark that is visually and emotionally impactful, inviting admiration and appreciation for one's unique approach.
In practice
In a motivational speech to runners at a local marathon, one might say this quote to encourage them to embrace their own unique running style.
How does a kid from Coos Bay, with one leg longer than the other win races? All my life people have been telling me, 'You're too small Pre', 'You're not fast enough Pre', 'Give up your foolish dream Steve'. But they forgot something, I HAVE TO WIN.
The AAU doesn't care about the athletes; why should I care about them?
The best pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die.
This is my last year at Oregon, and it means a lot to me. The people have been great to me up there, so if I have to run three races to win the Pac-8 title, I'll do it. Oh, sure, I'll probably be tired, but the people shouting will carry me across the finish line.
World records at 19. I don't want that. Later, yes. And when it comes, I'll learn to live with it, but it won't be my first love.
I'm the one who has made all the sacrifices. Those are my American records, not the country's.
The movie, by sheer speeding up of the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configurations and structure.
I enjoy the speed of fashion. I love doing different things and I think I still have something valid to say in fashion.
Opera singing is in every way of inestimable value; a real heritage for all mankind that has been reached over centuries of studies, attempts, flights of the spirit.
But...books are so much more. Some of them are webs; you can feel your way along their threads, but just barely, into strange and dark corners. Some of them are balloons bobbing up through the sky: totally self-contained, and unreachable, but beautiful to watch. And some of them―the best ones―are doors.
I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.
I think it's good not to make demands on the reader too early. But as the poem goes on, I want the journey of the poem to lead into some interesting places.
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