Nicholas Thompson

“We give our children our genes and our love, and we don’t have any idea of what, in the end, they’ll do with them. My grandfather scarred my father by trying to push him into sports; my father inspired me by taking me running around the block. Maybe one of my sons will write a tell-all one day about the pressure his father put on him to be something he didn’t want to be. Maybe they’ll write about these days on the track or running around the park, in anger. Or maybe they’ll find that they love the sport too. One day, off in the future, if I’m lucky, I’ll be handing one of them a gel on Atlantic Avenue or offering a new pair of shoes on the downside of the Queensboro Bridge. Maybe the passion will skip a generation, but I’ll still end up drinking beet juice with my grandkids. My father led a deeply complicated and broken life. But he gave me many things, including the gift of running—a gift that opens the world to anyone who accepts it.”
― Nicholas Thompson, The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports

“Everyone, including me, thought it was done. My teammates on the sidelines looked downcast. Then something inside me changed. I don’t know what it was or where it came from, but it’s a feeling I’ve often tried to summon since. I suddenly felt calmer and stronger; everything inside me quieted and then intensified. I began to move faster, effortlessly. It was as though the track was now pointing down at a 10-degree angle. I started to accelerate. He was a zebra in the distance, and I was a cheetah sprinting toward him. I can still see, and feel, that gap shrinking. I almost didn’t believe it.”
― Nicholas Thompson, The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports