That's how most of us would feel. But the sport has a few deviants without consciences.

The records fell easily at first. Dozens of seconds peeled away with every running of a course, and I could hardly wait for the next chance to improve.

I've lived nearby since 1981 and probably have averaged one run a week there. That's more than 1000 repetitions, and I have yet to tire of this course.

His name, Buzz, fits. He can buzz along at 40 miles an hour when his genetic memory moves him.

The results would have stayed on the watch face until the batteries died. But trying to make time stand still this way would have been a mistake. It is just as important to erase times eventually as to save them at first.

Our favorite: a former garbage dump converted into a riverside park. I first ran there more than 30 years ago when a marathon passed through this park that later became home to Pre's Trail.

Time means a great deal to every runner. It means everything to me, because most days miles don't count; only minutes do.

That's how most of us would feel. But the sport has a few deviants without consciences.

When running to fill a time quota, however, the reverse happens. You can't make that time pass any faster by rushing, so you settle into a pace that feels right to you at the moment. Each minute above a quota is a little victory.

A lesser but still fundamental rule of racing is that you properly enter the event. Anyone who doesn't but still insists on running interferes with the paying customers.

These thieves defend themselves by saying, 'I was there all the time, and the officials missed me.' Favorite excuses for missing surveillance checkpoints: jacket covered the number took off the shirt with the number hidden in a crowd.

Where did you run today? Now there's a question you don't often hear.

That time is important. It gives a comforting illusion of permanence not found in running by the mile.

Speed eventually neared its peak. The records forced me to work ever harder to drop a less and less time. These time trials came to feel like races, which are fun to run sporadically but not daily.

This act demonstrates graphically a turning away the past and moving ahead. You now get to refresh your time in a friendly way by running with the watch instead of against it or away from it.

Ours is a life of constant reruns. We're always circling back to where we'd we started, then starting all over again. Even if we don't run extra laps that day, we surely will come back for more of the same another day soon.

The Chip also reduces the damage done by bandits. They still steal drinks and cheers along the course, but no longer scramble the paying runners' results. No entry fee, no Chip, no time or place.

The hours, minutes and seconds stand as visible reminders that your effort put them all there. Preserve until your next run, when the watch lets you see how Impermanent your efforts are.

A course never quite looks the same way twice. The combinations of weather, season, light, feelings and thoughts that you find there are ever-changing.

In fact, the bandits steal the drinks and assistance provided along the course. Worse, they cross the finish line and mess up the scoring of legitimate runners.

I feared the verdict of the watch, where I either lost the race against time that day or would lose it soon by making the record even harder to break. The time trap had snapped shut.

Buzz has reduced my range. Running safely with him means using fewer and shorter routes, with multiple laps per day or multiple returns there per week. Neither of us minds repeating ourselves. This is what runners do.

The natural urge when running a distance is to push harder and finish sooner - to race against time. Every second behind a deadline is a little defeat.

Yet the home courses are where you spend dozens to hundreds of hours a year. You must choose them well.

They trained mostly by time periods, checking their pace for known distance only on special occasions.

I've lived nearby since 1981 and probably have averaged one run a week there. That's more than 1,000 repetitions, and I have yet to tire of this course.

No marathon gets easier later. The half way point only marks the end of the beginning.

I did a lot of commercials early on, and I remember the first commercial I ever got was for a product called Funyuns. I had to eat these chips for, like, 12 hours straight.

Kinda pointless to fight for what you want when what you want continues to break your heart.

There are a lot of people out there who lie about their age and I think it does us all a disservice. It can't all be over when you hit 30. That would be rubbish.

The first day of school is always a fashion show The rest of the school year A pajama party.

All on-set kisses are weird, no matter who it is, especially with people standing around coughing and sneezing. It's very uncomfortable!

But the Spain which emerged around 1960, beginning with its economic miracle, created by the invasion of tourists, can no longer result in impassioned dedication on the part of its intellectuals, and even less on the part of foreign intellectuals.

You start realizing that good prose is crunchy. There's texture in your mouth as you say it. You realize bad writing, bland writing, has no texture, no taste, no corners in your mouth. I'm a great believer in reading aloud.

As we are, so we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into Heaven, into Hell.

I know what I'm doing. I know I'm shocking you.

When writing about Edinburgh, I place my characters in the parts of the city that I myself have lived in, or else know well, those being the Southside, Marchmont in particular, where I lived as a student, and the New Town/Stockbridge area where I live now and have done for the past 30 years.

However, anyone to whom this happens should not leave his room upon awakening, should speak to no-one, but remain alone and sober until everything comes back to him, and he recalls the dream.

Fashion is all about happiness. Its fun. Its important. But its not medicine.

The whole American pop culture started in Philadelphia with 'American Bandstand' and the music that came out of that city.

I served two tours in Iraq, in the Marine Corps.

Act, and God will act.

Elections do have consequences, and those we elect and far too often re-elect have forgotten how government works and for whom they work for, and that an ever growing, power hungry state and federal government are not the answer to the problem, but 80% of the time are the problem.

I think the most important thing we as writers can do is figure out how we define what success will mean to us and focus on that.

What do I believe that I deserve in this life?

I'm very shy in real life; I can't really hit on girls.

I love to travel, But hate to arrive.

I don't want to be with someone boring because I'm always laughing. I like to play jokes on people and be sarcastic.

My obligation is to the owners of Barclays, my shareholders. They hired me. People who criticise compensation for individuals in isolation at, say, BarCap, individuals who don't work in the U.K. and are competing with U.S., German or Asian banks, they should look at all these factors.