In 2018, Katie Arnold won the Leadville 100-miler—one of the world’s toughest trail races—on a bionic knee. Described by the race organizers as “a brutal out-and-back ultramarathon that will push even the toughest runners to their limits,” Arnold finished fastest when racing against some of the world’s most accomplished athletes. While she was at it, she also set a course record. The 100-mile course with knee-twisting scree, strain of 200,000 footsteps and running on trails in the dark—it seems an impossible accomplishment, especially considering that she couldn’t even walk two years prior to crossing the finish line.

Arnold’s latest book, Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, takes us into the how the mind plays a part in her recovery. To run again, she must first sit. After her injury, Katie Arnold redefined the limitations as a question. Instead of saying, “I can’t,” she asks, “What’s possible?” How can we become greater athletes while becoming older with each passing moment? The injuries, fallibility, responsibilities and self-doubt add up.

Brief Flashings is both a personal narrative of rehabilitation and a how-to that we can all use to improve our running by using our thoughts. She leads us through her own process of becoming stronger regardless of age and injuries.

We’ve all experienced before-and-after moments. Time flies by and then suddenly hits the brakes. For Katie Arnold, it happened far from help in the wilderness on the Snake River. Her knee popped apart like a chicken bone over a dinner plate. Unable to walk after the accident, rafting over whitewater was her only exit to medical help. When she finally saw a doctor a week later, orthopedic experts tasked with restyling her mutilated leg repeatedly told her that she would not run again. Her knee swiveled around in a circle, nothing to keep it straight.

Forced to sit for 14 weeks after surgery, Katie Arnold reflected on how to use the neutralizing effect of losing her knee to create a fresh start as a runner. “Beginnings always seem ordinary at the time,” she writes.

Before the accident, Katie Arnold’s days normally began with bounding up a mountain. This is what her brain was accustomed to, and that did not stop when her body couldn’t participate. In a sense, she became the specter of a runner: the mind without the body.

There is a mental and spiritual aspect to running that makes it more than just physical exercise. It helps us untangle thoughts, calm our minds, awaken our bodies, deal with grief and loss and disappointment. It helps us plan for the future while, paradoxically, helping us to focus on the present.

Through this lens, she uses her mind to see things differently and then create better outcomes. Since the beginning of time, speed has featured among the most salient of topics for runners. Yet, in this book, she tells us that to go fast, we must first go slow. “Anything is possible when you live like this.”

Every time I picked up Brief Flashings, it sucked me in. Her experience feels relatable. I started to daydream about my own future victories. Katie Arnold spent months battling boredom while sitting on cushions, only to progress to bicycling one-legged. We all need to start somewhere, right?

A long time ago, a dear friend gave me a copy of Mental Toughness Training for Sports by James Loehr. This was at a time in my life when I was pushing my newborn in a stroller. Towing behind me like a trailer, my toddler pulled on my clothing. It was the year that I constantly hitched up my pants. My friend suggested that I substitute “stroller” for references to athletic equipment while reading that book. “There will be times when you want to throw the tennis racquet over the fence,” I read, nodding in agreement.

I began running regularly once I became a parent, “Frankly, just for the silence,” to borrow a line from Arnold’s book. Likewise, the extent of my zen-like knowledge has also come from parenting: To get clean, you must first get dirty. To cook, you must first wash dishes. To be awake, you must first be asleep. 

Essentially, I know nothing about zen and Katie Arnold broadened my perspective on what it could be: an awareness of the wonder surrounding our lives, or using it to imagine pulling energy into our bodies. I can imagine myself running longer while sitting in my office chair. This is an introduction to running as self-study that I have not seen before. To borrow another line from the book, “Your body could be running fast, but your mind was moving very slowly, opening wide and inhaling the world.”

Her writing style is easy to follow, the chapters are short and—because we all have over-scheduled lives and busy minds—it was a pleasure to be able to read only two pages at a time while still hanging onto both the storyline and my sanity. Meditations on freedom, time, parenthood, joy, loneliness and marriage. Zazen—sitting meditation—has been described as “lonesome monotony.” Running could be, too. Her story flows from injury to recovery, sitting to team training, ultimately winning Leadville while teaching us how she mentally maneuvered the miles. Generously, she shares the tools she used to win Leadville, and they are now available to all of us.

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY:

• Dharma Talks:
  • Upaya Zen Center – https://www.upaya.org/wisdom-library/public-dharma-talks/
  • Houston Zen Center – https://houstonzen.org/dharma-talks-upcoming
• Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, Michael Lewis – a hilarious guide to ordinary wonders in everyday life.
• Mental Toughness Training for Sports by James Loehr