Beginner's Mind: Micro Running!

work in process//3.

Hi friends and happy Friday!

Today I ran two miles. I don't usually talk much about my mileage—to me, training is the least interesting thing about running—but this I feel compelled to share. The two miles I ran was not a speed or interval workout. It wasn’t up a mountain or around a track, and it wasn’t because the dog got tired and plopped down in the middle of the trail and stubbornly refused to go on (though he did, luv you Pete!).

No, I ran two miles on purpose because I am teaching myself to be a beginner again.

For the past five months, my body has not felt much like running. My joints ache and often when I get up from sitting or sleeping, I’m so stiff I hobble around like I’m 100 years old. Gradually I started cutting my mileage to the lowest it’s been since I was a teenager. By fall, I’d scaled back to two runs a week.

But my body did not feel better. It felt worse.

The common refrain about running is that too much wrecks our bodies, especially our joints. After two surgeries, my own brain started saying it, too: Hey, you had a good run. Time to hang it up.But I’d heard of so many runners’ second- and third acts that I knew better than to believe myself. I thought of Candice Burt who ran 50K every day for a world-record 200 days in a row and reported experiencing fewer injuries and illness as a result. I thought of so-called “streak runners” who run every day for 15 years straight. Maybe running has the opposite effect on us than we’ve been led to believe.

I began to wonder: What if running could be the cure for running?

To find out, I’d have to teach myself a new way to run. I wasn’t ready to run far yet, so I’d have to run short. The problem was, like so many ultra runners, I’d developed a skewed sense of distance. Anything under eight miles seemed like a short run, less than five barely counted. This, I knew, was ridiculous—borderline delusional. Plenty of people derive a sense of accomplishment from two miles, as they should. When I first started running regularly as a 13-year-old, two miles qualified as a big day. How had I gotten so greedy about my miles?

I had start over. The only way I could learn to run less was to run more.

Every. Single. Day.

Beginner’s mind is a central teaching in Zen Buddhism. It means coming to your activity—whether it’s something you’re proficient in or just learning—with a freshness and openness of mind. Looking at something with a new perspective, shedding preconceived notions about our ability and loosening our grip on expectations and outcomes. It means cultivating a certain willingness of heart to meet whatever comes with an appreciation for the effort rather than a fixation on results.

ittybitty 3/4 mile loop on Long Caye, Belize

I first learned about beginner’s mind in 2017, after a traumatic wilderness accident left me broken in body and spirit and unsure if I’d ever run again. The phrase comes from the classic book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. My beloved friend Natalie brought me a copy of it one day that winter. It’s time you read this, she said, waving it at me unceremoniously. The minute I started, my mind was blown.

As I write in Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, coming out in April, “it was disguised as a manual on meditation, but I felt as if I’d stumbled upon a set of instructions on how to live.”

The book seemed to contain every secret to being alive in the world: healing, running, writing, parenting, love, friendship, mountains, rivers. Life.

Beginner’s mind is the essence of process. You can apply it to everything you do.

Eight weeks ago, on a Monday in late November, I ran a couple miles. The next day I did the same. And the next. I’ve been going daily ever since, on in snowstorms, on hotel treadmills and around teensy island loops. Alone and with the dogs, with Steve and a daughter when I can rope her in. In all my years as a runner, I’ve never run seven days a week, much less for eight weeks in a row. I guess you could call it a streak, but I don’t really think of it that way. I think of it as practice. Process. Some days I jog a mile. Other days, five or six. I don’t make a plan. I just listen to my body. Sometimes I feel free and fast like I used to and, with any luck, will again before too long. Other days I’m an ancient aluminum stick figure, my metal joints throwing sparks with every step.

Either way, running is no longer precious. It’s just a thing I wake up and do. On busy writing days, I can go out the door and be back at my desk in ten minutes! It’s so efficient! My body feels more like mine than it has in months. I’m a micro runner now!

One day I’ll wake up and not run. Maybe it will be tomorrow. For now I’m just following the process to see where it leads. I’m teaching my body that this is what we do: we run. We don’t have to be runners or ultra runners or micro runners to run. When we run with beginner’s mind, we are running.

Driving home from my little jog this morning, I saw a man at a stoplight holding a sign: Supplies stolen. Please help. The light was green so I couldn’t stop, but as I drove away, I scanned the messy contents of my car: I had no cash, but I did have a quarter-bag trail mix, half a roll of TP, and a tube of sunscreen. I made a U-turn and opened my window, handing him the trail mix. “I don’t know what else you need but I have toilet paper and sunscreen,” I offered. He took the TP, left the SPF, and I drove on.

Beginner’s mind isn’t a big deal. You don’t have to make it a Thing or a Project or a self-improvement hack. You don’t have to go looking for it. If you’re paying attention, one day you’ll wake up with a weird idea you can’t quite explain. But deep down, you know. Listen. Follow your instinct. See where it leads.

Maybe it’s as simple as walking home a different way next time or pulling a u-ey or pausing to appreciate the way the morning sun pours into your scruffy gear shed with all its crap leaning this way and that.

Beginner’s mind is a practice in noticing, in patience and humility, in meeting yourself where you are, now, trusting that every action you take—big or small—will alter your molecules in imperceptible ways and take you someplace new.

I can’t wait to hear where. Drop me a comment below!

---

I’ll be back next week with more new beginnings (tennis, screenwriting, yoga, and Leadville!). If you liked this post, I hope you’ll pre-order Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World (out 4/16/24)—a true story of beginner’s mind, spontaneous running streaks, and the river accident that changed everything.

Every single pre-order and share helps build word-of-mouth and bookseller buzz. I’m grateful for your support!

---

 PRACTICE WITH ME! 

I'm excited to share details and dates for upcoming Flow Camp! Spaces are limited, so early registration is advised. These are immersive wilderness retreats with daily guided running, hiking, and writing practices, as well as meditation, conversation, and inspiration. Reach out with any questions--I hope to see you!

• River Flow Camp for Women: May 30-June 2 at Field Trip NM on the Pecos River

• Mountain Flow Camp for Women: Sept 5-8 at High Camp Hut, Colorado

• Desert Flow Camp, Co-ed, October 2024, Marfa and Big Bend, TX. Date and details TBA & registration opening soon!

Thanks for reading! Talk to you next week.

with love, katie