ultra realism

the mind--and knee--of a runner//work in process 49.

writing the next chapter at Steadman

This week I had the pleasure of speaking on stage with the running coach and prolific author Matt Fitzgerald about the “mind of a runner” to a group of high school track and cross-country athletes. I love talking to students because they are so fresh, and everything great and unknown still lies ahead of them. They are just at the beginning of understanding who they are as thinkers and athletes. They are forming themselves before our very eyes!

Talk about beginner’s mind!

One of the mindsets that Matt writes about is “ultra realism,” which he describes as seeing things clearly for exactly as they are: injury, setbacks, disruptions to training, etc. By being ultra realistic about what is, we are more able to adapt and problem-solve toward a solution, with compassion for ourselves.

Although Matt and I share similar origin stories as writers and runners—pursuing both from a very young age—we have a different vocabulary to describe our similar approaches running and mental training. I recognized Matt’s ultra-realism immediately as a deep expression of Zen: facing directly into the truth of the moment. Seeing the world and ourselves in it as we are, not as we want them to be. This is dharma.

When we run and live from this place, we loosen our clutch on rigid, fixed goals and free ourselves to write our own stories, often surpassing limits we never thought we could. The world becomes much bigger. This is not radical positivity but radical possibility. It’s a lifelong—and life-changing—practice.

I learned this first hand on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in summer 2016, when I broke my leg in a rafting accident and chose to continue downriver for 5 days, through 90+ major rapids. I could not get ahead of myself and worry about how I would manage at home with a injured leg, nor could I expend energy wishing we had not flipped on the rock. I simply had to face each rapid as it came.

This was my river dharma.

Early the next day after Matt and I gave our presentation, Steve and I drove to Frisco, Colorado, for an appointment I’d booked months earlier at the Steadman Clinic. I was finally ready to get a total and clear picture of what was going on in my knee, the one I’d broken 9 years ago on the river; my sweet left leg that has been fussy for the last few years: stiff upon rising, reluctant to flex into deep child’s pose, achy and sore and crackly at the fracture site. Running on it has felt like running on a wooden clothespin: doable but definitely not desirable.

The surgeon who operated on me 9 years ago warned me then of arthritis and told me I should “find a new hobby” and never run again. I didn’t listen. The surgeon who operated on me 2.5 years ago to take out the metal plate the first surgeon had installed told me I had severe arthritis at the fracture site. It wasn’t a question of if I’d need a knee replacement, he suggested, but when. I left the surgery with a deep sense of embarrasment and shame. The first doctor had been right. I hadn’t listened. I’d been stubborn and kept running. Of course I had! Running was and never has been a hobby for me. It’s a way of living and writing and being fully myself.

I’ve carried that shame for the last two years. I couldn’t look at the x-rays the second surgeon gave me. I didn’t need a mental picture of what I imagined was a thoroughly trashed knee. This self-protection was smart, until it wasn't. I was not being ultra realistic. I was avoiding reality.

Finally, this winter, inspired by a story my friend Sarah Lavender Smith posted about her fruitful visit to Steadman, I decided it was time to face the truth of what really is, to take charge once again of my own story. Knowledge is power, and I was ready to write my next chapter.

The week before the appointment, though, I began having second thoughts. I worried that a man in a white coat would tell me what my future held, and that I would listen. When what I really wanted was to keep listening to my body, to trust what I know and what it knows.

Also there was a snowstorm forecast on the day of the appointment. I canceled and pushed it out to April, thinking that I would also cancel that appointment.

Then it was April. I felt sure I wouldn’t go. But last week I hiked up the mountain with a new friend, and at the top, she split off to run down the backside. She will be 60 in a month and is training for a trail half marathon. How long had it been since I’d been able to build up in training for a running race? I wanted that, too! The satisfaction of progression. I didn’t need a lot: just 35 miles a week pain-free. Was this too much to ask for? I asked myself.

No, I decided. Not at all.

We left early for the drive to Steadman. It’s five hours from Santa Fe on a good day. It was a good day. I dropped Steve off on the Arkansas River north of Buena Vista to fly-fish and drove the last hour alone, through Leadville, visualizing and rehearsing the appointment. I was not going into it to ask what was possible. I was going in to say what I need and want. I was not looking for permission or forgiveness, but understanding and solutions. I was not ashamed or apologetic of the choices I’d made. I regretted none of them, was grateful for and celebrated all of them.

As soon as I walked in, I knew I’d made the right choice. I felt weirdly as though I’d come home. Fit, tanned mountain athletes roamed the waiting room. I got X-rays and, upstairs in the exam room, the tech Adam went over them with me.

For the first time, I was not afraid to look.

Oh my beautiful body! Oh my skeleton that has carried me up and down mountains, through canyons, on walks and hikes with dogs and beloveds. The hips that bore my babies. It was a wonder to behold. And my knees—how dear they are to me! How beautiful!

Adam showed me that when I stand up straight, the cartilage in both knees is ample, but when I flex my left knee, the cartilage in the lateral (outside) joint gets pulled away and the bones mash together. “Bone-on-bone.”

Those words were not nearly as scary to hear as I’d feared. Bone-on-bone, I repeated. Surely I’d known this deep down. Yes, I had. I felt an enormous empathy for my sweet bones cradling each other, almost kissing, so intimate! An image of love and loyalty.

The orthopedist came in. I liked him right away. I gave him signed copies of Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World and Running Home. I’d rehearsed this, too. It was my way of saying, Here I am. This is me and this is what I want. Can you help?

He could, and did. “Your right knee is great! And the medial part of your left knee joint is pristine,” he said.

Pristine! What a beautiful, hopeful word! I made him repeat it.

He went on: “The middle part of the joint is in good shape, maybe a little wear. The lateral (outside) shows severe post-traumatic athritis.”

We talked about solutions: injections and a brace to wear when I ski or hike, to align my leg so that the cartilage doesn’t get pulled up and away, so my bones don’t embrace each other quite so fervently. The post-traumatic arthritis is localized in one compartment, he confirmed. This might make me a candidate, should I choose, for a partial knee repair, like Linsday Vonn had in April 2024. Vonn, 40, retired from ski racing in 2020 thinking her body broken beyond repair. A couple weeks ago, she won a World Cup GS.

There was one more thing I needed to say. “I will be active until I’m dead,” I told the doctor and his tech. “This is who I am.” It’s not a phase or a hobby, a platform or a brand. It’s me. My true nature. My original self.

I share this here in the hope that it might inspire you or someone you know to face into the truth of what really is, to advocate for yourself without guilt or shame. To pursue the life you love, no regret, no apologies.

new brace + the Arkansas

I left with a cortisone injection, a new brace, and options. But best of all, no pain shame. I met Steve where I’d left him on the Ark. He’d caught some trout, and while he got out of his waders, I walked to the river in my brace to throw a stick for Banks. It was a lovely, early spring day at 9,000 feet south of Leadville; the mountains I know and love rose high to the west. Back at home the next morning, I woke without stiffness or discomfort. My knee felt like new again, or like my old knee. I was jubilant. I didn’t know what lay ahead—do any of us?—but at last I’d gotten to the bones of the matter.

I checked my email. There was one from Matt Fitzgerald, thanking me for our talk. “You have the mind of a champion!” he wrote. I smiled and let his words wash over me, really felt them.

Yes.

Nothing is certain, and everything is possible.

xo

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UPCOMING EVENTS, WORKSHOPS + RETREATS!

April 23 // Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World is the April Pace of Me Book Club selection! Join me April 23 at 8 PM eastern as I zoom in to discuss Zen, marriage, heartbreak, and healing with readers from around the country! Now avaiable as an audiobook—buy + listen! To register:

May 19 // Writing in the Wild, a literary day trip in conjunction with the Santa Fe International Literary Fest. Join me from 9:30-12 noon for walking, writing, and sitting meditation on the trails of Santa Fe. $100 per person. Message me to reserve your spot today!

NEW!! June 13-16//Brave Over Perfect: A Wilderness and College Essay Writing Camp for Teen Girls, ages 15-18, High Camp Hut, Colorado. College essays are more than an onerous application process, they’re a rite of passage. Who are you and who do you want to become? This four-day mountain writing camp will teach teamwork, expedition skills, narrative self-expression, and lifelong creative practices. Come with curiosity and leave with the bones or a draft of your essay. In collaboration with veteran college essay coach Susie Rinehart, educator and advocate Kelly Burns, and wilderness leader Katie Maccaulay. $895, all inclusive. Space is limited. Register at Mountain Kids, or message me for details.

September 5-8// Mountain Flow Camp at High Camp Hut, Colorado. Four days of guided writing, rambling, yoga, meditation and other simple, pleasurable practices to inspire your writing and life. Set at a traditional alpine lodge at 11,000 feet in the San Juan Mountains. $2600 per person, shared twin rooms, all inclusive.