Let Your Mind Run covers the phenomenal distance running career of Deena Kastor, a highly decorated athlete having set various American records in her career as well as winning Major Marathons and an Olympic marathon medal. While she is most well known for her athletic accomplishments, her book focuses primarily on the training and triumphs of her mindset throughout her career.
Throughout the book Deena takes you on a journey through her career and how her thinking had to transform in order for her to perform to her potential physically. I’ve greatly enjoyed this theme across the running memoirs I’ve read this year as I too have experienced how focusing on mental training can impact not only your running but your outlook on life.
There are several practices you can learn from her journey to implement to improve your mindset in training and life. I especially liked her focus on gratitude and how this mindset can increase positive outlooks. She discussed a practice of identifying something she’s grateful for daily and how having a rule of not being able to repeat any increased her mind looking for small things to be grateful for each day. I also enjoyed her discuss on finding little ways to insert positivity into routine like wearing a favorite running outfit for challenging workout. Throughout the novel it becomes easy to see how several small intentional practices can have a huge cascading impact on your thoughts and mindset.
She also discusses visualization as a way to improve mental strength for races. I really enjoyed hearing her discuss how she spent several weeks leading up to an important race visualizing the race course and how the race may go. I found it impactful to learn she visualized the race with different challenges each time but always ending in the win she was seeking. This seems like a great way to use this skill as it allows you to prepare for many different routes to getting to your goal and build confidence in a great variety of potential situations.
The book ends in a discussion of how Deena chose to exit professional running to focus more on motherhood. It’s a great example of how running can ebb and flow to meet the needs of our lives. In some phases running goals will be big, exciting, and the center of attention; in others it may become less of priority but still can provide excellent benefits to our bodies and minds.
If you’re looking for an inspiring story full of ways to improve the way you think about running, yourself, and life this is the book for you!
Next month: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami