Wichita priest ran a blazing Boston Marathon. The names on his wrist tell why
Father Seth Arnold began the Boston Marathon the way he begins every race with names written in ink on a strip of athletic tape wrapped around his wrist.
The names change from race to race. Sometimes they are students. Sometimes teachers. Sometimes people back home who are hurting, grieving or in need of prayer. For Arnold, a 29-year-old Wichita native and chaplain at Kapaun Mt. Carmel, the tape is more than a reminder. It is a way to carry people with him when the miles turn painful.
This year, one name was harder to write than the rest: Rebecca Rauber.
Before Arnold was a priest, before he was known as Father Seth and before he was a marathoner capable of running 26.2 miles faster than many in one of the world’s most famous races, he was a Bishop Carroll student in the same friend group as Rauber. They graduated together in 2015. He even took her to senior homecoming.
Rauber died in January, the kind of news that stopped Arnold cold even though life had taken them in different directions after high school.
So when Arnold reached the Boston Marathon’s most punishing stretch last Monday, climbing Heartbreak Hill with the race beginning to hurt, he looked to the names on his wrist for strength.
And more than anyone, he thought of Rauber.
“It’s hard to put into words,” Arnold said. “I dedicated my race to her and I was thinking about her as I ran, so it just made it very profound.”
Arnold finished the Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 35 minutes, 45 seconds, a 13-minute personal best. He placed in the top 700 out of nearly 30,000 runners. He averaged 5 minutes, 56 seconds per mile, which is roughly the equivalent of running an 18:27 5K eight straight times without stopping.
But to Arnold, the time was not separate from the names on his wrist. It was part of the same offering.
“It’s just an amazing opportunity to give honor and glory to God through running,” Arnold said. “It’s something I’m super passionate about and love to use it as an opportunity to pray for other people and give honor to our Lord.”
Arnold came through the halfway mark in 1:19 and felt strong enough to keep pressing on a course famous for punishing runners who get too aggressive too early. His goal had been to break 2:40. By the time he crossed the finish line on Boylston Street, he had done far more than that.
The first feeling was relief.
Then came satisfaction.
Arnold knew the number meant something. Not just because it validated a full year of disciplined training, but because a 2:35 at Boston puts him in position to chase something else this fall: a chance to contend for the Prairie Fire Marathon title in his hometown. Arnold’s Boston time would have won eight of the last 10 Prairie Fire marathons.
That possibility has already become his next motivation.
But Arnold’s leap did not come from one race-day surge. It was built the same way he talks about faith: by showing up day after day.
“The biggest thing is just consistency of showing up every day,” Arnold said. “Even if you don’t do it perfectly, as long as you keep showing up, that’s going to help you improve. The same goes for prayer. If you continue to show up every day, you’re going to grow closer to our Lord and good things are going to happen.”
Arnold increased his mileage during this training cycle, averaging between 50 and 60 miles per week after previously running closer to 40 to 45. He stacked months of consistent training together, often waking early to fit the work around his duties at Kapaun.
As chaplain, Arnold provides spiritual, emotional and moral support to students, staff and families. He teaches classes, leads school-wide Mass every Wednesday morning and helps run Kairos retreats, three-day spiritual experiences for students in Great Bend.
At Kapaun, Arnold has become known as someone who is present — in the halls, at games, on retreats, around students.
Running has become another way to do the same thing.
“Running is a way that I can connect with people,” Arnold said. “This is what the Lord has called me to do. So running is just a great opportunity to be with people when their barriers are down and to build those friendships of trusts and to minister and to meet people where they’re at.”
That connection was especially clear last fall when Arnold served as an assistant coach for Kapaun’s boys cross country team, which won the Class 5A state championship — the program’s first since 1981.
Kapaun distance coach Gage Garcia, also a Bishop Carroll graduate and former standout distance runner, had watched Arnold’s buildup to Boston on Strava and was struck by the steadiness of it. Arnold trained with the Kapaun runners during cross country season, using those miles as part of his marathon preparation while also sharing the work with the athletes he was helping coach.
“It’s just a lot of fun to be able to push myself alongside those boys,” Arnold said. “It just shows them that I’m a regular guy and I’m just striving and trying to be the best man that I can be.”
Garcia said the impact on Kapaun’s runners was obvious.
“The kids absolutely love it,” Garcia said. “Our group right now has a really strong Catholic identity, so having Father Seth be part of the staff is a very big part of that. They love to see his example and his work ethic. He’s just a really positive role model for our kids and a great inspiration for anyone.”
Arnold has always had running in him.
At Carroll, he was part of the boys track and field team that won the Class 5A state championship in 2014. He still holds the school record in the steeplechase. His former coach, Cory Swords, remembers him as the kind of athlete built for a sport that rewards patience more than shortcuts.
“The great thing about distance running is that it’s all about consistency,” Swords said. “Improvement comes to those people who are willing to keep chopping wood. And Seth is one of those highly-disciplined people.”
Arnold was ordained to the priesthood in 2022 after seminary school in Chicago. He still finds peace in running the way he did when he first fell in love with the sport in middle school.
“My faith is such a large part of why I run,” Arnold said. “I find a lot of peace in running. It gives me an opportunity to reflect on my day and to pray about things and to pray for people.”
That is why Boston carried layers for him.
The race fell on Father Emil Kapaun’s birthday, a meaningful detail for a priest serving as chaplain at the school that bears Kapaun’s name. Arnold also had the names of several Kapaun teachers written on his wrist. Then there was Rauber, whose memory gave the race a deeper weight.
By the time Arnold reached the hardest miles, those names had become more than reminders. They were the reason the suffering felt worth carrying.
That may be the truest explanation for how Arnold ran a 2:35 marathon.
Not because he is a priest with a surprising hobby. Not because he found some secret. Not because Boston gave him a perfect day.
He kept showing up.
And for 26.2 miles, he carried the people he loved with him.
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