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“The more time you spend trying to help somebody else, the more energy you have.”

This idea is at the core of Chris’s thoughts and activities for today and tomorrow.  Through running and yoga Chris has found a sense of community and support, friends and family that he knows he can count on when times are rough.  “Once I started running with the group, I felt a sense of family, a sense of belonging, a purpose greater than myself, a sense of support – a family that has really helped me get through a lot of things.”

Like most runners Chris has also found in running a deeper sense of personal accomplishment and peace that so many are looking for.  However, Chris’s life did not start off this way and it is the path that Chris has taken to get to where he is today and his goals for the future that make Chris such a remarkable man. (Watch an interview with CSN here)

Chris moved around a great deal when he was growing up.

From an early age, Chris had a sense of rebellion and defiance, which later caused him a great deal of hurt and pushed him to seek an escape from this pain.  Turning to drugs and crime as an outlet only brought more difficulty and pain to Chris’s life.  A brief stay in juvenile detention and rehab didn’t help Chris very much – Chris wasn’t ready to change what he needed to in his life.  Chris fell back onto the wrong path after rehab and ended up spending the next 14 years of his life in jail.

Chris’s life in jail was not very different from his life on the outside in some respects.

There was still a great deal of hurt and suffering that he couldn’t escape.  The first five years in jail were very difficult, being shipped between several different facilities, and it wasn’t until Chris made it to Memphis, TN that he found what he had been looking for.

His roommate there got him started on exercising and running.  He fell in love with running, handball, and lifting.  With a new focus on his physical health Chris was also able to start working on his mental health by practicing meditation and for the first time in a long time he began to feel good about who he was as a person.

As with all runners, Chris’s new found passion became a chance to improve upon his self discipline and goal setting.  Chris set his sights on running a marathon on his 26^th birthday.  On a rainy day in early October Chris went out into the prison yard at 6am to set up his water and food to prepare for the day’s run.

There weren’t many other people out there watching, but Chris wasn’t running for others, he was running a marathon to prove to himself that with a lot of hard work he could accomplish whatever he set his mind to.  Running became a spiritual thing to Chris, a way for him to really go inside and see who he is.

Running broke down the barriers he had around himself, brought him to a point of realization of the interconnectedness of all things and helped him find freedom and peace within his life.

After his birthday marathon, Chris began helping out a friend who was teaching a yoga class, and like running, immediately fell in love with it.  Yoga was an excellent compliment to his running, both in terms of the physical and mental strength that it helped him develop.

After his friend was transferred to another facility Chris assumed the role of teacher for the class, learning everything he could through books and videos.  Chris started letter writing campaigns to get teachers to come in from outside the prison to teach his students, but none were ever able to come.

These efforts have certainly shaped Chris’s future plans to develop a yoga program to take back into prison to help those still incarcerated.  Currently Chris is teaching yoga classes at No Excuse Workout.  He is working towards his yoga instruction certification in order to be able to help those who still need it.  “Yoga helped to transform me while I was there, and if the gap could be bridged between the inside and the outside you can provide a constructive way of rehabilitation, and yoga can be that bridge”.  He wants the men and women still on the inside to know that someone still cares about them.

At the end of this month, Chris will become the first Back on My Feet DC member to run a marathon. (Support his fundraising efforts here.)

But this time he’s not running it for himself.  He’s running it for the people still in prison, to let them know that it’s possible, that change is possible.

He will be running the Marine Corps Marathon on October 31^st, almost one year to the day that he was released from prison.

With training for the Marine Corps Marathon Chris has been able to focus his efforts and find stability in a life that can be overwhelming at times.

“I have this goal in front of me, I don’t have a lot of time to think about going out to get high, if I’m depressed or down, I have this goal, let me go out for a run, or for a walk, and let this help me clear my head.”

Back on My Feet couldn’t be more proud of the progress Chris has made since he joined the program and are excited to see Chris run in the Marine Corps Marathon.  This may not be his first marathon, but this time there will definitely be a lot of people cheering him on.