It took more than 300 fruit pouches, 79 boxes of macaroni and cheese, five pairs of shoes, two high-tech light therapy machines, one MRI and countless lunchtime sodas to get Collin Chartier from Denver to the District, where he ended a 2,000-mile cross-country run on Sunday.
Family members and friends greeted the former professional triathlete — whose career was ended by a suspension for doping in 2023 — with sweaty hugs and heartfelt congratulations on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The supporters followed the runner’s 79-day journey from a distance as he raised money for the Herron Project, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources for people struggling with addiction and their families.
“There’s actually a beautiful irony in the trajectory of a recovery journey and what Collin is doing,” said Bonnie Sawyer, the executive director of the Herron Project. “You make the decision to take the first step, and the journey is long and arduous, but it’s beautiful when you get to the end of it.”
He raised about $15,000 toward a $100,000 goal.
“I like to set big goals,” he said of the $85,000 gap. “I know I’ve had a positive impact. The in-person events, the conversations we’ve had, that’s enough.
But the run was about more than the charitable cause.
Chartier needed to go home.
Since the end of his athletic career, the Marymount alum has been looking to carve a path forward. The longest run of his life offered a chance at atonement and self-discovery.
“There’s a big part of me that wants to make it right. But I can’t go back, so what does it look like today to live that servant life? If I can choose today to live in service, can I ‘redeem myself?’” he said. “But now I’ve been given the vision to know that I’m very capable of helping others.”
The current mindset represents a massive shift from just a few years ago, when the triathlete had his eyes on climbing the world rankings and making his Olympic debut.
The Woodson High School graduate ranked 11th in the world before his fall from grace. He placed fifth among American men in qualifiers for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, three spots short of making the team.
The decision to pursue performance-enhancing drugs was the final pushed boundary in a yearslong pursuit of greatness.
“I was very narrow-minded. That’s what it takes to achieve at a very high level: a narrow level of focus,” Chartier said. “But with that comes blinders to the rest of reality, and it became an all-consuming quest to be No. 1.”
Then, he got caught. Standing in his Denver home when the news broke, the once-proud athlete said he became a “deer in headlights.”
He didn’t know what would come next.
Chartier put one foot in front of the other. He took a biking trip from California to Colombia to clear his mind. The 10,000-mile ride paved the way for the 2,000-mile run.
“That was the space I needed to think. How did I get here? This isn’t who I set out to be,” Chartier said of the intercontinental cycling trip following the suspension.
The suspension, once an albatross hanging over him, took on a different light. It gave him freedom.
“That had been the weight on my shoulders. That was it, like, ‘Oh. Okay. I can breathe. I can actually try to enjoy life instead of just being maniacal and disciplined,’” he said. “I was very robotic. I really was a horse with blinders on. No relationships. No going out. No social life.”
Over three years, he’s started to find community. Chartier has a girlfriend now. She flew into Northern Virginia and picked up a bike to meet him on the final stretch of Sunday’s run.
And he has a community behind him. When the idea of distance running started to percolate in his mind, he decided to run 100 miles in 24 hours to raise money for childhood cancer research. Friends and supporters turned out in droves.
It started a domino effect. If he could run 100 miles, why not 2,000? The idea grew from there.
It didn’t stop him from trying to do the cross-country trek solo, though. His initial plan was to push his belongings in a stroller in front of him, much to the dismay of his parents and loved ones.
“Over his life, he’s always done some hard, crazy things. So at first, we were like, ‘We’ll see if that comes to pass,’” Ray Chartier Jr., Collin’s father, said after the run.
Kevin Murphy, who attended the same sauna as the runner, decided to take on the adventure. For 79 days, he was the younger Chartier’s confidante on the road. His duties were varied — helping find campsites for the night, tracking down dinner or providing a ride when the nagging injuries flared up.
Their journey together almost ended in the first half of the trip. A hip injury took Chartier off the road for five days. Murphy started plotting how he could continue the trip on his own, driving to visit friends in the Midwest before reuniting with family on the East Coast.
But after an MRI showed no major concerns, Chartier hit the road again. It helped that this run, unlike his athletic career, wasn’t focused on personal accolades. There were no opponents, no time trials and no real comparison point for this route.
Chartier was running for others, to raise money for the Herron Project and awareness about substance abuse. The connections between a “Groundhog Day”-esque run across the country and the grueling work of recovery from addiction were not lost on Chartier and his colleagues.
“Sometimes you have to pivot. Sometimes it’s going to be difficult. Sometimes you’re going to be faced with decisions. It’s not just a linear path,” Sawyer said. “There’s many ebbs and flows to his journey across the country and to recovery. It’s not a straight line. As long as you keep pushing forward, no matter how big that step is, that’s what it’s all about.”
Before he could return from a five-day rest and keep putting one foot in front of the other, Murphy had some ground rules.
The 67-year-old support lead needed time with his morning coffee and conversation before diving headfirst into guided breathing work and the day’s run. It was a change for Chartier, who carried the highly regimented approach of an elite athlete into the first weeks of the trip.
“There’s very few people to compare this with. He always says, ‘Someone’s doing it faster, better, stronger.’ We don’t see that,” Chartier said. “That’s really just this narrow tip of the iceberg.”
Across an 11-week marathon across the United States, Chartier and Murphy have unlocked a few secrets about what it takes to cross the bulk of a continent. For the runner, sugar, carbs and highly advanced red-light therapy machines helped him recover from the daily marathon of running.
The slightest hitch remained in the runner’s stride as he completed the run on Thursday. The muscle pain subsided quickly, but joint issues and the risk of a bone fracture lingered. The minor limp is one of the many almost imperceptible signs of an unforgettable summer.
The tan is more obvious. The bleached hair on his arms and legs is less glaring, though it becomes cartoonish on closer inspection.
Chartier’s legs feature a horizontal racing stripe of blonde hair. Above the line of his running shorts and below his compression socks — one of four layers between him and the unforgiving trails — the follicles maintain their natural dark color.
But 79 days — through the hottest part of the summer — turned the middle strip of hair an unmistakable yellow.
It’s physical evidence of an internal shift for Chartier.
“Slowing down. He’s used to racing. His past is racing fast,” said Ray Chartier Jr. “Whereas this is forced slow and long. You get to soak in more: the environment, the people. He’s gotten to feel things a little more than just racing through life.”
Despite the shortened gait and sun-stained hair, Chartier made it across the Arlington Memorial Bridge with runners from Marymount — his alma mater — in tow. They followed around the Lincoln Memorial to the iconic steps, where the elder Chartiers waited with a banner celebrating their son and his running companions.
“It just feels good in the heart. That I’m seen, I’m cared for and I’m loved,” he said.
Chartier could return to triathlons. He’s still in excellent shape and his three-year doping suspension has ended. Competition might be in his DNA, but the ex-professional won’t carry it into whatever comes next.
Professional athletics isn’t on his dance card.
“What’s next is still unknown. I think it’s always going to be unknown, but I feel good about moving forward,” he said. “That’s the key. We’re not going to know more than one or two steps ahead. We’re going to move forward, one step at a time. That’s the beauty of life.”
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