On the day of the 2016 Boston Marathon, Keith Giroux ran 26.2 miles on a prison treadmill. One year later, he ran the Boston Marathon. (via OnlyAGameNPR)
Released from jail more times than he can count, Keith Giroux had something to focus on in fall of 2016: running the Boston Marathon. This story originally aired on March 18, 2017. This web feature has been updated accordingly.
By 17, Giroux was a dad. By 18, he was on his own. Sometimes he went to work high or with a hangover. Sometimes he didn’t bother showing up at all. He lost his factory job. He couldn’t pay the rent for his room in a boarding house. And he started breaking into bars and liquor stores for cash and alcohol.
"I’d never been a runner before that. I’d smoked cigarettes all my life. I used to hate having to run in gym class. But, getting out in that prison yard, every time I would get out there, I’d try to run a little further and maybe a little faster. And it felt pretty good." Six weeks after he began running, Giroux was transferred to the Franklin County Jail in Greenfield, Massachusetts. But in Greenfield, there was no yard, just a treadmill.
"The shoes I had been running in were absolutely horrible," he says."Plain white Velcro strap orthopedic shoes that were probably a bit small for me, too. I knew I couldn’t run that far in those. So, I was running around, frantically looking for shoes. But we’re very limited in there because you can only have shoes that are approved through their medical department, that don’t have shoelaces. And they’re not built for running.
He slowed to a fast walk for a couple minutes, then refocused and sped up as much as he could. He wanted to run across the finish line.
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