Recently released from prison, Andre Anderson and his running mentor Steve English crossed the finish line of the Twin Cities Marathon, in front of the Minnesota State Capitol, around 1pm this Sunday. Anderson was training to run in the Twin Cities Marathon for about a decade, but he didn’t know it at the time. While incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Lino Lakes, he ran for exercise and mental health.
After his release two months ago, friends at the nonprofit Mile in My Shoes, a St. Pail non-profit organization that works to center people and spaces historically excluded by the running community to use movement as a catalyst for social justice, surprised Anderson with two running gifts; sponsorship in the City of Lakes Half Marathon last month and Sunday’s Twin Cities Marathon.
This is the second marathon Anderson has run, the first was Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth in 2009 before he was incarcerated. He said he wanted to prove to himself that he could still do it.
Anderson served more than a decade incarcerated, first in jail and then in Minnesota state prisons. He was convicted of second-degree attempted murder in connection with a stabbing near Duluth in 2014. Anderson fought the conviction, arguing the photo lineup process that identified him was faulty. Anderson lost on appeal but maintains his innocence.
He said when he turned 30 years old in prison, he had a change in attitude. “Everybody’s dealt tough hands in life,” Anderson said. “I chose to accept it and take all that anger and frustration with how things happen and turn that into a desire to run.”
At MCF-Lino Lakes, Anderson founded Running for Change in 2021 and invited others to join. Every Saturday, the club would do a 5K run by running loops in the prison yard. Members took turns picking a cause to run for. Anderson said one runner’s mother died of breast cancer, so the club members made pink bracelets out of yarn and everyone wore them during the run that day.
To read Anderson’s essay about marathon training in prison, you can read “Becoming an ultra-marathoner on a tiny patch of concrete inside MCF Lino Lakes” at the Minnesota Reformer website. The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell
