He beat the goal he set for himself, finishing a half marathon in 1 hour and 37 minutes. While visibly tired from the feat, he walked a few laps, cheering on the runners that remained on the field. 

If not for Vanderheuf, he and 44 other inmates wouldn’t be running a half marathon in a prison yard at the Utah State Correctional Facility. He was the one to first pitch the idea to the Utah Department of Corrections — all to find purpose again after struggles with substance abuse.

For him and the other inmates, Friday’s race was more than seeing the goal they put in so much sweat and training for coming to fruition. It was also a milestone in their paths to turn their lives around.

Utah state officials invited reporters to watch the half marathon on Friday, hoping to highlight the new program and the story behind it.

Vanderheuf said the idea came to him after journalist and television host Christiane Amanpour did a segment on “26.2 to Life,” a documentary depicting the San Quentin Prison’s running club in California. Vanderheuf said he watched it on the tiny TV in his cell.

“I felt connected to them,” he told Utah News Dispatch after finishing the race Friday.

Vanderheuf said he was an athlete in college, but he quit sports after struggling with addiction. Now, he finds purpose in running, which he said is a crucial part of his recovery journey.

“It feels great to come back to life,” he said, especially on days like this, when the group feels “loved and seen” with visitors watching their achievements.

“When I started running, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I started feeling better,” Vanderheuf said. Now, in a better place, he said he’s ready to go back home, be a great dad and husband.

Getting the 45 runners participating at the Utah State Correctional Facility’s first half marathon was a Herculean task.

For safety reasons, it took months of preparation and training to bring them all together at an outdoor exercise lawn. It also took a couple of races getting progressively longer every month to reach the 13.1 miles goal on Friday, according to recreational therapists who organized the event.

Those 13.1 miles didn’t look like the usual half marathons that happen outside prison, in public. Instead of a straight route, runners ran in circles. Three laps accounted for about a mile and 39 made up for the total distance.

Like in the documentary, Utah’s “Fit From Within” running club was designed to encourage participants to run 1,000 miles a year, not only tackling physical fitness, but mental health issues among incarcerated people. The effort was initiated by Vanderheuf, but is managed by the Division of Correctional Health Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Friday event was two years in the making, Vanderheuf said. But he hopes all the effort it took means that many inmates will return home being better people.

For him, it was a snapshot of what could await him after his parole hearing this year. By beating his time goal by a few minutes, he hopes he’s on track to run in next year’s Boston Marathon — something he hopes to accomplish when he’s no longer behind bars.

During the half marathon, some state staffers, volunteers and Utah lawmakers jogged alongside the inmates for a few laps. That included Rep. Katy Hall, R-Ogden. After she watched the same film that inspired Vanderheuf, Hall said she contacted the Department of Corrections to replicate the running club — only to learn that a similar effort was already underway.

Hall, however, kept volunteering. As a runner, she knows what running can do to improve mental health, she said.

“It’s amazing to see the enthusiasm,” she said Friday. “It has snowballed.”

With a bill passed this year allowing private donations for a state Rehabilitation and Reentry Services Special Revenue Fund, Hall is encouraging Utahns to give financial donations which can be used to buy running shoes or treadmills, since there are only two or three on the prison’s campus, she said.

Running in the club is a privilege granted with good behavior, organizers said. Runners also need to be cleared to get together, a process that takes two to four weeks. State officials say the first six months of the program have proven worthwhile so far.

Ellie Madenberg, a recreation therapist at the Department of Corrections, said she’s noticed a lot of signs of decreasing depression and anxiety in the surveys runners fill out before and after a race. The goal, she said, is to keep collecting data in the future to determine whether the program helps improve recidivism rates and other outcomes.

After finishing shorter races with quirky names, like “Love Yourself” for Valentine’s Day, and a “March Madness” run, participants are already preparing for a 15-mile event next month and will keep on adding length to the races until they achieve a marathon.

Alex Mendoza, an inmate representative of one of the buildings that houses general-population inmates who qualify for work, programming and education initiatives, couldn’t run on Friday because of a knee injury, but he acted as “hype man” during the race.

Like many watching, he cheered on as runners completed every lap.

“The best thing is bringing everyone together,” he said. “It puts a smile on people’s faces. You don’t get to see that often.”

Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.