Episode
From 25-to-Life to 25 Marathons: A Story of Relentless Transformation
- Published
- Mar 1, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 10230
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Summary
Episode 19 of Pod on the Run traces the life of a man who rebuilt himself through discipline, imagination, service, and thousands of counter‑clockwise laps on a prison track. Joaquin Jordan grew up in Los Angeles during the height of the War on Drugs, raised by a single mother. He was a strong student and athlete, but the pull of addiction, identity, and survival dragged him into the justice system at fifteen. By adulthood, he was facing twenty‑five‑to‑life. Inside those walls, Joaquin didn’t just survive - he went to work on himself. He studied relentlessly. He journaled daily. He led groups, facilitated conversations, and became a source of stability for people who had never known it. And in the middle of all that, he found a lifeline in an unexpected place: Runner’s World magazine . Each issue became a window into a world he had never touched. He tore out the annual mileage log and filled it with his runs. He cut out photos of runners moving through forests, parks, and cityscapes, taping them to his cell wall. Those images became his vision board - a map of the life he wanted but had never lived. Every day, on a cambered asphalt track where you could only run counter‑clockwise, he imagined himself running in those places. He pictured the trees, the air, the freedom. Running became structure, identity, and hope. He ran twenty‑five marathons in twenty‑five weeks. He earned four AA degrees. He built programs that changed lives inside the facility. He became a counselor, a mentor, and a leader long before he ever stepped outside the gate. His transformation was so undeniable that the governor granted him clemency for good behavior . Joaquin walked out of prison on a Friday and started college at Chico State the following Monday. Today, he’s an executive coach, counselor…