Leaps and Pounds
POLSON — He steps out the door of his sister’s house on the hill above Polson High School and starts jogging down the hill.
A few laps around the high school track and then it’s down the hill again to the apartment where he used to live with his father and sister, Amanda.
Chris Alexander sits out in front of that apartment building near Polson High and remembers his father, the reason he runs in the first place.
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James Alexander passed away on January 27 due to a massive heart attack.
“Amanda called me that night and said that her dad wasn’t feeling very well and was having trouble breathing,” Chris’ brother-in-law Brett Butler recalled. When Butler reached the apartment minutes later to take James to the hospital, he was on the floor and unresponsive. Amanda was on the phone with 911.
After many long minutes of CPR and the arrival of emergency services, James was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Meanwhile, Butler’s parents and brother were driving to Polson from Big Arm to help out when his father’s truck hit black ice, skidded off the road and flipped. The same ambulance crew that had been tending to James drove out to help the injured Butlers.
Butler took Chris and Amanda back to the house he had recently purchased with his wife, Chris and Amanda’s half-sister, Mel Butler where they met with a chaplain, and Brett drove back to the hospital to be with his father, who had sustained a broken collarbone and some ribs in the accident.
Having no other family in Montana—their mother is no longer in the picture—Mel and Brett took charge of the two children.
“We came here and had some discussions and sort of laid down what we proposed [to take the two teenagers in],” Brett said. “We turned the kids’ playroom into another bedroom.”
Mel said there wasn’t much of a discussion involved despite the couple’s own two children, Bethany and Tristen.
“There is no alternative in my mind. It’s family.”
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Chris has a form of autism and needs to develop structured routines to be able to function.
He is notorious for showing up to school early, sometimes even before the teachers do. A model student and rarely sick or absent, the school staff knew something was awry when Chris showed up for school a little later than normal the day after his father died.
Brett and Mel went in that day to discuss with the counselors what had happened.
Through the whole ordeal, Chris only missed three hours of school.
When the coroner’s report came back on James, it was a wake-up call for the whole family, especially the nearly 300-pound Chris. James suffered from a number of conditions that, combined, made his blood, as the coroner described it, “like motor oil.” Some of the conditions were hereditary, and Chris was at a higher risk because of his weight.
“We started just cooking healthy and cut out a lot of Zebra Cakes and honey buns and stuff like that,” Brett said. “…We said [to Chris], ‘We need to get you out, just run around the track or walk around the block.’”
Since he started running in February, the 17-year old has lost more than 100 pounds and gone through two wardrobes.
His clothing is getting loose enough now that he will soon need new ones again.
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At 300 pounds and never having played a sport, Chris didn’t know much about exercising before he started running.
“The first time, I was running around the block in my cowboy boots,” he said.
Amanda and Mel got him some running shoes and workout clothes.
“I told him the school track is always open. You can go down there whenever. I took him the first time, and I don’t work out a lot myself, but now Christopher can beat me,” Amanda said.
Routine-driven as always, Chris developed his circuit from his new home to the high school to the apartment, back to the track and then home.
He does it every day, the family says, rain or shine. If it gets too hairy outside, Chris will go for hours on the elliptical machine in their basement.
“He’ll skip out on family trips because he knows he has to run,” said Brett, who described his brother-in-law as Polson’s own Forrest Gump.
On their camping trip to Yellowstone in the summer, Chris ran or swam every day.
His progress didn’t go unnoticed by Polson’s administration, either. Chris was recognized at the start of the school year with an outstanding summer achievement award.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” Chris said. “[Principal Rex Weltz] said, ‘This guy runs that track every day,’ and I was starting to slouch in my chair.”
Chris said he doesn’t run for the recognition, but he’s very proud of the award.
His goals now are to “lose more, stay fit, and get a tan,” he said, pulling up his sleeve to show off the bronze skin tone that is a byproduct of that much outdoor exercise.
Brett, whose brother is a fitness trainer, said he plans to get Chris with a gym membership and a workout regimen when the weight stops coming off so easily.
Chris credits Brett with helping to urge him in the right direction.
“He gave me the push to do it because he told me about my dad, what he died from,” Chris said. “That was motivation and he gave me a little push. He made me realize that I had more opportunities than my dad had.”
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He sits outside the apartment where he once lived, remembering his father, the jolly man with the thick Texas accent and a hot cup of coffee in his fist.
Back up the hill he goes, running for a while, then walking, then running again.
Back around the track, he runs the straightaways and walks the curves.
Back up the hill toward home, toward a healthier, happier future, toward a new Chris Alexander.