Cross-country runner visits Wamego, Perry en route to Washington D.C.

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - A man running across the United States has made his way through Northeast Kansas.

32-year-old Collin Chartier took off from Boulder, CO, in June, running 31 miles a day all the way to Washington D.C.

“My mission here is to inspire as many people as possible for mental health and recovery,” he said.

Chartier was a professional athlete until facing consequences that cut his career short.

“A large part of my story is in 2023, I got suspended from the sport of triathlon,” he said. “I was 11th ranked in the world and I tested positive for cheating, for taking some drugs.”

Now, he’s running 2,000 miles to raise mental health awareness.

“I have an uncle who committed suicide,” Chartier said. “I have friends, family recently teenage suicide. These things are heavy, and often we can feel paralyzed by grief. And I think the best way is to keep moving forward and to do things in memory of them.”

Chartier runs 20 miles to start the day. He then has lunch break with a crew driving ahead of him. Then he picks back up for the next 10.

He stays in a new city each night, most recently spending the night in Wamego and Perry.

“We were just staying with a family in Wamego,” Chartier said. “And part of that family we got connected to when we stayed in Strasburg, Colorado. And they drove out from Strasburg to be there last couple nights in Wamego.”

The weather has had its moments for Chartier.

“It’s been different,” he said. “I struggled yesterday, I was like man did my water spill? I was just wet the whole time.”

But he says some of the highlights of the past 600 miles have come in Kansas.

“I think these are some of the most lovely towns I’ve been through,” Chartier said. “They’re clean, well taken care of. You can tell when people care about their community. Because I’ve now ran through a bunch of small towns, and a lot of them are run down on that like Western part of Kansas.”

But he says meeting new people is one of his favorite parts.

“So I stopped into the gas station in Silver Lake and was talking to the lady there,” Chartier said. " She’s a school teacher and has a cousin who recently committed suicide and has a daughter in Kansas City. So it was like an easy conversation to be like this is what I’m doing it for.”

Chartier hopes to arrive in the nation’s capitol in early September.