By Marilyn Miller
If you gain nothing else from this story, (which is highly unlikely), remember this – people are running and cycling the streets and roads around Webster Parish. Please drive attentively. Runners and cyclists are dependent on you!
Charlie Chandler is one of them.
Three years ago, when Charlie visited his doctor, he weighed 300 pounds.
“I was on two blood pressure medicines, and I was unhealthy as I could be,” he admitted. Until a friend talked him into entering a half marathon, which is 13 miles running.
No, Charlie didn’t just grab new running shoes and go run 13 miles. He ran. He trained. And he ran and trained some more. And when he got down on himself, wife Kayla, a nutritionist and personal trainer, encouraged him to run some more. As long as he didn’t hurt himself, added Kayla.
“I finished that in October, and it got me to thinking I could do more stuff, so I trained for another one and got 40 minutes faster.” Charlie recalled. When I finished that, it’s when I signed up for the first Half Iron Man, which is only 70 miles.” Only 70 miles. And he signed up for it with only 13 weeks to train. By then, he had gotten down to about 200 pounds.
“So, we bought a bike and found out I was terrible at swimming.” What to do? “I found a Sprint Triathlon a week later in Bossier City. It was a half-mile swim, an 18-mile bike ride, and a three-mile run. So, I showed up for it with basically no training and finished it in about 2½ hours.”
The Half Iron Man in Waco, Texas was next. The 75-mile challenge included a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run.
“After I finished that, I decided maybe I could do a full one,” Charlie said. “So, I signed up for the whole enchilada (taking place) in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Sept. 28.” The only requirement for entrance (besides the fee) is to be crazy enough, according to Kayla.
Training in Webster Parish has all of the “H” requirements of a race – heat, humidity, and hills. Chattanooga also has a lot of hills. At least Charlie loves to run, and is least skilled in the water, which is “only” 1.2 miles. He says he “swims like a cinder block.” There are no breaks in the triathlon, swapping from one sport to the next is the “closest thing to a break you get.” And learning to ride a bike was “just like riding a bike,” Charlie laughed.
“I think I will finish it in about 14 hours,” Charlie says of the Iron Man branded triathlon. Iron Man is really just a brand in the triathlon. “I think the 140-mile distance is unique to it.”
Kayla also loves to run, which is why she just organized the Minden Running Club. She is also a junior in nursing school at the Northwest Louisiana Technical College in Minden. She is “kinda” Charlie’s trainer. “Whenever he listens,” she said. She ran and finished the Louisiana Marathon (26 miles) earlier this year.
Typically, Charlie trains in each skill set twice a week…twice running, twice swimming, and twice riding the bike.
Charlie tore his calf in March and had to take 10 weeks off from training. “It took a little bit of rehab. We have a hot tub, and ice baths, a lot of stretching, yoga, leg workouts…had to wear one of those big boots for a month or six weeks. But it was necessary to come back healthy.”
Charlie is looking forward to running and finishing the Iron Man race in Chattanooga. “You know, only .01 percent of humans have ever finished the Iron Man. It puts you in a pretty elite crowd to finish it.” It’s just something he can prove to himself, he says.
“This has proven to me that anything is possible. We have five kids. And we want them to know that they can do anything.” The Chandlers’ five children are Ava, a Freshman at Glenbrook; Jacob, a Senior at Parkway; Josh, Leslie, and Bradley, who work. Charlie is a field superintendent for Expand Energy; a fairly new company formed from the merger of Chesapeake and Southwestern. Expand is the largest producer of natural gas in the United States. Besides working, he gets up at 4 a.m. to get his workouts done, or he trains in the evenings.
Kayla works in her professional fields for now and will add nursing in December of 2026. And she gives a lot of time to the Minden Running Club, which has its runs at 7 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday and 6 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday. “We meet at different places, just look on Facebook.”
Kayla and Charlie have a dream for changing the “Friendliest City in the South” slogan to the “Friendliest and Healthiest City in the South.” When they aren’t working toward that goal, training for races, and working, they attend The Simple Church in Shreveport with their kids.
Kayla and Devin Martin are collaborating on the Kisatchie Crusher Gravel & Run, which combines running with bicycling at nearby Caney Lakes on Saturday, Sept. 6. The Crusher is a “Gravel Bike race for 15, 30 or 60 miles, or 5k/10k run. Pick 1, not both.”
Now you know why to pay attention while driving Webster Parish…everybody is running and biking on those same streets and roads!! And Charlie Chandler is swimming as well!
