To say Markelle Taylor is running from his past, isn’t exactly correct. Maybe you’d say he’s running with it.
Except now, instead of donning the prison garb Taylor wore daily for 18 years in California’s penitentiaries, he now slips on a track suit with Markelle “The Gazelle” stitched onto the chest, and sets out on the roadways and trails of Marin County, training for one of the dozens of races he’s run annually since his release from San Quentin Prison in 2019.
“That helps me release a lot of stuff,” Taylor said, sitting on a park bench in Tiburon. “Those fears, those anxieties, that guilt.”
The guilt is a running partner. Though he’s served his sentence, lived under self-imposed punishment for more than two decades, it’s there with him every step. Taylor knows there’s no outrunning it - only acceptance. Store it in its proper place.
“I found a way to just let it go but don’t forget,” he said, his gaze drifting off toward the San Francisco Bay. “Let it go but don’t forget.”
In post-prison life, Taylor’s calendar is his own and it’s full; there’s his regular gig bagging groceries, daily training, a steady stream of races across the country, lectures, and the coaching he offers to prisoners in San Quentin’s 1000 Mile Running Club, the same club he ran for while incarcerated.
He’s also been the subject of a documentary about his discovery of running behind bars called “26.2 to Life.” He is making up for those lost 18 years.
Local
“I could just say I’m very grateful and appreciative and thankful that I have a second chance,” Taylor said.
Taylor doesn’t hold back from telling the story of the crime that landed in prison. He assaulted his pregnant girlfriend during a fight that caused her to give birth prematurely. His son lingered in the hospital for 27 days before dying of an infection.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
Taylor was not in the hospital to fret and stand vigilant over the dying baby because he had already turned himself into the police. He turned down a plea deal and opted for trial where he was convicted of second-degree and sentenced to life.
His tour of comeuppance included stints in Solano State Prison, and Folsom Prison before landing in San Quentin.
Taylor doesn’t offer excuses for his crime but rather offers his backstory which begins with his childhood in the rough South Side of Chicago surrounded by gangs, violence and drugs -- to the family’s move to San Francisco’s equally rough Western Addition where he discovered what felt like the healing powers of alcohol. It helped mask Chicago, Western Addition and his broken family. He said he was an alcoholic by the age of 13, fueled by the barbs of his young life.
“It was the abuse I suffered by my stepfather and then all the neighborhood bullies,” he said, “and all the stuff I had to survive in that.”
Though he stayed out of serious trouble until the incident with his girlfriend - he views his early life as a run-up to that conclusion. Prison forced sobriety and gave him nearly two decades to sit and figure out how all the pieces fit in place. He made the most of counseling and education opportunities provided within the barbed wire walls, found religion, and set out to make himself whole.
But it wasn’t until he was transferred to San Quentin Prison in 2011 that Taylor found a new purpose for his life. After several years in the prison, a coach asked him to join the San Quentin’s 1000 Mile Running Club. For a long time, Taylor blew-off the invitations. When he finally accepted, he quickly realized he could barely run a single lap before getting winded. The motivation to improve unfolded in the form of tragedy, when a close friend in the prison took his own life.
“When my friend committed suicide that pushed me to run more than just that one lap,” he said. “That’s when I started running.”
As Taylor drove his body to run faster and longer, his mind fell in step. It didn’t feel as though he was running from something, it felt like he was running toward it. His running mates called him Markelle “The Gazelle.”
“It was four years before I was even paroled,” Taylor recalled, “I was already free in my mind and heart before even getting out of there.”
The day he walked out of prison in 2019 felt like a dream. He didn’t allow himself to feel anything until he’d actually stepped out of the San Quentin gate, letting his eyes rest on the welcoming sight of the bay.
“When I actually walked out,” he remembered, “it was an overwhelming feeling.”
The day after his release, Taylor ran the San Francisco Chinatown 10K race. He was so used to the discipline of prison that he got lost navigating Chinatown’s Streets. His first year out, he ran more than thirty races around the country.
“If you’re successful in your running,” Taylor said, “then it’s a reflection about the other parts of your life.”
Through running, he’s built a community of fellow runners who meet-up around Marin County. Even now, his home and training ground sits less than eight miles from San Quentin’s gate, where he became the first former inmate to return to coach the 1000 Mile Club.
“Help motivate, inspire, encourage, help the guys out,” he said.
He likens life behind bars as a flip of the coin — you can land on the wicked side of what prison offers, or the side that makes you a better person. He chose the latter.
Yet, as he runs, the sins of his past are still there. Maybe not in full view, but they’re there. They weigh on him, even on the other side of incarceration. But Taylor is not running from them, he is running with them.
“I said I always run for a purpose, to honor my victims and the people I victimized in my lifetime,” Taylor said. “That liberates me to go for a good run with my community of friends — it liberates me, it makes me feel good like I’m in control of my own destiny.”
