Lyon brings new purpose to goals in track, life

By Brent W. New for DyeStat

Christian Lyon lost his usual speedy, smooth form and stumbled around in a panic.

The 20-year-old sprinter felt out of his element as he raced his pregnant girlfriend to the hospital last September.

Fatherhood was coming quicker than expected.

“OK Christian, you got to get your stuff together. You’re going to be a father,” Lyon recalled telling himself. “You’re going to have to be a man. You’re going to have to step up.”

It was a pep talk that seems to have worked.

The highly decorated sprinter out of Colorado, now at Barton Community College in Kansas, said it’s been a challenge balancing track, his studies, and two jobs, along with fatherhood.

A month ago at the 91st Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, Lyon ran a wind-aided 10.00 seconds (+3.6mps) in the 100 meters – the fastest all-conditions time in the world at that point of the season. He also ran 10.27 in Austin, which remains the fastest wind-legal time by a two-year college athlete in the country.

“I’m getting into the hang of things still,” he said. “If I stay on top of it, just being confident and just keeping (my son) Josiah on my mind all the time and being a role model for him, I think I’ll be pretty good.”

Lyon’s new routine includes waking up at all hours, changing diapers, and often working late into the night at the school’s library or mailroom to stay afloat.

But it’s all been worth it, he said.

Following a self-described “so-so” freshman year on and off the track – not to mention an unexpected pregnancy that admittedly frightened him to the core – Lyon says he’s turned the page for the better in 2018. His new view of life includes a restored focus and passion in all things – starting with Josiah.

As for track? He has a hunger to succeed like never before.

“Josiah pushes me to be better,” Lyon said. “If I didn’t have Josiah I think I would kind of be in the same predicament as last year, with low confidence and dealing with self-esteem issues. Like then, I was doing it for myself, but now with doing it for someone else. I’m on my toes 100 percent of the time.

"I can’t slack now.”

Lyon will finish the spring at Barton before transferring to Liberty University next season with his girlfriend, Dezarae, and their son. He sees it as an exciting new chapter.

“Sometimes God gives us challenges, and those challenges can either break us or we can learn from them, or we can take the responsibility that God gives us to make something really good,” Lyon said. “And I’m making something really good.”

That mindset has carried over to the track, too.

Lyon, a former state champion at Fountain-Fort Carson in Colorado, has upped his training volume and re-discovered his place as a natural-born leader during what has been a soaring sophomore season at Barton. In March, he saw it come to fruition at Texas Relays.

“Fastest man in the world,” he chuckled. “At least at the time.”

This year, Lyon also set a personal best in the indoor 60 (6.73) and the outdoor 200 (20.89).

“I think it’s the mindset that he has,” said Mark’Quis Frazier, a sprints coach for the Cougars. “Others look at him crazy when he says he’s going to run a certain time. But he’s very confident, very strong in his faith and works hard. He'll do great.”

Lyon knows he’ll need all of his best attributes to keep moving forward in preparation for the National Junior College Athletic Association Division 1 Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 17-19 in El Dorado, Kan.

From fatherhood to school to track, he vows he will do it with his son in mind.

“I have to set a standard for him to look up to,” Lyon said. “Like if I have a hard workout, sometimes I’m thinking like, ‘Would you want Josiah to quit on something hard in life?’ And I’m like ‘No.’

“You have to give it your all. I have to give it everything I have.”