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A Different Path - Easton Allred's Purpose-Filled Life

Published by
DyeStat.com   Oct 10th 2018, 3:35pm
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Driven Colorado Teen Fueled To Follow His Dreams

By Mary Albl of DyeStat

When Easton Allred was 10 years old, his mother Lori introduced him to a goal-setting program.

The first thing he did was set 10 goals he really wanted to achieve. The first one was eliminating sugar from his diet; he wanted to become healthier and a better athlete.

"I think his 10th birthday was the last time he had a birthday cake," Lori Allred said.

His mom told him if he set goals and wrote them down every day for 30 days it would "change his life."

"What happened next is I set some goals and I became super passionate about the goal-setting process," Allred said. "And I wanted to learn more."

Easton is now a 17-year old at Mountain Vista High in Highlands Ranch, Colo., where he takes classes for college credit. He's a self-published author. He has his own YouTube channel with 2,300 followers. He's technically a junior varsity runner, and ranked No. 19 in the country in the latest DyeStat individual boys cross country rankings. He has lofty goals and crushes them. This past weekend he competed unattached in the Road Runners Invitational at Metropolitan State in Denver. He won the 8,000-meter race in a time of 24:59.7 against a field chock full of collegiate athletes.

His current goal? 

"I really want to go above and beyond this year for cross country and be the best possible runner I can be," he said.

Later this fall, he could be standing on the podium in Portland with a national title. 

 

DIFFERENT FROM THE START

Easton is one of five siblings, with two older and two younger sisters. His older sisters both started businesses when they were 16 and 17 years old. The Allred family philosophy has always been to make sure the kids are striving and working toward something.

"It wasn't a new thing to think outside the box," said Lori Allred of her parenting.

Halfway through sixth grade, Easton switched from public school to an online program with the idea that he would have more time to pursue the avenues that really mattered most to him. His younger sisters also jumped on the idea of homeschooling.

"It's important to me that my kids feel a sense of purpose and that they have a clear direction of where they're going ... just really living their life with a sense of purpose is really important to me and my husband," Lori Allred explained. "(That) they are doing the things that they want to do."

Shortly into online school, Easton tested out of high school and started taking college courses through Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, working toward an associates degree.

Lori, who describes her son as "someone who wants to excel," could see the benefits of his exploring interests through a different lens. They dove head first into personal development books and articles. Easton ate it all up.

"I wanted to learn more about self-help and I read a ton of books on it, listened to a ton of podcasts, went to some events, and decided I wanted to share what I learned with other people," Easton said.

So at age 14, Easton started his own podcast called "Fueled for Teens," where he interviewed successful athletes and entrepreneurs. After that goal, he wrote a book in six months and self-published it on Amazon, entitled "Fueled: Tips, Tricks and Skills Every Teen Needs To Know To Be Successful."

Nowadays, Easton's time is dedicated to his YouTube channel and his weekly output of videos, which he produces and edits. The videos offer his followers a transparent and open look into his every day life. He displays all of his work on his website, eastonallred.co.

It's a unique path for a teenager, but one that gives Easton purpose.

"I think a big part of (what drives me) is progress, and just wanting to make a difference," Easton said. "I think a big part of happiness is progressing and me doing all of these things is part of my progression. I want to help other people because a lot of the stuff I've learned has made such a difference for me."

 

RUNNING A DIFFERENT PATH

A basketball player first, running didn’t play a major role in Easton’s life until his freshman year. Competing for Rock Canyon High (where his two older sister had attended), Easton won the Nike Cross Southwest Regional Large School race in 2016. A year later, he finished third in the NXR Southwest Championship to qualify for NXN. In Portland, he ran next to fellow Colorado sophomore Cole Sprout of Valor Christian much of the race and clocked 15:36.8 and placed 22nd overall. 

“It (running) encompasses like everything I want in my life," Allred said. "It teaches me hard work, teaches me to be driven and motivated."

This fall, Allred has gone the non-traditional route even in his cross country season. When he decided he wanted to go to public school at Mountain Vista High, where his sister, Madeline, a sophomore, attends, it was deemed by the Colorado High School Athletic Association that he would be ineligible to compete for the varsity. His transfer was ruled 'athletically motivated.' At Mountain Vista, Allred is enrolled in mostly Advanced Placement courses that will go toward satisfying the requirements of his associates degree. 

"When I first found out, I super-disappointed," Allred said. "My original reaction was to be to be mad about it, but then I realized there was no use in that and we (my coach and I) decided we were going to make it work."

Allred has competed in a few junior varsity races for Mountain Vista and also run unattached in some bigger races. His coach, Jonathan Dalby, doesn’t have Easton straying too far from the team. He follows mainly what his teammates are doing at workouts and then cheers them on come race day. It's been a different fall for Easton, but as he’s crafted his life, different works. 

"He's a kid who jumped right in and made his presences felt in a positive way from the beginning,” Dalby said. “It's a tough situation to be in when you don't get to run with your teammates, but he’s been so positive and has a great attitude, which really speaks to his maturity as an athlete and a young man."

While he's racing less, his situation has allowed for long-term focused training intended to prepare him for the postseason.  

"He's a very talented individual,” Dalby said. “He’s very committed to it, very consistent, works hard, all the things you would want to see out of a top-tier runner, and he’s very coachable. He’s got really good turnover, great strength, great endurance, we're trying to slowly develop him as time goes on."

Dalby explained the plan for Easton for the remainder of the season is to have one more race, possibly race in Utah, but mostly prepare for NXR Southwest in Arizona on Nov. 17, and then NXN on Dec. 1. 

 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

A typical day for Easton begins around 5:30 a.m. A few days a week that’s when he’ll go for a run. That’s followed by his Seminary church class. He’ll then go home, shower, review some of his goals and head to school. Some of the classes he’s taking this year include AP Environmental Science, AP Physics and Intro to Business. When his classmates graduate with a high school diploma, he’ll graduate with his associates degree.

Easton said he has no regrets about the path he’s taken. Being back in a public school has been a welcomed social change. 

“He’s a very approachable kid, a very friendly kid,” Dalby said. “He has a lot of ambitious outside of running. He’s very well-rounded. He’s got goals that don't just pertain to running, but just sort of what he wants to do with life in general and it’s pretty rare to find a kid that a 17-year-old kid that has these passions that he wants to pursue beyond high school.”

Lori said the desire to help people by sharing his story is an important aspect to what makes Easton tick.

“I feel like a lot of teenagers feel like they have to go a certain way through life,” Easton explained. “They have to go to school, they have to conform to what the status quo is, and I’ve done a lot of things differently and it's worked really well for me. There’s not a lot of teenagers out there that are trying to inspire others, so I guess coming from a teenager (this message) is a little bit more relatable.”

And the platform of running, on a national scale, has given Easton a bigger stage to help spread that message. 

“He definitely stands out in his own right in being his own individual person and we're just trying the best we can to embrace that and let Easton be the best Easton he can be,” Dalby said. “He’s just a really great young man.”



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