Growing up the brother of a talented athlete, Matt Roberts felt a sense of inferiority when his athletic achievements fell short.
Although Matt supported his brother Andrew every step of the way, he dropped out of Columbus North High School, where he had been a swimmer, and homeschooled his last two years. He turned to drug and alcohol abuse that led to a decade-long addiction that he barely survived.
Another decade after Matt was able to overcome his addiction, Andrew was preparing for his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2018. Matt decided to get serious about fitness and began a fitness journey as a way to bond with Andrew.
“I wanted to suffer along with him while he was deployed,” Matt said. “I started going to the gym. I had a friend who was also in recovery and he held me accountable.”
On October 14, Matt, now 38, plans to run 100 miles through the hills of northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky to help raise awareness for mental health and addiction recovery. The “No Business 100” begins and ends in Jamestown, Tennessee.
Matt’s fitness journey began with lifting weights, getting up as early as 4:30 am on some days to work out. He shared his progress with Andrew, who encouraged him to “keep going.”
In 2019, Matt began training for the Indianapolis 500 mini-marathon. He ran the 13.1-mile race that May.
“When I was done, I immediately said, ‘I want more,’” he said.
So Matt signed up for the Mill Race Marathon and ran the 26.2-mile race in September. Since then, his careers have only gotten longer.
Matt ran a 50 mile race at Brown County State Park in April 2020. He ran a 100 mile race in April 2021 in Pekin, Illinois and it took about 37 hours to complete.
“I had no idea what it was made of,” he said.
In September 2021, Matt ran the Mill Race Half Marathon, and a month later he ran the Knobstone 50K in Brown County. He ran a 50-mile race this April in Georgia and paced a runner during the last 34 miles of a 100-mile race Aug. 20 in Colorado.
Along the way, Matt has connected through a friend with New Shoe Day, a nonprofit organization and running community that focuses on positive mental health, creating connection and community while empowering people through the movement.
New Shoe Day supports organizations such as the Athlead Track and Field program, which seeks to promote community change by developing young athletes and leaders through athletics; and Indianapolis and the Monumental Kids Movement, an athletics program that helps support children’s mental health, career and fitness.
“It’s really kind of a mental health and career movement,” he said. “The funds we raise, we align with organizations that share our values of mental health and movement.”
Matt’s journey has taken him a long way since he entered a 12-step recovery program, detox at the old Faribanks Hospital in Indianapolis and a local intensive outpatient program called Steps of Addiction Recovery (SOAR).
“It took me a long time from there to find fitness,” he said. “A lot of it was finding myself and learning how to be a productive member of society. From my third year in high school until I was 20 or 23 years old, I didn’t do much to grow up.”
Matt attended IUPUC and earned an MBA from Indiana University in 2011. He is now married with three children and works for the consulting company “eimagine” which is located on the northwest side of Indianapolis, although he has worked from home since the COVID pandemic. started in 2020.
Now, Matt is in a happy place, both physically and mentally.
“I align my passion for running and my passion for mental health,” he said.
