Chrissy Carroll’s path to becoming a fitness entrepreneur began in 2007 with nutrition education in Boston Public Schools. Teaching pre-K through eighth-grade students about healthy eating laid the foundation for her career, but a devastating apartment fire catalyzed her true professional calling. Facing the sobering reality that life is fleeting, Carroll launched her own business.

This bold move has now been rewarded with the Lionel University Scholarship presented by Coach360, allowing Carroll to pursue a Master’s in Exercise Science with a concentration in Strength and Conditioning. The serendipitous discovery came from a simple internet search for “exercise scholarships,” connecting her with an opportunity that perfectly aligns with her mission to provide evidence-based fitness education to the running community.

A Runner with a Mission

Chrissy’s journey into the fitness industry was personal and purposeful. After a college breakup, she sought solace in training for a triathlon, discovering a passion that transcended her initial motivation. “I crossed the finish line of that first race and I was hooked,” Carroll recalls. 

That transformative experience launched her into a career focused on helping others find their path to fitness. Carroll has built her business on creating accessible content for beginner runners, developing training plans for everything from completing a first mile to finishing a marathon. Her work fills a critical knowledge gap for many aspiring runners who simply don’t know how to start or what to do once they’ve started.

“A lot of people just don’t know how to get started,” Carroll explains. “It’s like, okay, I don’t run now, how do I become a runner?” This insight drives her to create training plans and content that demystify the process for beginners while providing progression options for those ready to tackle longer distances.

Strengthening the Running Community

The Lionel University Scholarship is perfect for Carroll’s career development. Despite her extensive knowledge in endurance training, she acknowledges a gap in her expertise around strength and conditioning, which is an essential component for runners seeking to prevent injury and improve performance.

“I have a pretty big depth of knowledge in the endurance space, but I lack some of that knowledge in strength and conditioning,” Carroll says. The master’s program will equip her to enhance her guidance for runners by incorporating crucial lateral movement training to balance the forward motion of running.

For Carroll, the scholarship represents a second opportunity beyond education and growing her expert knowledge base. This scholarship provides an opportunity to combat misinformation in the fitness industry. “With social media and the internet these days, it’s great because we have so much free information, but it’s also scary because there’s so much misinformation,” she explains. Her goal remains to provide accurate, evidence-based information for free, helping people create balanced training plans that include endurance and strength components.

Final Thoughts

The ripple effects of one life-changing moment can transform a single career and potentially thousands of fitness journeys. When Carroll’s apartment complex burned down years ago, she couldn’t have predicted how that moment would ultimately lead to a scholarship opportunity that will further amplify her impact on the running community.

Education intersects with personal passion and community service, a principle that Carroll and Coach360 clearly share. By deepening her knowledge base through formal education, Carroll epitomizes how fitness professionals can continuously evolve to serve their communities better, turning personal expertise into practical guidance that helps others transform their own lives one mile at a time.

About Elisa Edelstein
Elisa is a curious and versatile writer, carving her niche in the health and wellness industry since 2015. Her lens is rooted in real world experience as a personal trainer and competitive bodybuilder and extended out of the gym and on to the page as a writer where she is able to combine her passions for empowering others, promoting wellness, and the power of the written word.