Run for your life

Dawn Grunnagle makes running look easy during her laps around White Rock Lake.

She’s a professional, logging about 90 miles a week, rain or shine, sometimes 20 miles at a time. It’s a fairly recent career path, however. She spent a decade as a teacher, including seven years at Merriman Park Elementary, where she continues to volunteer with the Merriman Park Elementary Running Club.

In June, with Nike as a sponsor, Grunnagle ran the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in less than an hour and 15 minutes, meeting the qualifying standards for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Marathon. In February 2016, she’ll race in Los Angeles, alongside 20-plus other runners, to compete for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Marathon Team in Rio de Janeiro.

It’s taken years of dedication, discipline and hard training to get to where she is now, plus the support of her family and community. As a full-time athlete, Grunnagle is proof that it takes a village to make a runner. “No one at this level could do this by themselves,” she says.

Grunnagle has been running since she was 16. She always had a competitive spirit, and when her high school coach told her a track scholarship could be her ticket to college, her passion intensified. She ran track for Texas Tech University and the University of Houston before entering grad school to become a teacher. She continued to run while teaching third grade at Merriman Park and then fourth grade at Good Shepherd Episcopal School in North Dallas for three years. She signed on with Nike while prepping for the 2012 Olympic trials and then quit teaching to focus on running.

Within the last couple of years, Grunnagle decided to switch from running track to running marathons. Her trainer has been by her side, helping her transition into long-distance running, and her husband, Harry, rides his bicycle beside Grunnagle during her runs whenever he can.

Grunnagle also has an entire team of supporters in the running organizations she created, SpeedKIDZ and SpeedKIDZ Elite. The latter is a team of girls ages 8 to 14 who come from all over the Dallas area to receive Grunnagle’s coaching and opportunities to race. It’s her way of continuing to teach.

The girls aren’t the only ones who have benefitted from the mentorship. Grunnagle’s work with SpeedKIDZ has changed her perspective on running, she says.

“Before, I ran for myself and my own goals,” she explains. “Runners, we’re never happy. Now I have 36 girls watching every single thing I do. They’re watching how I react to failure and success. It’s a whole different mentality for me.”

LEARN MORE

Visit speedkidz.com to find more information on Grunnagle’s work as a running coach.

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Riff off

Tap dancing was once a respected art form, says neighbor Katelyn Harris, founder of Rhythmic Souls Tap Company. But its popularity died off in the ’50s and ’60s, she says, when “ballet and jazz rose up, and they were considered more high art forms; whereas tap was considered more a form of entertainment.”

That mindset recently shifted around the world, and Harris, a neighborhood resident, intends to change the perception of tap here in Dallas, which she believes is ready to embrace what has long been viewed as fringe art.

Dallasites are finally starting to appreciate the Dallas art community, Harris points out. Artists and dancers are starting to stay in Dallas instead of pursuing success in other cities, and Harris wants tap dancing to be a part of that movement. Already she’s snagged Dallas-born tap dancers, and with their help she hopes the rest of Dallas will rediscover tap dancing.

It should be an easy sell, she thinks, because a tap dance is deeply rooted in various cultures around the world and, ultimately, an American art form.

“A lot of people don’t realize that it came from Irish dancing, African-American slave dances and English clog,” she says. “All these things mixed together to form tap dance.”

It is to dance what jazz is to music, Harris explains.

“Things are heavily based on improv,” she says. “You’ll have the head of the tune, and that will be the basic melody. Each of the instruments [dancers] will take a solo, and they’ll improvise around that melody, but they get to go off on their own and speak whatever they want to. You have to be really present.”

The Little Things

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In January, Harris hosted the Rhythm In Fusion Festival (RIFF), which featured tap dance fused with similar dance forms from around the world.

“The audience usually responds to tap in a really enthusiastic way,” she says. “It’s more engaging than the other dance forms.” —Brittany Nunn FOR MORE INFORMATION, visit rhythmicsouls.org.

who are both North Stonewall Terrace neighbors. Abu-aitah says the pair of pups loves to swim and ride in the car, and most importantly, they get along with everyone.