Racing genes

There’s a meme making the rounds that goes, “How can you tell if someone’s run a marathon? Don’t worry, they will tell you.”

Lindsey Taylor has tackled several, but when she says so, she sounds more apologetic than braggadocios.

“I’ve only run 10,” she says.

As a teenager, she watched with some curiosity her father Paul Williams’ mounting marathoning mania.

“He wasn’t always a runner, but once he started, it was like, marathon after marathon. It was an obsession.”

Compared to her dad’s 77 marathon finishes — not to mention her husband Scott’s 85 and brother-in-law Frank’s 186 and counting — her 10 marathons feel like just a salty drop on a sodden sweatband.

As a college student, Lindsey finally showed some interest in the sport, telling her dad she wanted to run a half marathon.

“When he saw that I was serious, which he did not believe at first, he was so excited.”

Now when she finishes a race, it is typical for her father to run the final mile alongside her. (Though she is barely double-digits in marathons, she’s run more half-marathon and other distances than she can count.)

That Lindsey met and married Scott Taylor, who shared the same obsession as her father (Scott has run two ultramarathons in addition to his 85 full marathons), is an amusing coincidence, though not entirely happenstance. Dallas has a pretty robust running community, and when Lindsey was training for one of her early marathons with the Dallas Running Club, she and Scott became running partners. After one run at White Rock Lake, he asked her out. They went on a few dates, but things fizzled.

Then, one night before the Dallas Marathon, Lindsey’s dad invited her along to a pasta dinner at “Scotty T’s,” which was actually Scott’s house. There, Lindsey and Scott reconnected and fell in love.

The marathon madness runs strong throughout both sides of the family. Scott’s dad, Vance Taylor, not to be outdone, began running a few years ago and has knocked out nearly 30 marathons since. Frank Livaudais, who is married to Scott’s sister, will have 200 marathons checked off within the decade if all goes as planned; he is arguably to blame for infecting this family with the running bug.

In all seriousness, Lindsey says, this is a form of family bonding, if unusual, for which she is eternally grateful. “It is what our family does, and I love that. We also partly do it for those we love who can’t,” Lindsey says. “For example, Dad always runs with a photo of my aunt on his bib. She is fighting stage-four colon cancer and cannot physically do this kind of thing her- self. One of the races we all did together was Carla’s Journey 5k, [which benefits those struggling with cancer].” Paul also serves as a mentor and unofficial coach not only to Lindsey but also to many newbie runners.

“He’s always getting texts from them, asking for advice. To countless young runners he is Coach Paul.”

Scott Taylor’s best marathon time is 3 hours 16 minutes. But since marrying and becoming a dad, he says, his times have not improved. “So worth it,” he adds quickly.

Little Caroline, the baby born to Scott and Lindsey in 2014, hardly stands a chance at stillness.

“Now I am looking for marathons that allow jogging strollers,” Scott says. “There have been some family arguments about who will push Caroline through her first marathon, but it has to be her dad, right?”

Pedal power

The first time Heather McRae went to a Meat Fight event, which is an annual barbecue in Dallas that raises funds for the National MS Society, she was skeptical.

“The first year on the way to the event I remember telling my husband,

‘It’s really weird going to an event that’s about a disease I have,’” she says, “but when I got there it wasn’t like that at all. It was so uplifting and empowering. They want to help us find a cure, but not because they think we’re sad people. It’s about drinking and barbe- cue. It’s about MS, but you don’t feel like it.”

Though McRae has been dealing with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) daily for more than 20 years, she had never before connected with others who share her struggle.

Meat Fight founder Alice Laussade, a Lake Highlands resident, created the event to help her own brother, Mike Laussade, who also has MS. The siblings convinced McRae to join their Meat Bike team.

Meat Bike, which is an offshoot of Meat Fight, provides people with MS with a brand new road bike from Richardson Bike Mart and a full cycling kit — Spandex, helmet, shoes and more. The purpose is to get active because cardio can lessen the symptoms of MS. In return, the participants agree to cross the start line at any bike MS event.

She signed on and began training at White Rock Lake with other Meat Bike team members, and for the first time she met other people with MS.

“Getting this bike was really some of the best medicine anyone has ever prescribed to me.” that, and it actually gave me energy and I’m stronger from it too.”

In 2015 McRae rode in her first long-distance ride, and she made it 77 miles — something she never dreamed possible.

She plans to race again and hopes to ride longer distances each year. She’s made Meat Fight and Meat Bike her passions. As the team adds new riders, older riders become mentors, she says. She’s become more comfortable with exercise and with discussing MS.

At first she was nervous about falling. MS affects balance, fatigue, nerve pain and sparks muscular symptoms like cramping, stiffness and difficulty with coordination. “But I didn’t and I was able to ride more and more. It was exciting that I could even accomplish

“It’s a part of my life, and it’s healthier to have it out there and talk with other people who have MS,” she says. “So as you’re riding and things come up, like if you can’t feel your feet one day, it’s easier to talk about it with people who also have MS. It makes me realize, ‘OK I don’t have to hide from this and keep it in the background.’” —Brittany

Nunn

WE CAUGHT UP WITH A FEW ATHLETES who have graced Advocate’s pages in the past (it wasn’t easy, and we are out of breath).

While he was training for the 2011 Dallas Marathon, Cumby took a terrible tumble from a towering tree, an accident exacerbated by the fact that he was electrocuted on the way down. We won an award for our coverage of the story back in 2013. That he lived, his doctor said, was a one in a hundred chance. Even as he lay in his hospital bed, delirious and inand-out of consciousness, his family said he mumbled about the marathon. Running was a sort of therapy he needed, even though it hurt when he was just a few months removed from the accident, still broken and cut-up in places, 30 pounds underweight. At the end of 2013 he experienced another letdown when the Dallas Marathon was canceled. Frustrated yet determined, he ran a different marathon. He’s run three since. He also took up coaching and motivational speaking. And this past December he finally had his opportunity to race the Dallas Marathon. “First time to hit the starting line on-time, in good shape, prepared for the race mentally and physically, and running solely for my own time goal or 3:50,” he tells us (he missed the goal by just a few minutes). His website is brandoncumby.com. He says he’s “hoping to continue to run, motivate, and inspire as long as people care to listen.”

After a freak staph infection in 2012 nearly killed him and immobilized him for months, he fought his way back to standing with a walker, to unassisted walking, then running. Though everyone called him crazy, he was determined to follow through with his dream to run the Chicago Marathon that very same year.

It took him nearly five and a half hours to do it (that’s about two hours slower than his preillness goal), but he finished with a smile on his face and his infant daughter in his arms. What’s more, a few months ago, Sunio completed his first full Ironman triathlon — that is, a 2.4 mile swim, 112-mile bike, and a 26.2 mile run — in Panama City Beach, Fl. “The finishing shoot at a full Ironman is like no other. It was an epic race and an epic day,” he says. Of course his family, little Elise and his wife Grace, was there to cheer him on. He created daddypdawg. wordpress.com to detail his experience.

Dawn Grunnagle

She is on the road to the Olympics. We wrote about her last year, after she qualified for the Olympic Trials Marathon (which take place as this magazine is being printed). Since, the former Merriman Park Elementary teacher has been racing and coaching the kids of SpeedKIDZ and SpeedKIDZ Elite. Her professional runner-coach website, dawngrunnagle. com, is live, so fans can follow her training and racing leading up to the big day.

Nicole Kalogeropoulos

We wrote about Nicole last year as she prepared to tackle the Western States 100-mile endurance run. The White Rock area lawyer had clocked the fastest-ever American time in a 100-mile trail run in early 2015. No huge surprise that last December she was named Ultra Trail Runner of the Year by the USA Track and Field’s Mountain Ultra Trail Council.