Kellyn Taylor, Future Firefighter

Published by LATrials2016.com on December 3, 2015

Kellyn Taylor is not afraid.

Not of catching bees or playing on a boys’ select Under-12 soccer team as a child in Wisconsin. Not of juggling college classes with a flourishing running career while she and her husband raise an active 4-year-old daughter. Not even of rushing into burning buildings.

And certainly not of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Taylor, who will face three of her biggest Trials rivals—Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, and Amy Cragg—in the Humana Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Half Marathon on Sunday, ran 2:28:40 at the Chevron Houston Marathon last January. The sixth-fastest debut at the distance by an American woman, it’s a time that will likely make her the seventh-fastest woman on the Trials starting line.