How Elite Marathoner and Mom Kellyn Taylor Thrives on Chaos – runnersworld.com

Kellyn Taylor’s mornings look a bit different than the average pro athlete’s. Instead of sleeping in, eating a relaxed breakfast, and getting professional treatment on various aches and pains before a mid-morning run, the elite marathoner sets an alarm for 5 a.m. to prepare for her first workout of the day: getting her three kids to school.

“That gives me enough time to have a cup of coffee and maybe something to eat before they wake up,” Taylor, 32, told Runner’s World. “Then the chaos starts.”

At their home in Flagstaff, Arizona, Taylor and her husband, Kyle, share the parenting duties of their eight-year-old daughter, Kylyn, and now two new additions to the crew: one- and two-year-old brothers that the couple began fostering earlier this year.

While Kylyn is “pretty self-reliant,” according to Taylor, the toddlers need her for everything, from meals to diaper changes. Between 6 and 8 a.m., Taylor dresses the boys, helps Kylyn pack her school bag, makes breakfast for all three kids, and then drops the children at their respective daycare and elementary school. Then around 8:30, she meets up with her HOKA Northern Arizona Elite teammates to begin their morning workout.

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“Our schedules have gotten a lot more chaotic since we took the boys in,” Taylor said. “But we’ve enjoyed having them. We love them. We hope they stay with us, but we also want them to have the opportunity to meet their biological parents someday.”

Taylor explained that she and Kyle have been wanting to foster children for a few years now, since it allowed them to help kids in need of a home and also expand their family without Taylor having to pause her training to give birth. Last October, the couple started taking classes to become certified as foster parents. Once they completed the course earlier this spring, they were matched quickly with the boys, and their three-person family grew to five last month.

Around the time the family welcomed their new members, Taylor was in peak training mode to prepare for the Prague Marathon on May 5. This will be the first 26.2-miler she’s raced since the 2018 Grandma’s Marathon, which she won in a personal best of 2:24:28—a performance that ranks her among the top 10 American female marathoners of all time . Then in November, Taylor ran her fastest 13.1 miles yet, breaking the tape at the Las Vegas Rock ’N’ Roll Half Marathon in a 45-second personal record of 1:10:16.

Heading into December, Taylor was poised for another breakthrough at the Houston Marathon in January, but an unfortunate injury derailed her race plans.

“My Plan ‘A’ was to do Houston, but I had a flare-up in my Achilles, and had to take a month off from running after that,” Taylor said. “For those weeks, I took a few rest days, and maintained my cardio fitness with cross-training on the bike and the Elliptigo.”

By January, Taylor had returned to running on the ground, but was cautious about increasing her mileage too quickly. “I’m fortunate to not have many injuries,” she said. “So when something does hurt, I know not to train through it.”

Though her chance in Houston was shot, Taylor kept her cool, scrapping Plan A for Plan B: running a spring marathon that wasn’t Boston. (Last year, she was forced to drop out of Boston due to hypothermia, and said she felt a little “meh” about the possibility of facing bad race day conditions again.) She picked the Prague Marathon for its fast, flat course, and also because the European city will be beautiful to explore with her family.

Due to her injury in the winter and the additions to her family, Taylor’s buildup heading into Prague has been a bit lighter than her previous marathon training, she said. Last year, she hit 130 miles per week before Boston, while this spring, she’s topped out at 115. “It’s still plenty high enough for me to feel confident,” she said.

In March, she placed 8th in the NYC Half Marathon in 1:12:43. She followed up the tune-up race with several hard, stamina-boosting workouts at elevation in Arizona, such as a 20-mile tempo alternating between 5:40 and 6:40 pace per mile or 5 x 2-mile intervals at half marathon pace (sub-5:30 per mile).

When asked what workout makes her feel most prepared for gutting out 26.2 miles, she didn’t hesitate. “A few weeks out from the race, we run 16 miles at marathon pace,” Taylor said. “It’s my fitness test. The goal is for that speed to feel comfortable. After we do that, my [training] segment is over.”

Taylor said she’s hoping to run faster than 2:24 in Prague, and be in contention for the win. After that, her primary focus is to stay healthy and continue to chip away at her times on the track and the roads before gearing up for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials.

Still, she’s quick to note that though she’s setting—and achieving—big goals for herself in running, it’s not all that’s on her to-do list. Come 3:20 p.m., the runner can be found picking up Kylyn from school, then whisking her off to soccer practice; taking her boys home; making dinner; then getting everyone ready for bed at 9. Hopefully, she said, she’ll have gotten her second run in by then.

“It doesn’t always happen,” she noted. One thing’s certain, though: She performs better with a lot on her plate.

“I thrive off chaos,” Taylor said. “I thrive off challenges, too. I think I need something else to focus on than just running. When I’m building relationships and doing meaningful things outside the sport, it helps me grow athletically.”