LGBT joggers, runners and walkers may have been dismayed when Dallas FrontRunners fizzled out. But a transplant to Texas took on the task of restarting the group and is now looking to get members to (re)join. And you can start by heading to the new website or searching “Dallas Frontrunners” on Facebook.
Lin Wang sent us the below email about his intentions in restarting the group and the call for people to join:
As a frequent online reader of Dallas Voice. I would like to introduce you a new (or more precisely re-launched) running club in Dallas area. Dallas FrontRunners is a running club for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. After many years’ hiatus, a group of runners have decided that summer is NOT too hot to start cool group running. We have no contact of previous club members, nor could we find any information regarding their existence. So we decide to start anew.
The International FrontRunners Club, which is the parent umbrella organization for the Dallas Chapter, is one of the largest LGBT organization in the world and has clubs in almost most of the metro areas around the globe.
As the fourth largest metro area in US, Dallas deserves its own running club with its thriving LGBT community and a state-of-art trail nearby.
I would like to ask help from you to get more people aware of such a running club. The short term goal is to recruit members. The long term goal is to help promote healthy living and exercising in LGBT community and bridge runners and walkers in DFW region across races, genders, and sexual orientations. We are also targeting to establish a pride running race in conjunction with the pride month in future. (NYC, LA, Chicago, and even St. Louis all have pride running races during their pride week!) Personally, I believe a running race that welcome both straight and gay people to compete together can have a great positive impact to equal right movement.
My partner and I used to be members of FrontRunners Club in Pittsburgh and NYC before we moved here a little bit more than one year ago. FRNY is certainly one of the leading LBGT organization in the world, but a smaller club like the one in Pittsburgh has its own charm. We first lived in Grapevine, TX as it was close to my work and Lake Grapevine has one of the best trails in DFW. But I missed the collegial group-running so much that moving to Oaklawn so that I can re-launch a LBGT running group is one important motivation behind our moving decision.
Other initial members of this new club were ex-members of SF, DC and Orlando clubs.
Current schedule: Meet every Saturday morning under the statue of Robert Lee in Robert E. Lee Park at 8:30AM and head to a 30-40-min run/walk in Katy Trail at 8:35AM.We will have more runs and more routes in future.
Friends, family and pets are also welcome to join us. We run for good health, training for races, and to participate in gay-friendly social activities. Members are at all different levels in our running and walking abilities so don’t be shy to come out and join us.
