What: Mountain Madness Duathlon
When: 10 a.m., Saturday, March 19
Where: Little Tennessee Greenway in Franklin, N.C. 4 Mile Run; 14 Mile Bike; 2 Mile Run (Individual, Athena, Clydesdale, Military, and Team Categories)
How Much: $30 individual, $50 teams, plus $9 fee day of race for non-USAT Members; $10 additional fee for participants who register the day of the race

Dave Linn is a tri-athlete. His muscles swell and undulate underneath his skin — pectorals popping from their white, cotton T-shirt sheath, forearms sinuous, calves tapering with a heart-shaped curve from meat to ankle. His head is shaved, revealing a smooth, evenly tanned scalp. He speaks quickly, conversations accentuated by his self-effacing sense of humor, punctuated by his disarming smile.

In high school, Linn played varsity football. In elementary school, right field on the local ball team.

Of course, on the football team he was second string.

“I was the Rudy,” he says with a chuckle.

And the local ball team was really backyard whiffle ball.

“It was a little handicap version of the ‘Field of Dreams’,” he says.

But Linn never knew the difference. He wasn’t taught to think of himself as different. He was taught simply to be himself. Being himself meant not being outdone by his older brother and younger sister, despite the fact that Linn was born with cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy is a blanket term for a group of chronic disorders resulting in impaired muscle development and control. Such disorders are caused by faulty development or damage to the brain’s motor areas. Cerebral palsy may be congenital or acquired after birth. Symptoms include difficultly with fine motor tasks, maintaining balance or walking and involuntary movements.

There is no cure for cerebral palsy. The disease can be managed through the use of various spasm controlling drugs, muscle braces, surgery, and a wide range of therapies including physical, speech and occupational.

Linn’s family imposed another form of therapy — inclusion. Ineligible for the Special Olympics — the event is based on cognitive disability, not physical — Linn was pushed to get involved with “normal” sports such as tennis, football, soccer and baseball.

Local trainers either were not knowledgeable of how to work with someone with Linn’s physical deficiencies or didn’t want to take on the responsibility, so Linn made his physical success into a matter of sibling rivalry.

“We were more competitive toward each other,” Linn said.

The competitive relationship helped make Linn less of an outsider and more of a teammate, and bolstered the strength in his left arm and leg. As a result of the palsy, those limbs were significantly weaker than those on the right side of his body.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t have active lifestyles, who don’t get out and end up wasting away,” Linn said.

His courage was tested when, in 1993, a car crash destroyed Linn’s right leg and hip. The accident left Linn unable to walk. Now, he seemingly brushes it off — it’s a biographical note that a friend brings up and the two share a nodding, “Oh yeah, and then there was that time I had to learn how to walk again” moment.

Four years later, Linn moved from his home in Ocala, Fla., to Franklin with the hope that the cooler mountain air would help his muscles. He signed on with the Franklin Health and Fitness Center as a personal trainer and soon received a challenge from a client to compete in a triathlon. Linn accepted the challenge and on June 5, 2001, completed the Lake Chatuge Challenge.

“After that it became a weekend hobby,” Linn said. “The reason I do triathlons is to show people with disabilities you’re not ‘handicapped,’ you’re ‘handicapable’.”

The hobby took on new meaning in 2003, when Linn founded the self-titled Dave Linn Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization that mixes Linn’s personal training experience with his triathlon training. The foundation aims to build the self esteem and physical ability among Western North Carolina’s challenged by providing funding for a gym membership and personal trainer to physically disabled individuals. No other organizations in Macon County cater to the physically disabled in this manner, Linn said.

“That’s where we come in,” he said.

Last year the Dave Linn Foundation sponsored its first Mountain Madness duathlon — the organization’s primary fund-raising event. Nearly 50 people joined in for the 4-mile run, 12-mile bike, 2-mile run across Franklin’s Little Tennessee Greenway. The monies raised provided a gym membership to an individual paralyzed from the mid-chest down.

In addition to the gym memberships, the foundation works to incorporate disabled individuals into mainstream sports groups. Linn’s goal is within the next two years to have expanded the foundation’s services so that anyone in Macon County with an interest in joining a local sports program or gym is enabled.

With the second annual Mountain Madness duathlon coming up on March 19, Linn and his eight other foundation members are spreading the word, hoping to bolster the number of entries. Also, a networking meeting for those interested in learning more about the Dave Linn Foundation will be held at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 1, at the Prudential Real Estate offices on Porter Street in Franklin.

For more information about the duathlon, visit www.active.com and run a search for Mountain Madness. For more information about the foundation meeting, call 828.349.4097.