Courtesy of Jed Conklin Photography Despite her success, Victoria Russell's three kids help her keep her feet on the ground.Back in 2001, Victoria Russell was a new mom working long hours as a registered nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit of a Seattle hospital. On her breaks, she'd slip out of her scrubs, lace up her sneakers and head out for a run. She'd log four miles, maybe six ... she didn't really kept track. Mileage and pace times didn't matter because she never raced. Running, for Russell, was a means to an end: a way to blow off some steam and burn off the baby weight. And it always felt like a burden.
"I'd do a six-mile run and just be dead and gasping for air," said Russell, who now lives in Spokane, Wash. "I was overweight. And I thought it was getting old."
Courtesy of Jed Conklin PhotographyVictoria Russell began running to lose weight and blow off steam, and couldn't go more than six miles. Now look at her.Fast-forward 10 years. Russell is still running, but she is no longer overweight. Or stressed out. Or exhausted after six miles. In fact, just days from her 40th birthday, Russell is in the best shape of her life. And, with a 2:45:52 marathon time, she is faster and fitter than most 25-year-olds. She'll show off that speed and form on Jan. 14 in Houston at the 2012 U.S. Olympic team trials, racing against some 150 other women in a quest to make the squad for this summer's London Games.
Russell's odds of qualifying for the Olympics are slim: Race favorites like Desiree Davila and Kara Goucher have recorded times 20 minutes faster than Russell's best mark. But the fact that she is even on the starting list is a personal accomplishment far more rewarding than an Olympic berth.
"I never, ever saw this coming. If you told me you were going to make the Olympic trials for a marathon at the age of 40, I would have said, 'You're crazy,'" said Russell. "This has been an amazing, surprising journey."
A quick one, too. After all, just four years ago, Russell was still carrying around a good 50 pounds of excess weight after the birth of her third child, now 7. And as much as she didn't like to run, it was the only thing that worked to take the weight off. So she kept at it, squeezing in casual runs between shuttling her kids from school to sports. In May 2009, a friend suggested they enter Spokane's massive Bloomsday 12K race together -- just for fun.
The "fun" race was a transformative experience for Russell. She ran 47:36, a 6:22-per-mile pace. She crossed the finish line ahead of more than 2,400 other women in the 35- to 39-year-old age group.
"After I finished, my friend turned to me and said, 'You have major potential.' I never thought of myself as a fast runner, but the experience opened my eyes to what could be," Russell explained. "I was hooked."
“Growing up, it was always survival of the fittest. I was the first from my family to go to college and worked to put myself through school. I apply the same disciplined approach to running. Say I can't do something, and I become determined to prove that I can.
” -- Victoria Russell
To say the least. Just two weeks after the 12K, Russell went on to run -- and win -- her first-ever marathon in 3:06:11. She followed that up with another 26.2-miler two months later in 2:59:57, good enough for second overall. By early 2011, she'd dropped her time to 2:50:08 and became fixated on the Olympic trials mark of 2:46. The more Russell raced, the faster she became, and the more she wanted to achieve. This drive, she said, harkens back to her formative years as a scrappy, ambitious child in a family of 15 kids.
"Growing up, it was always survival of the fittest. I was the first from my family to go to college and worked to put myself through school," said Russell. "I apply the same disciplined approach to running. Say I can't do something, and I become determined to prove that I can."
This determination was on full display at December's California International Marathon in Sacramento, where Russell finally nailed that Olympic trials mark after three heartbreaking failures. Despite feeling sluggish and mentally checked-out at times, she ultimately powered through to dip under the standard by just 8 seconds.
"I was feeling so bad that I almost stopped at mile 20. The other women were just running away from me," she recalled. "Then I decided to finish no matter what. I told myself to hold on and run."
It's this mental tenacity that makes Russell such an extraordinary athlete, said her coach, Mike Hadaway. "The marathon is a funny thing. You may start off feeling terrible and you have plenty of ups and downs," he said. "Whatever it is, Victoria can deal with it."
Regardless of her running accomplishments, Russell insists she is a wife and mother first. Which means workouts and training runs are often put aside for play dates, pickups and drop-offs, not to mention the 10-20 hours per week she spends at the hospital as a nurse. She'll head out for runs while the kids are in school, typically logging her 50 weekly miles alone or on a treadmill.
"Because of my schedule, I don't run that much mileage compared to other marathoners," she said. "My coach and I have discussed bumping it up to 85 to 100 miles a week, which would require a major lifestyle change. It's tempting ... I hope I have five or six more years left in me and I want to see how fast I can go."
No matter how many miles she runs or how fast her marathon time may be, Russell can always count on her kids, ages 12, 10 and 7, for a refreshing dose of perspective. "I'll be getting ready for a race and they'll say things like, 'Hey, Mom, aren't you going to be the oldest fart out there running?'" she said, laughing. "That's the reminder that I need not to take any of this too seriously."
