Athlete took tough road back to running
04:49 PM CST on Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Viki Greenwell has come full circle as an athlete and runner.
As a 19-year-old in 1971, she became the first woman to walk across Death Valley, needing four days to cover 147 miles in temperatures that reached 125 degrees.
Ms. Greenwell twice won the Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot as an elite area runner in the 1970s.
But life took a toll on her over the next 30 years. Ms. Greenwell quit being active, gained weight and struggled with everyday tasks.
As recently as January, the 5-5 Ms. Greenwell weighed 230 pounds.
That was more than 100 pounds ago. At 56, Ms. Greenwell is a distance runner again. Now a slender 125 pounds, she will race Sunday in the half marathon at Wellstone's Dallas White Rock Marathon and said she plans to run the full marathon next year.
Ms. Greenwell's motivation came from her family. Her son, Stephen, and his wife, Stephanie, gave her a membership to the Cooper Clinic Nutrition Department last Christmas. Since her initial appointment on Jan. 11, she has walked and run herself back to fitness.
"I view that gift as totally life-changing," Ms. Greenwell said. "Everything about your life changes when you lose weight. I can pick up my grandkids, jump in the leaves with them. I can bend over and give them a bath. I can tie my shoes without having to put my shoe way up on the table."
Stephen had always remembered his mom as an athlete with an adventurous spirit. "Her focus on this task has not come as a surprise," he said. "It has impacted her health and well-being in many ways."
Ms. Greenwell grew up in Highland Park in the 1960s before women's athletics were commonplace. Local coach Robert Vaughan and runner Miki Hervey (now Miki Hervey Snell) spotted her running when she was an SMU student. They invited Ms. Greenwell to train with the newly formed Metroplex Striders team.
Ms. Greenwell competed at the Texas Relays and the USA Track and Field cross country nationals in the 1970s. Though not as fast, she competed against the likes of Olympians Francie Larrieu Smith and Mary Decker.
"She was talented," Ms. Hervey Snell said. "Whenever she trained for a while, she did well."
Ms. Greenwell – her name then was Viki Pochciol – won the Turkey Trot in 1972, completing the eight-mile course in 58 minutes, 20 seconds.
After her first husband, Bill Pochciol, died in 1973, she won the 1976 Trot in 51:32 while competing under her maiden name, Viki Baker.
Ms. Greenwell also ran the White Rock Marathon three times in the 1970s. In 1976, she finished in 3:25:41.
She married Steve Greenwell in 1977, and they had three children, Kiki and twins Stephen and Kisa. With children, Ms. Greenwell's priorities shifted and she had less time to run and maintain her fitness.
Steve Greenwell died of cancer in 1986. Ms. Greenwell made the best of her situation, pouring her heart and soul into her children. She said the slow, steady weight gain increased when her kids left home for college.
At 230 pounds, Ms. Greenwell couldn't walk very far when she returned to exercise, but she quickly shed weight by changing her eating habits. For example, she said she used to consume a half-pint of half and half in her coffee every day.
When her body was able, she pushed herself to walk farther and faster. Stephanie Greenwell, her daughter-in-law and a Cooper certified trainer, created weekly workouts to keep her motivated. Viki Greenwell said that after the deaths of her first two husbands and both parents, she was tough enough to push through the challenges.
"I really believe if you were an athlete before, you remember," Ms. Greenwell said. "You go back to the training you did. All the feelings come back. You remember how you felt. You remember your form, your breathing."
Ms. Greenwell continued pushing herself. She added one minute of running for every two minutes of walking until she could run more than she walked. She joined beginners classes conducted by Run On, a local running store chain.
"A lot of running and exercising is a mental state of mind," she said. "It's how you're able to trigger your legs and body to work."
Ms. Greenwell, who married Bob McCann in 1990, has rediscovered the joys of running and accomplishing goals. She left a long teaching career with the Richardson and Carrollton-Farmers Branch school districts last summer and went to work at Run On in August. She will coach beginning runners this spring in the walk-to-run classes. She also plans to help with marathon training classes.
In November, Ms. Greenwell completed the Dallas Running Club's half marathon in 2:12:27 – a 10:07-per-mile pace even though she had trained at a 12-minute pace. She placed eighth in the women's 55-59 age group.
"As soon as I lost the weight, my body came back," Ms. Greenwell said. "I'm a ton slower than I used to be, but I got better and better. It came back pretty fast."