Running on Adrenaline

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There was no computer in Olya Perevalova’s Russian home. There was a TV: a black-and-white model. It got two channels, a third when cable arrived in about 1990. So to entertain themselves, Perevalova and the other kids in her apartment complex stepped outside and played in the half-acre yard in front of the building. Broken trees and fences were strewn about the yard. They turned into landmarks – first one to the busted fence wins.

Perevalova, who grew up in Saratov, Russia, recalls: “We’d run from one wreckage to the other.” They’d play tag, hide-n-go seek, or run laps around the apartments. By 11, Perevalova was joining her marathon-running father for five-mile workouts. “He was telling me how great it feels, how wonderful it is to run,” says Perevalova. “I was breathing real hard, ready to throw up. I didn’t like it.”

Today, Perevalova is 31 years old and lives in Houston. The United States has been home since she was 17 and came to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend college. She has returned to Russia just once since then. And running, now more than ever, comprises a large part of her identity. She even met her boyfriend running.

An interpreter for oil and space companies, Perevalova limits her travel, when possible, so it doesn’t interfere with training. Her marathon PR has dipped from 3:30 five years ago to 2:59:07 in January at the Chevron Houston Marathon.

Then there’s Perevalova’s long-term goal: in August, she submitted documents to become a U.S. citizen. Once she becomes naturalized, she’ll likely drop her Russian citizenship. Dealing with dual passports, travel, it’s too big a hassle, she says.

“If I had to identify with one country over the other, it would have to be the United States,” considers Perevalova. “I probably felt like that before I left.”

To talented amateur female marathoners in the United States, the numbers 2:47:00 are imbedded in their psyche. That’s the minimum qualifying time to compete in the United States Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials. “Now that,” says Perevalova, peeking toward 2012, “is a goal.” 

Her first road race was a marathon. She has never raced a 10K. For that 3:30 debut marathon, Perevalova logged all her long runs on a treadmill because she liked the softer surface and it was easy to measure mileage. Why not hop in her Honda Civic and measure routes? “It didn’t cross my mind,” she confesses.

Perevalova’s running résumé is typical in one aspect. She thrashed her body training for that first marathon, piling up too many miles too quickly, landing her repeat visits with physical therapists. She had run recreationally in college and for years after when she stayed in Nashville, teaching elementary and middle school. So why decide to make your first road race a 26.2-miler?

“I don’t know if it was boldness or ignorance,” Perevalova jokes. “And, of course, some people I hung out with had done a marathon. I figured, if they can do it, surely I can.” There was another reason. In Russia, her father belonged to a running club, and the members staged marathons.

“They’d mark a two-kilometer course and run as many laps at it took,” recalls Perevalova. “Maybe seven people showed up.” None was female. “Because it wasn’t something girls were supposed to do,” she says. “I guess I was trying to do things I wasn’t expected to do growing up.”

Without enough of a base to withstand the training, Perevalova racked up stress fractures – seven by her count – all to her lower legs, while training for that first 26.2-miler. She pushed her target race back a month. Forced to cross-train because of the injuries, she lived on the elliptical trainer. Anticipating a four-hour marathon, she set up water, Gatorade, Powerbars and logged four-hour workouts on the elliptical, creating some interesting gym dialogue.

“Did you start when I think you did?” “Yes.” “What are you doing?” “Training for a marathon.” “You probably already ran a whole marathon on that elliptical.”

To Perevalova, putting off the marathon six months, a year, was not an option. “I had already put in so much training,” she says. “By golly, I was going to finish it.” Finish it she did, in that Boston Marathon-qualifying 3:30. But for a year, her running days were finished. Driving from the race outside Bend, Oregon, to Portland for the return flight home, Perevalova stopped at a hospital.

The pain in her right leg was excruciating. Another stress fracture.

“It was driving me a little crazy,” Perevalova says of the one-year forced running sabbatical. “There’s no other sport like running that gives you the same amount of endorphins, that allows you to be outside. It’s just something I love doing. When you can’t do that… it’s really like an addiction. You take that component out, and it drives you up the wall.”

Perevalova would later move to Monterey, California, to earn a master’s degree in conference interpretation. To help pay the bills she worked at a running store and met Tracy Vilano, a former U.S. marathon Olympic Trials qualifier. The two became friends and running partners. Vilano introduced Perevalova to hill training and tempo runs. Equally important, Vilano got inside Perevalova’s head, convincing her she possessed the talent to be more than a decent age-grouper.

“She had a great stride, just a relaxed pace, which is significant for someone who didn’t think she was any good,” recalls Vilano. “And I could tell she really liked to run. She was willing to run at zero dark thirty in the morning.”

“Tracy basically taught me how to run smart and listen to my body,” Perevalova says. “If it weren’t for Tracy I would never have thought of racing seriously. Maybe I’d have done some races just to do them.”

Perevalova’s next step in her running evolution came with her move to Texas. Accustomed to running along the cool Northern California coast, she nearly wilted the first time she tried running solo after moving to Houston in May 2006. “I couldn’t last 15 minutes in this heat and humidity by myself,” she says. She logged onto the Internet, discovered Sean Wade’s Kenyan Way running group and hopped aboard.

Seven months later – four and a half years after her marathon debut – Perevalova took her second swing at the distance. On a training run near the race, Perevalova asked Wade for late instructions in her attempt to crack three hours. “See that guy?” Wade said, pointing to a male runner, Wayne Cohen. “Find him at the starting line and stay with him as long as you can. Then leave him and run faster.”

She didn’t crack three hours, but she did drop her PR to 3:03:43; and beat Cohen to the finish line by 38 seconds. Cohen is coached by renowned Rice University track and cross-country coach Jon Warren. Perevalova joined Warren’s non-collegiate training group. She got to know Cohen better. They’ve been dating for a year.

At the Houston Marathon last January when Perevalova ran her 2:59:07 PR, Cohen annoyed his girlfriend, jumping onto the course with about half a mile to go, running steps in front of her, pacing her down the stretch. “I was screaming at him, Get off the course! Get off the course!” recalls Perevalova. “People watching must have had a very interesting idea about what was going on.”

She doesn’t like anybody running in front of her. “Unless I’m chasing that person, but that’s different,” she says. Cohen possesses the aggravating habit of pushing Perevalova during workouts, running one step in front. And while Perevalova beat Cohen to the finish line at the 2007 Houston Marathon, he still owns bragging rights. His 2:58:11 PR at Toronto trumps hers by 56 seconds.

They’re both running the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September. “It’ll be game on,” says Perevalova.

Truth is, she’s becoming more Americanized every day. She samples all kinds of ethnic food and breaks into conversations with strangers when standing in lines, something that just wasn’t done when she was a child and Russia was under communist rule.

“At work, I interact with both Russians and Americans a lot,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Normally, it’s easy to tell who is who just by looking at people and then addressing them in either Russian or English. The funny thing is that almost every Russian I come in contact with speaks to me in English, if they know the language. In nine out of 10 cases they mistake me for an American. The reason for it is laughably simple – I wear Crocs to work. Essentially, the concept of a woman wearing anything other than high-heel shoes to work is completely foreign to a Russian. To me, though, after running 50-plus miles every week, uncomfortable footwear is something to be avoided.”

In the bigger picture about feeling American, Perevalova adds, “I like being able to do what I want to do. And I like being able to pursue what dreams and goals I have.” She likes running track intervals, pushing her body, striving, struggling to beat that person in the next lane, knowing that knocking another second or two off a 400-meter interval might translate to dipping under 2:48 in the marathon.

And in those moments of pure, unadulterated, adrenaline-rush pleasure, surely her memory harkens back to her childhood. To that girl who played in front of the apartment building, running about, playing tag, feeling free.

Free like she is now, to chase her ambitions.

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