Victoria Phillipi - What Defines Us

Victoria Phillipi is a great runner, with 16 marathons under her belt, you’d think that she has been a runner since she could walk. Well, that’s not quite the case for her. At age 16, Victoria wasn’t the runner she is today. Victoria was in an all-girls gym class and every day before they started whatever they were scheduled to do that day, they had to run an 800 around the track. No big deal right? Well Victoria, wasn’t much of a runner back then. She was always the last person to finish her 800 and was often ill physically for the rest of the day after. She was tired of being the last person on the track and decided to work on her running performance so that she could run like a "normal" person. It took a few years but she slowly progressed to longer and longer distances at comfortable paces, staying determined to do better and slowly starting to create an addiction to running. When she began her career in accounting, these constant attempts to better her health lead to more and more races, which became longer in distance. Victoria's determination has led her to run more than 15 marathons and also qualify for 3 Boston Marathons. Her journey to Boston was all on her own, and often she was laughed at when she brought up Boston or even Marathons. Despite her career, difficulties in training, and lack of a supportive running community, she overcame and succeeded what many people can only dream of. 4 years after starting her career in accounting, she started her very own online coaching company called Run4PRs. This allowed her to give people advice and the support that she didn’t have when training for her races. Trying to juggle a family, training, a full time job, and this new coaching business, lead to Victoria trading in her desk job for something she loved, running. Her company now has over 300+ athletes in her group and 2 employees that work for her. I asked Victoria what some of her goals were and she told me that she would love to expand her coaching company and help others make their dreams of becoming a full time coach a reality with Run4PRs. Running has changed Victoria’s life and has reinvented her into the person she is today. Running has built up her confidence and showed her strengths, not to mention allowed her to help people out in their own running journeys. I asked her what made runners different from the average person and she told me “Runners get enjoyment out of doing things most people run away from."

"When you are faced with a challenge you have two options: give up or keep trying. I believe that distance runners will always keep trying. That is what defines us." - Victoria Phillipi