Blake Russell

Blake Russell (née Phillips; born July 24, 1975) is an American long-distance runner who represented her country at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

She walked onto the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill team in 1993 and eventually earned All-American Honors and ACC Championship titles in the 1500m and 5000m her senior year.

She met her husband Jonathan Russell, an All-American runner at Wake Forest University while at the NCAA meet.

While attending Elon University for Physical Therapy, Russell continued to train and qualified for the Olympic Trials, not in the marathon, but in the 10,000m by having met the 10,000m standard of 33:00.

Deciding to focus on running full-time, Russell and her husband followed her Coach Robert Sevene to Marina, CA.