“I want to win,” Anthony Russo had said as he looked ahead to last Saturday’s Trenton Half Marathon in New Jersey. That would have been a tall order for anyone, but especially for a 5-year-old. Remarkably enough, Anthony completed the race in 2:22:25, about 40 minutes faster than the only other five-year-old known to have finished a half marathon. And in Trenton’s under-17 category, among 12 boys, he managed to defeat a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old after going through the 10K point in 1:04:30.

Now one of only two American 5-year-olds to race 13.1 miles, he's the youngest sub-2:30 half marathoner in U.S. history.



Expectedly, there is controversy about someone so young running such long distances. But Anthony’s father Nick Russo, writing after the race in the which previewed his son’s effort, said, “He can take this as far as he decides to….We have no reason to push him to do this. He enjoys it and has a gift. If we restrict him that would be doing him a disservice.”



The Russos are from Jackson, New Jersey. Nick Russo added that on Saturday, his energetic son “was awake at 5:30 a.m. had breakfast, ran. Afterwards, he got his face painted, ate lunch, went to the store, came home, RAN to his friend’s house to invite him to play with his new superman toy. And while my wife is currently sleeping, he's still playing.”



“I don’t think he has any idea how much he’s doing,” Anthony’s mother Olivia told NJ.com. “He doesn’t even think about the fact that this isn’t normal and most people can’t do this.” She added, “We’re all just totally amazed that he could even do it.”

Anthony Russo, currently a kindergartener, informed his parents at age four that he didn’t wish to play baseball, so they suggested a run around their block.“It was nothing for him at all to do one mile, so we upped it to two miles,” recalls Olivia Russo. “Then there was a 5K coming around and he wanted to do it. He did it in about a half-hour and it was like nothing to him, so I just said ‘All right, let’s see how far we can go.’”

But the Russos are not being reckless about their son’s activity. They’ve consulted sports doctors and pediatricians regarding how far he should run. “We’re not just doing this randomly,” Olivia Russo stresses, adding that her son “doesn’t get knee pain and ankle pain.”



Anthony, currently sporting a Mohawk haircut, was putting in 35 to 40 miles per week for his half marathon debut. “It’s a cool thing to do,” he told The Hudson Reporter. “I’m happy I’m getting this chance. I feel tired, but I keep going.”



“One of my friends runs one mile and he thinks he can beat me,” Anthony Russo said. “But he can’t beat me.” No, and neither can some considerably older boys, as the Trenton Half demonstrated.





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5-Year-Old to Run Half Marathon

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