Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster, RN, wearing one of her two bronze medals (above), and in the process of clinching the first one with a triple jump (below). (Photo with medal by Bud Glick)

Catch Her If You Can

On the Field and Off, a Nurse Who Goes for the Gold

At the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster, RN, a natural athlete since childhood, set records in the triple jump. As captain of the track and field team, she was invited to try out for the U.S. Olympic Team but declined so she could continue her education. After graduating in 1992, Greenfield-Webster gave up track and field to focus on her new family and career.

In 2007, a friend who eventually became her coach tried to coax the still fit 35-year-old back into competition. “Are you kidding me?” she responded. “I have a job, I have a business, I have two children.” But the day before a Masters track and field event (for those 30 and older), Greenfield-Webster recalls, “the fire got in me.” She bought a pair of inexpensive spikes, competed in the meet, and jumped a distance that beat the national champion’s triple jump distance.

That was all the motivation Greenfield-Webster needed. Today, she trains three times a week, and it’s paying off. At the end of the 2008 indoor track and field season, Greenfield-Webster ranked number two in the United States and number nine in the world in the women’s triple jump for her age group (35–39). In 2007, she won the bronze medal at the World Masters Track and Field Championship in Italy. At this year’s competition, held in Finland in July, she won another bronze medal. What made this year’s performance all the more triumphant, says Greenfield-Webster, is that she was able to rank third in the world only a year and a half after recovering from knee surgery.

For any woman who wonders whether she can have it all—a happy family, a fulfilling career, and enough time and energy left over to pursue other dreams—the answer is yes, and the proof is Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster, a 17-year veteran of NYU Langone Medical Center. “There’s nothing I do that I don’t have a passion for,” she says.

“I love nursing,” says Greenfield-Webster, a senior nurse clinician on Tisch Hospital’s geriatrics unit (16 West), who is board-certified in medical-surgical nursing. “It gives me the hands-on time I want to take care of patients.” She also does formal and informal mentoring on her unit and is planning to mentor student athletes from her old high school.

Greenfield-Webster credits her “unbelievably supportive” husband, Christopher, and their two daughters for helping to make it all work. Both nine-year-old Chrislyn and six-year-old Devonnie have inherited mom’s zest for sports and often train with her at the Armory Track and Field Center in Washington Heights.

“I want to inspire others,” says Greenfield-Webster. “I want people—especially women—to look at me and say, ‘If she can pursue her goals and dreams, then I can pursue mine.’ That’s my reward.”