Only a week after conquering the world in her sport, Levitt is again house in Mansfield and wanting to get again to work – not simply on the observe with native working membership Mansfield Harriers, but additionally the Christmas rush at Tesco and her different part-time job in administration at a incapacity charity.
Her breakout success in India, plans for the Commonwealth Video games subsequent 12 months and the prospect of Los Angeles Paralympic Video games in 2028 are not any causes for her to cease doing the opposite issues she “loves and enjoys”.
“My genuine self on the observe is the Vicky that works at Tesco, the Vicky who’s the administrator and the Vicky who trains like loopy,” she stated.
“It is due to that work and it is due to that job that I will do what I can do.”
Levitt says she beforehand “tried the full-time athlete factor” however acquired bored within the course of.
It was at that time the runner, initially from Dudley, who studied prosthetics and orthotics at college earlier than working in that subject, determined to juggle a variety of part-time jobs.
Tesco was meant to be a “temp job” over only one festive interval. However she discovered the job helped gas her aggressive spirit.
“As a part of click on and acquire, you’ve got pickers in retailer,” she defined to BBC Radio Nottingham.
“So we have now a choose fee that we have now to realize – a goal – and it is honest to say that I repeatedly go over that concentrate on quite a bit. We did have a league desk and my title was once there quite a bit on the high.
“On the time my colleagues did not know that I used to be a sprinter, solely the administration did. I pulled them to the facet and stated, ‘Look, you recognize, I’ve a bit little bit of an unfair benefit with this due to being a sprinter’. So I requested if it was potential to take me off the league desk as a result of it isn’t honest.”
Whereas she knew she was fast “on the trolleys”, she “did not suppose a lot” of her possibilities of qualifying for the World Championships.
“After I acquired the choice via, I used to be like, ‘Oh expensive, I in all probability want to arrange’,” she laughed.
“The warmth coaching was in all probability more durable than the coaching itself. Being caught in a sauna at 40C for 70 minutes on a motorcycle doing velocity classes was dreadful.
“It was all simply such a surreal expertise.”
The world-beating effort that Levitt produced in India was the excessive level in her meteoric rise as a incapacity athlete.
She solely took up sprinting significantly after a run of accidents – which included stretching a nerve in her ankle whereas competing in martial arts and a struggling a leg reduce on a path run – left her with everlasting nerve harm in her leg.
At each step of her restoration and transformation into an elite athlete, be it whereas working at Tesco or on the observe, the runner says she has performed it the “Victoria Levitt means”.
“Each individual’s gold medal is totally different,” Levitt stated.
“My gold medal is a gold medal however climbing the steps independently is perhaps somebody’s gold medal, doing a Sofa to 5k could possibly be somebody’s gold medal – once more, it goes again to that message of ‘do it your means’.”
Interviews performed by BBC East Midlands Natalie Jackson and BBC Radio Nottingham’s David Jackson.