Once Homeless Runaway, Mom Now A Triathlete

East Valley Tribune:

A childhood of homelessness, starvation and illness doesn’t make for stand-up comedy, but Lisa Ann Oliveira has turned her life into a stream of schtick.

It all falls under her new life philosophy: “There are no victims, only volunteers.”

For the past two years, the Scottsdale real estate agent and single mom of four kids (one of which was adopted from Africa and is currently at the University of Arizona) has been voluntarily torturing her body in triathlons. This weekend’s race in New York City will be her 25th since 2006.

“The goal is to not stop running and don’t drown in the Hudson,” she said.

Until college, however, the 39-year-old’s goal was to flee a family that couldn’t have cared less about her.

For most of her first 18 years, Oliveira, her mother and five siblings slept vertically in their Ford Grand Torino every Bay Area night.

“We weren’t homeless,” she joked. “We had a car.”

Her father had disappeared early on. Her mother showed no interest in working. Her siblings have since ended up in jail or as vagabonds. Her home address was a license plate. She missed meals and brushed her teeth at 7-Eleven water fountains.

Oliveira was 14 when one of her sisters called police to the family’s “home,” a 7-Eleven parking lot. Lisa wanted no part of a foster home, so she ran away.

It was her and a large, green, Hefty garbage bag of her belongings. She’d stay a few nights with one of her teachers, then moved in with a guidance counselor.

She admitted to shoplifting an alarm clock so she could get up for school.

“One thing is you lie a lot to protect yourself,” she said. “You make your way and start to learn better coping mechanisms when you get older. But if you give in to what’s natural, it can be awkward and embarrassing.

A math teacher out of college, she met her now ex-husband in Seattle and lived in Reno, Nev., Montana and Albuquerque, N.M., before moving to the Valley three years ago. where her former real estate agent encouraged her to enter the business.