Hi Parislights and welcome to the discussion. I think you definitely have a point. I sometimes ponder too of what is easier/more difficult to do - to live Natalia's intense life with constant flights, meetings, shows, designing, running the charity, ect or spending one's constant time with the little ones, for example. I also have two little kids (4 and 2 yo) and being with them on daily basis could be sometimes really traumatizing for anyone's mental health, to be honest. So yes, I am 100% with you that it is perhaps much harder to return after a grueling marathon exercise to the mundane household duties that most of those women at the race probably had to do, while Natalia needed to make every effort to look savvy and ready to catwalk with the help of assistants/relatives/children caretakers... I am not sure whether she is completely responsible for the portrait of some sort of an alien marvel amongst us - media, loving fans probably contribute to it
The one thing I personally admire Natalia for is not this wondrous "toughness" but her determination of another kind: The fact that she does not use her achieved laurels to just sit on them or make more money out of them; her very humane desire to help others - I think empathy like that is very rare, even if it requires much help from her assistants with daily trifles. To constantly push herself to work harder towards her real goal - making children's lives in Russia better... however she does it, with the help of many or without it, I don't care... I know it is still commendable because most of us, let's be honest, lack this sedulous drive to devote themselves to abstract others.