Mary Flaws started thinking about running when two friends started training for the Chicago Marathon. The then 32-year-old computer programmer asked her husband, Bill, if he thought she could run a marathon.
"No," he said.
"He's just very realistic," Flaws said from her home office in Waukesha, Wisconsin, then laughed. Two months later, she ran her first 5K. Then she went back to her husband and asked if he thought she could do a half marathon?
"No," he said.
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Now, at 47, Flaws is on the verge of running her 100th marathon. She'll hit that mark at the Big Island International Marathon in Hawaii in March. It'll also be her 50th state - and that's not just a regular 50-state challenge she's undertaken. It'll be her 50th state for a sub four-hour marathon.
Mary Flaws runs - a lot. In 2014 alone, she ran 20 marathons. She's an ultra runner, too, having run six so far, including a win at this year's Hallucination 100 mile race in Michigan.
"I really like to challenge myself," she says. "I like to always have something I'm working toward."
It's been quite a progression. Her first marathon, in 2001, was the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Meet the Women Fighting Harassment On Trails, Grandma's Marathon, Ask the Test Team: Why Does One Shoe Wear Faster.
After her second BQ, in 2008, she decided she needed to become a better runner. "I felt terrible," she said of her post race condition. "I said I don't ever want to feel like that again." She bumped her mileage up from 40 to 50 miles a week to 70 to 100. She also cleaned up her diet by cutting down on starches and sweets and replacing them with fruits and vegetables.
The change was almost immediately. In 2009 and 2010, she PR'ed four times, running consecutively faster marathons. She capped 2010 with a 3:08:17 performance back at the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon.
Running has also become her professional life. When Flaws started running, she wanted a way to keep track of her races, so she wrote a computer program for it. From there, "it grew and grew and grew," she said. In 2002, she and husband Bill launched Run This Planet, which was a directory of races and running clubs.
In 2003, that site merged with RunningintheUSA.com, which is still a race directory but also a site with forums, race results and running club information. It's now entirely owned by the Flaws and is also their full time jobs.
"Their website is very successful because they don't rely on race directors to list things on their calendar," says Chris Ponteri, race director of the Icebreaker Indoor Marathon and Half Marathon. "The History of the Boston Marathon Finish Line."
The site also inspired the name of Flaws' signature cookies. In January, she'll compete in Ponteri's races, which are run on a track inside the Pettit National Ice Center, a U.S. Olympic speed skating training facility. Flaws has won the marathon twice. She's also won the Gold Medal Challenge, which is having the fastest time in the half marathon and marathon combined, three times.
Race winners get a dozen of her Running in the USA cookies. "I love to bake, and I'm always looking for marketing things for the site," she said. So she bought a running shoe and a map cookie cutter, and makes the red and blue cookies to match the colors of their site.
"Last race, I pinned two cookies to my shirt," she says. She added a note to her back (because when you're running that many laps in a race, people have time to stare at your back) that said "I bake, therefore I run," and then told people who asked that they could take one from her at the half way point.
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"Some people just need to physically exert themselves, to run hard and to feel exhausted and to run until you can't move," she says. "It drives me to keep running. And because I love to bake, I have to burn off those calories."
Recipe Flaws uses for her cookies
