Photo: Maria Kozloski, center, nears the finishing straight of the 2002 Lawyers Have Heart 10K in Georgetown.

Maria Kozloski's running began during her student days at Massachusetts Institute of Technology when she ran the 1986 New York City Marathon "for fun" and finished in 4:17:49. She has evolved as an athlete over the years with her current marathon best, set October 12th in the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, of 2:57:01 at age 38. She and her husband Lance Crist have three young children and both work for the World Bank, which involves significant travel overseas. Kozloski views running as her main hobby and uses it to sightsee in foreign lands. She keeps a careful log of her workouts and follows a training schedule provided to her and several other women by Nate Reilly, but her early days as a runner were much less structured. Training has become more rigorous as her results improve; she has progressed from being a 3:20 marathoner to 3:11:52 (1996 NYC) to a sub-3:00 marathoner in October 2002 at Chicago.

Running and work have meshed for a richer experience. During her 1997-98 stint in Russia, she ran the Moscow and Siberia Marathons, and ran local races with running clubs in Moscow where very little English was spoken. The Siberia Marathon came to her attention from an article in a 1996 NYC Marathon brochure. Kozloski travels overseas frequently on the job and keeps her running shoes handy; if the location is safe for solo treks, she will log her miles. She has run in rural western China near the border with Vietnam; a layover in Frankfurt, Germany allowed her to squeeze in an 18 mile run near the airport. Pete Wagner at the World Bank recruited more than100 co- workers to run this year's Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Miler with the "Bank Fund Flyers" team placing second out of 29 credit union teams and Kozloski contributed a fast 1:04:55 (Chip time). As a high school student, Kozloski played three varsity team sports (softball, basketball and soccer); twenty years later, she continues to balance sport with the demands of work and parenting.

Marathons mark the progress Maria Kozloski has made over the past seven years. In 1996, she joined the DC Road Runners Club and ran the New York City Marathon in 3:12 after several previous 3:20 efforts at the distance. Her return to the Washington area in 1999, now married to Crist, marked the beginning of "serious" training. She felt ready for the challenge of faster paced workouts and joined the Washington Running Club. In January 2001, she qualified for Boston at the Houston Marathon; already pregnant with their second son and with a set of six-month-old twins at home, her husband advised her to wait another year before making the trip to Boston. In April 2002, she finished the Boston Marathon in 3:12:10 (Chip time; clock time 3:15:24); six months later in Chicago, Kozloski's dedicated training produced a twelve minute improvement. This year's schedule set a target of a mid-2:50s marathon; on October 12th, she set another personal best of 2:57:01 (clock time; Chip time 2:56:45) in the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon.

Training with a group of women and under the guidance of a coach, Nate Reilly, and a customized workout plan, Kozloski has a hobby and a social outlet, a path to new friendships. Women in the group include Casey Smith, Sharon Donovan, Britton Stackhouse, Lisa Thomas, Marie Sandrock, Teha Kennard and Jamie Hagerbaumer; they meet on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays on the Capital Crescent Trail or at a track for timed intervals with Reilly supplying the times. Hard long runs (10 to 22 miles) are run at a 7:15 per mile pace and tempo runs are 15 seconds per mile faster than her goal pace for 26.2 miles. Twelve mile runs in the morning before a full work day requires dedication and some lost sleep, but achievable goals and camaraderie keep participation enjoyable. Every few weeks, the demanding schedule of children, work, and running requires that she ignore her watch during a workout and run through the fatigue at a comfortable pace. The life of a long distance runner is challenging, not easy; a coach and a husband to watch over her help to prevent burnout-sometimes it is best to ease up and catch one's breath. Kozloski says she can really run now, three children are enough, and she will be 40 years old in a couple of years. Fellow running mothers like Patty Fulton and Hilary Cairns serve as inspiration to Kozloski; the Washington running community has its own mutual support network.