(Mar. 2020) In her prime, Mary Button qualified for two Olympic Marathon Trials and recorded
a personal best of
2:42:11. Along the way, she ran 20 sub-3 marathons despite modest training of about 60 miles a week. Now 61, she is no longer running but often completes long, multi-day walk-hikes (caminos) in Europe. She says, "My philosophy of life (and running and walking and aging) is to savor the moment and live in the present. Always be grateful for your health, and don't put things on the back burner."
Career-profession? My husband and I operated a running apparel company, RaceReady for 18 years.
I am retired now, but I am an environmental and political activist an environmental and political activist
who serves on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the non-profit Friends of Griffith
Park (Los Angeles).
When and why did you start running? I running in high school in the fall of 1972 in southern New
Jersey when I was a freshman in high school. Our swim coach suggested we take up another sport in
order to become better swimmers. We had swim practice three times a week. It wasn’t called “cross training” back then, but the idea was