she`s so skirt!

Maureen Ackerly / Believer

Like most runners, Maureen just hoped to finish her first marathon. But then she met Ben, a track coach and her future husband. “We’d run and he’d give me pointers,” she says of their dating days. Those pointers delivered a 3:08 finish on her next race; trimming 30 minutes off her best time. In congratulations, Ben sent an email listing the U.S. Olympic trial cutoff time: 2:48. “It was an outrageous goal,”says Maureen, now 38 and a partner at McGuire Woods. “I laughed out loud.” Gradually, her attitude shifted. “I started wondering…could it be possible?” With Ben coaching, Maureen won the 2006 Richmond marathon, beating 4000 runners with a 2:53 finish. This year, she nailed her 2:48 goal, coming in second. “Now, I believe I can beat 2:47,” she says. “Ben gave me an Eleanor Roosevelt quote: To believe in yourself, you must do the thing you think you can not. When I run, that word carries me…believe.”