Maria Phelps discovered her talent in the 800 meters too late to excel at it in high school —  she was already chucking the javelin, hurdling and jumping (triple and long).

“I was pretty good at a lot of things, but you could only run five events,” she said. By the time she showed her talent at what is generously referred to as a distance race, it was too late. 

“That’s why I love the 800 now,” she said. 

Phelps is 43 and almost 25 years removed from her standout prep career at Whitefish High, which led her to sign at Montana State as a multi-event track and field performer.  

We can condense the year and a half she spent at MSU — a left foot injury continued to nag her, and a coach decided the problem was she carried too much weight — but suffice to say she came away discouraged. “It was not healthy,” Phelps said. 

It was so discouraging the former Maria Hill cooled her heels after she met and married Kevin Phelps, with whom she has a son, Jack, and daughter Abby.  

“When I was in my mid-20s I had all these health issues and a doctor told me I should quit running,” she said. “I quit for quite a while. For 13 or 14 years.” 

She credits Jack and Abby: Her son joined Columbia Falls’ high school track and field team as a freshman in 2022 and last spring set the school’s 400 meters record. He now competes for Rocky Mountain College. 

“My son and daughter doing track actually helped me get my love back,” Phelps said.  

In 2020 she started doing triathlons — after learning how to swim — and eventually found herself running her second marathon in June of 2024. 

Something was missing. 

“But I love running and I love running fast,” she said, and she was supremely fast on Feb. 20 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She churned through the 800 in 2 minutes, 25.07 seconds. No woman was quicker at the USATF Masters National Championships. 

Let’s back up, because the health issues weren’t over: In 2019 she was diagnosed with Sjogrens Syndrome, an autoimmune disease; soon after that she discovered she was celiac; and a year ago, while running the USATF 800, she broke the navicular bone in her right foot. 

“I ramped up and I think my feet were just not flexible,” she said. “I ended up getting second but as soon as I crossed the line I knew something was wrong.” 

This seems, to the outside observer, to be a piling-on of misadventure. But after she spent most of last year rehabbing, Phelps was back racing on Jan. 31. Three weeks later, a year to the day of her injury, she became a national champion. 

She credits her coaches, Sue McDonald and Joel Smith; her employer, Black Diamond Mortgage — OK, she’s half-owner — for affording her the time to race and train; and of course her family. She had to do the rest, executing a comeback complete with a perfect ending. 

Except she’s not done. “Right now I’m at a time that I would run in high school,” she said. “My goal is to run a sub-2:20, which would be as fast as I ran in college, and also qualify me for the World Championships.” 

The love she has for track was already illustrated by her getting back into coaching; she now leads the Stumptown Track Club. Now she’s almost as good as she once was.  

“You can do pretty big things later in life,” she said. 

Fritz Neighbor can be reached a 758-4463 or at [email protected].