Good luck walking a mile in her shoes.
An overachieving Long Island mom of two who has won nearly 50 national race walking titles and made two trips to the Olympics is gearing up for more glory at the sport’s world championships in Tokyo this month.
“I just want to race and enjoy. There’s always such an honor when you put on a Team USA jersey,” 39-year-old Maria Michta-Coffey, a physician’s assistant in Suffolk County, told The Post.
“Just in general, whether you’re doing any sort of career, or just existing with kids, they’re so unpredictable…but you power through enough and it comes out okay,” she added of balancing family life with racing and her career.
The Lake Grove woman, who is married to a teacher at Sachem East High School with a sport-loving six-year-old Liliana and 1-year-old Daniel, competed in both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 games for Team USA.
She joined the staff at Northwell’s South Shore University Hospital about four years ago.
“You shouldn’t ever have to choose — you should be able to pursue both passions,” Michta-Coffey said of medicine and athletics.
Naturally, the fast mind and foot — who is also in the Suffolk County Sports Hall of Fame — is on the Bay Shore health system’s rapid response team.
When emergencies come, such as blood needing to be rushed across the floor, colleagues are fortunate to get a taste of Michta-Coffey’s stat speed.
“She comes in bright and motivated — and she’s taking on a very challenging population in the hospital,” said South Shore’s president Irene Macyk.
“My mind uncoiled when I found out she has two kids. How does she do it all?”
She was also Long Island University’s valedictorian in 2008 and later earned a PhD in biomedicine, leading to the running joke that Michta-Coffey “could be the world’s greatest student athlete.”
While in grad school at Mount Sinai, she would even train by walking Central Park in between academic endeavors.
Proving that being a mom doesn’t inhibit personal, athletic, or professional success is a massive motivator for Michta-Coffey, who wants to set an example for her young ones that they can go a mile a minute in life.
“Although it hasn’t been easy at all, it’s been so worth it to have another experience and just to keep doing something that I love,” she said.
“I think that’s really important, to not lose identity of who you are.”
Adversity is nothing new to Michta-Coffey, who only qualified for the London games by a few seconds after an epic comeback in the 50th and final lap of her event.
This year, while prepping for Tokyo, she injured her right Achilles to the point that the athlete “couldn’t even wear a normal shoe.”
“We almost had to pull the plug on the whole thing,” Michta-Coffey added, saying that she got in gear after a doctor told her the agonizing injury would only cause reeling pain rather than lasting damage.
Now, it’s full speed ahead for the 35K event in the Japan-hosted World Athletics race walking championship, where the entire hospital will be rooting Mitcha-Coffey on and watching, said Macyk.
Nearing the age of 40, Michta-Coffey realizes this competition is different than earlier ones and is training the next generation of fleet feet.
Michta-Coffey is developing a protege, fellow Long Islander and 2028 Olympic hopeful Lauren Harris, who raced for Sachem East High School and later Marist University.
“My husband…he was her coach for track back in the day. I was kind of her mentor,” said Mitcha-Coffey, who also found her passion for racing as a ninth grader at Sachem.
Harris stepped away, but came back to the sport over the summer, around the same time Michta-Coffey was postpartum with her little boy, as the two co-motivated one another.
“Basically, one thing led to the next,” Michta-Coffey said of the woman doing a 20K race overseas.
Since they began training in tandem, the mom has to explain to Liliana that it’s a good thing when she comes in second place to Harris.
The best part of the journey for the powerful PA is that she almost called it quits after 2012.
“I don’t know where I would be if I did that,” added Michta-Coffey.
“You could definitely say, I’m addicted to this, I love this, I love the thrill, the rush.”
