Run, Mary, run

Executive: Mary Margaret Malone, sales manager at Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay. Malone, 31, manages accounts in group sales and major markets, with about $1 million a year in volume. She's been with the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay for 10 years, working her way up from a catering assistant position. She's won five companywide top sales awards, and her team won sales team of the year for the entire chain in mid-size hotels in 2014.

Diversion: Running. Malone took up running five years ago and has since become an admitted running addict. She started with 5Ks and quickly worked her way up the scale. She's completed five marathons since 2011, including the Philadelphia Marathon in November.

March forth: Malone wasn't a runner growing up in Alabama. An Auburn grad, she instead played trombone in a marching band and the piano. “I was a terrible athlete,” she says. “I didn't have any hand-eye coordination.”