Marie Davis-Markham
It wasn’t long after Marie Davis Markham (Lincoln, 1995) started winning long-distance races that she negotiated her first (air quotes) sponsorship deal.
As a youngster, the 2006 PIL Hall of Fame inductee would watch her parents, Gaylord and Judi, bound out of their Northwest Portland home en route to the Wildwood Trail, a couple blocks away, for regular runs in the forest. They made running look effortless, fun and, Marie says, like a potential way to unleash the competitive spirt her dad (inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame for his golf skills) had either passed along genetically or was actively teaching her. Or both.
“We had a pretty competitive family,” she says. “Lots of high-stakes Monopoly and card games. We’d be at the airport and my dad would say, ‘I wonder how long it would take to get to the gate,’ and then we’d be off racing down there.”
Marie and her younger sister Annie grew up “playing everything” from capture the flag to kickball. But at age 8, she found her passion in track.
“I was a high jumper and long jumper and sprinter, and I was horrible at all of them, but I just loved the sport,” she says with a laugh.
Before long, Marie had joined the Portland Track Club, focusing on running the 800 and 1500 meters. In another couple years, she was winning enough to earn a spot in a state championship meet. That’s when she got the idea of a race sponsorship...of sorts. Pay for performance may be a better description. Or monetary motivation?
Decide for yourself…
“So, our family was going on a road trip after this race and, because this was back before ATMs, my dad had a bunch of cash in his wallet,” Marie remembers. “I had seen it and, before my race, I asked him, ‘If I win this race, can I have some of that money?’ He says, ‘Sure.’
“I start the race in the middle of the pack, but then I start picking off runners one by one and wind up winning, which surprised everyone.”
That may have been the only time Marie needed any motivation other than her own competitive nature and likely was the last time she surprised anyone by winning a race. Under the tutelage and training of youth track coaches Bob Williams and Alex Wright, she took off, winning six national Junior Olympics titles by the end of her youth career.
Best of all, she says, all that running success didn't come at the expense of her youth.
“What I appreciated about my coaches was they didn’t overtrain me,” she says. “They truly valued my journey in the sport. So I was a runner but also still a soccer and basketball player.
“After my career kind of took off when I was still pre-pubescent, you’d hear people murmuring things like, ‘Wait till she grows; she’s done too much too early.’ They were assuming I was having success because my coaches were overdoing it or my parents were too into it, when that was the exact opposite of what was happening.”
Growing Success at Lincoln
With one of her youth coaches, Wright, still guiding her running in track when she got to Lincoln and Hall of Fame Coach David Bailey overseeing her progress in cross country, Marie continued to excel. She wound up winning one state championship in cross-country and five in track while also playing for the Cardinals basketball team for three years.
By the time she ran her last PIL cross-country race, Marie had rewritten the records on every 3000-meter course she competed on. Then, after 5k races became the Oregon standard her junior year, she set new records on all of the longer courses.
In track, Marie won the 3k state title as a freshman, the 1500 as a sophomore and, as a senior, helped Lincoln claim the state team title by winning the 1500 and 3000 and running a leg of the winning 4x400 team.
All the while, she was making a name for herself beyond the Oregon high school ranks. In her sophomore year, Marie made the U.S. Junior National Cross-Country team, which gave her the opportunity to compete in Spain. Three years later, she made the team again and traveled with it to Cape Town, South Africa, where she says she competed as a very different runner.
“When I made the team the first time, I was 15 and really shy and timid,” she says. “I was, like, Wait, I’m going to wear a USA jersey and go with all these people I don’t know to Spain where the language isdifferent and they eat different food? I had been playing basketball, so I was in shape, but not running shape, so I didn’t place as well as I think I could have. But three years later, I was a college freshman and a more confident athlete, secure in myself. So, I was able to perform much better.”
Marie credits her running success to the right combination of mental and physical attributes and DNA.
I definitely think I got some genetics from my parents, but I was also really gritty,” she says. “When things were tough, I felt I could push myself to limits beyond what others could.”
As early as her freshman year, Marie was attracting the attention of college recruiters. As she continued to compete and perform well in national meets (where over three years she placed eighth, eighth and 13th), the single box in which Marie’s mom was storing her daughter’s recruitment letters got expanded to two.
When it was time to make her college decision, she chose Oregon over her other finalist, UCLA, because, she says, it was just a more natural fit.
“UCLA was telling me I was going to be their number one runner and win a national championship,” she says. “They took me to this dinner in a Hollywood mansion, and Jackie Joyner Kersey was there. It was this big fancy thing and I was thinking, This isn’t me at all. At Oregon, they had a great team coming back that I could just blend into. I wasn’t going to be their No. 1. Plus, it was this runners’ Mecca, and who wouldn’t want to run there?”
More Than a Runner
Equally important, Marie saw Eugene as a place where she could grow as a runner without having to be just a runner.
“Growing up in Portland, I would battle things like people talking with my parents about my sister and me and asking, ‘Now which one is the runner?’ I hated that,” she says. “I remember thinking, I’m not just a runner. I’m Marie. At Oregon, I had friends in other sports and classes and was well rounded in terms of my identity. I was able to run competitively while also working to achieve other really big goals.”
By the time she was finished at Oregon, she was a six-time All-American in cross country and track, armed with a master’s degree and teaching certificate and ready to pursue a plan she had to explore life outside the state. She landed in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place where she could start her teaching career while also continuing to train and compete with the best of the best on an elite Nike “farm team."
By then she was more determined than ever to prioritize living over just running. “It was a cool experience that I was grateful for, but a huge challenge,” she says. “While my times had improved dramatically from high school to college, they didn’t after college. But that’s because I chose to teach rather than work at a running store and I chose to live in San Francisco and do fun things with friends. I chose to be Marie.”
Marie did still aspire to qualify for the U.S. Olympics Trials and came ever so close, twice missing out on qualifying in the 5000 meters by less than half a second.
By 2006, she was ready to move back to Portland and took a job teaching second grade in the Beaverton School District. In 2009, she connected her future husband, Luke. They married in 2012 and now have two children, Michael, a sixth grader, and Elise, a fourth grader.
Since 2017, Marie has served as an assistant cross-country and track coach at her alma mater where she helped the 2024 and 2025 Lincoln girls cross-country teams win successive state titles.
In addition, she co-founded Wildwood Running, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and empowering young female runners and helping them navigate their journey through competitive sports.
She still runs three or four days a week (“always in the forest, my favorite place”) and is grateful for all the coaches she's had along the way whose careful training approaches have ensured she has a whole lot of running left in her.
Member Spotlight
It wasn’t long after Marie Davis Markham (Lincoln, 1995) started winning long-distance races that she negotiated her first (air quotes) sponsorship deal.
As a youngster, the 2006 PIL Hall of Fame inductee would watch her parents, Gaylord and Judi, bound out of their Northwest Portland home en route to the Wildwood Trail, a couple blocks away, for regular runs in the forest. They made running look effortless, fun and, Marie says, like a potential way to unleash the competitive spirt her dad (inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame for his golf skills) had either passed along genetically or was actively teaching her. Or both.
“We had a pretty competitive family,” she says. “Lots of high-stakes Monopoly and card games. We’d be at the airport and my dad would say, ‘I wonder how long it would take to get to the gate,’ and then we’d be off racing down there.”
Marie and her younger sister Annie grew up “playing everything” from capture the flag to kickball. But at age 8, she found her passion in track.
“I was a high jumper and long jumper and sprinter, and I was horrible at all of them, but I just loved the sport,” she says with a laugh.
Before long, Marie had joined the Portland Track Club, focusing on running the 800 and 1500 meters. In another couple years, she was winning enough to earn a spot in a state championship meet. That’s when she got the idea of a race sponsorship...of sorts. Pay for performance may be a better description. Or monetary motivation?
Decide for yourself…
“So, our family was going on a road trip after this race and, because this was back before ATMs, my dad had a bunch of cash in his wallet,” Marie remembers. “I had seen it and, before my race, I asked him, ‘If I win this race, can I have some of that money?’ He says, ‘Sure.’
“I start the race in the middle of the pack, but then I start picking off runners one by one and wind up winning, which surprised everyone.”
That may have been the only time Marie needed any motivation other than her own competitive nature and likely was the last time she surprised anyone by winning a race. Under the tutelage and training of youth track coaches Bob Williams and Alex Wright, she took off, winning six national Junior Olympics titles by the end of her youth career.
Best of all, she says, all that running success didn't come at the expense of her youth.
“What I appreciated about my coaches was they didn’t overtrain me,” she says. “They truly valued my journey in the sport. So I was a runner but also still a soccer and basketball player.
“After my career kind of took off when I was still pre-pubescent, you’d hear people murmuring things like, ‘Wait till she grows; she’s done too much too early.’ They were assuming I was having success because my coaches were overdoing it or my parents were too into it, when that was the exact opposite of what was happening.”
Growing Success at Lincoln
With one of her youth coaches, Wright, still guiding her running in track when she got to Lincoln and Hall of Fame Coach David Bailey overseeing her progress in cross country, Marie continued to excel. She wound up winning one state championship in cross-country and five in track while also playing for the Cardinals basketball team for three years.
By the time she ran her last PIL cross-country race, Marie had rewritten the records on every 3000-meter course she competed on. Then, after 5k races became the Oregon standard her junior year, she set new records on all of the longer courses.
In track, Marie won the 3k state title as a freshman, the 1500 as a sophomore and, as a senior, helped Lincoln claim the state team title by winning the 1500 and 3000 and running a leg of the winning 4x400 team.
All the while, she was making a name for herself beyond the Oregon high school ranks. In her sophomore year, Marie made the U.S. Junior National Cross-Country team, which gave her the opportunity to compete in Spain. Three years later, she made the team again and traveled with it to Cape Town, South Africa, where she says she competed as a very different runner.
“When I made the team the first time, I was 15 and really shy and timid,” she says. “I was, like, Wait, I’m going to wear a USA jersey and go with all these people I don’t know to Spain where the language isdifferent and they eat different food? I had been playing basketball, so I was in shape, but not running shape, so I didn’t place as well as I think I could have. But three years later, I was a college freshman and a more confident athlete, secure in myself. So, I was able to perform much better.”
Marie credits her running success to the right combination of mental and physical attributes and DNA.
I definitely think I got some genetics from my parents, but I was also really gritty,” she says. “When things were tough, I felt I could push myself to limits beyond what others could.”
As early as her freshman year, Marie was attracting the attention of college recruiters. As she continued to compete and perform well in national meets (where over three years she placed eighth, eighth and 13th), the single box in which Marie’s mom was storing her daughter’s recruitment letters got expanded to two.
When it was time to make her college decision, she chose Oregon over her other finalist, UCLA, because, she says, it was just a more natural fit.
“UCLA was telling me I was going to be their number one runner and win a national championship,” she says. “They took me to this dinner in a Hollywood mansion, and Jackie Joyner Kersey was there. It was this big fancy thing and I was thinking, This isn’t me at all. At Oregon, they had a great team coming back that I could just blend into. I wasn’t going to be their No. 1. Plus, it was this runners’ Mecca, and who wouldn’t want to run there?”
More Than a Runner
Equally important, Marie saw Eugene as a place where she could grow as a runner without having to be just a runner.
“Growing up in Portland, I would battle things like people talking with my parents about my sister and me and asking, ‘Now which one is the runner?’ I hated that,” she says. “I remember thinking, I’m not just a runner. I’m Marie. At Oregon, I had friends in other sports and classes and was well rounded in terms of my identity. I was able to run competitively while also working to achieve other really big goals.”
By the time she was finished at Oregon, she was a six-time All-American in cross country and track, armed with a master’s degree and teaching certificate and ready to pursue a plan she had to explore life outside the state. She landed in the San Francisco Bay Area, a place where she could start her teaching career while also continuing to train and compete with the best of the best on an elite Nike “farm team."
By then she was more determined than ever to prioritize living over just running. “It was a cool experience that I was grateful for, but a huge challenge,” she says. “While my times had improved dramatically from high school to college, they didn’t after college. But that’s because I chose to teach rather than work at a running store and I chose to live in San Francisco and do fun things with friends. I chose to be Marie.”
Marie did still aspire to qualify for the U.S. Olympics Trials and came ever so close, twice missing out on qualifying in the 5000 meters by less than half a second.
By 2006, she was ready to move back to Portland and took a job teaching second grade in the Beaverton School District. In 2009, she connected her future husband, Luke. They married in 2012 and now have two children, Michael, a sixth grader, and Elise, a fourth grader.
Since 2017, Marie has served as an assistant cross-country and track coach at her alma mater where she helped the 2024 and 2025 Lincoln girls cross-country teams win successive state titles.
In addition, she co-founded Wildwood Running, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and empowering young female runners and helping them navigate their journey through competitive sports.
She still runs three or four days a week (“always in the forest, my favorite place”) and is grateful for all the coaches she's had along the way whose careful training approaches have ensured she has a whole lot of running left in her.
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