7 Continents, 7 Marathons, Our Running Story

It all started with spite.

An ex told me I would NEVER run a marathon. I took that personally, and then I took it to seven continents. Somewhere between the first race and the last one, the revenge plot turned into a love story. Not with running, exactly (the jury is still out), and not only with the world (there is so much more of it to see), but with the man who ran every border beside me.

Our seven, at a glance

• North America: San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, California, 2007
• Europe: Dingle Marathon, Ireland, 2017
• Asia: Vietnam Trail Marathon, 2022
• Antarctica: Antarctica Marathon, King George Island, 2023
• South America: São Paulo International Marathon (Maratona Internacional de São Paulo), 2023
• Oceania: Buller Gorge Marathon, New Zealand, 2024
• Africa: Sanlam Cape Town Marathon, South Africa, 2024

Seventeen years from my first finish line to my last, and the final five continents in under two and a half years. Jay's list differs on two: his North America is the Portland Marathon (2012) and his Europe is the H.C. Andersen Marathon in Odense, Denmark (2015).

North America: you always remember your first

My roommate Dez, who has since become a genuinely incredible ultra athlete, talked me into a ten-mile race in Medford, Oregon. We finished it and wanted to go further, which is how these things always go wrong.

I signed up for the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in 2007. My preparation the night before included dancing until late, Jaeger shots (I hate licorice, for the record), and Ani, Rach and me flirting with the Coast Guard. Somehow I still ran 26.2 miles. Every time someone yelled "Go, Nancy!" I decided it was for me, even when it was clearly for the fitness coach running next to me. I ran a little faster every time.

My legs gave out the moment I climbed onto the bus afterward. The pride did not. A call from my friend Shawn, who had timed my run, made it all the sweeter.

San Diego made me a marathoner, and it became my North America, the first of the seven.

The rule

Jay sprinted into my life twice. First at Hood to Coast, where my KGW team met his Team Yogging, and again at the Portland Timbers run club. Every step after that became an adventure.

When I told him my life goal, a marathon on every continent, he wanted in. I agreed, on one silly little condition: he could never cross a finish line before me.

Did he have more skill, speed, funds and endurance? Absolutely. Did he honor the rule anyway, patiently pacing me through every border? You bet. That, my friends, is love.

Europe: the Dingle Marathon, 2017, and winds that felt personal

Next came the Dingle Marathon in Ireland, in September 2017. And yes, it is as funny as it sounds. We ran through sheep-filled hills in freezing rain and a wind that seemed to have a grudge against me specifically. Brutal and beautiful in equal measure, with Jay, Melinda and Kristen blasting "Galway Girl" and "Riverdance" down the coastline, questing for scones and dancing every jig available.

(Jay had already banked Europe two years earlier at the H.C. Andersen Marathon in Odense: two laps of a course billed as one of the flattest in the world. Mine had sheep, hills and weather.)

Berlin came later as a reward. We toasted with beer, watched the elites finish hours ahead of us, and had a crew of friends there to celebrate our first Abbott World Marathon Majors star. Prost.

Asia: the Vietnam Trail Marathon, 2022, where the only way off the course is through it

The Vietnam Trail Marathon can only be described as pure chaos. Mud swallowed my shoes. Cliffs made me reconsider every life choice that had led me there. The monsoon rain never let up, not once.

It took us 13 hours of the 16-hour cutoff, because, as we learned on the day, the only way off that course was to finish it. Our friend Tim had fallen asleep on the trail the year before and missed the finish. Every time I questioned my sanity out there, I thought about him. This time we finished it together, with him, for all the glory.

Antarctica, 2023: complicated, then perfect

Antarctica was complicated. Really complicated. Canceled trips (2020, y'all), postponed flights, and one full race run inside my own apartment just to keep the dream breathing. I was too stubborn to let the pandemic end it and, eventually, wise enough to accept the delays.

We finally made it, years after our place on the waiting list came up, after the Drake Passage tossed us around in sixty-foot waves. We ran six slow loops between research stations, dodging curious real penguins and cheering costumed ones, and crossed the line alongside our new friend Sandra. Then, after a dip in the Antarctic sea, we shared a cocktail poured over 10,000-year-old ice with dozens of new friends. The whole saga, including what it costs and how you even get in, is its own story: Whiskey on 10,000-Year-Old Ice.

South America: São Paulo, 2023, with olives, capybaras and an orthopedic surgeon

A few weeks after Antarctica, on April 2, 2023, the 27th São Paulo International Marathon (Maratona Internacional de São Paulo) tested me to my limits. An old foot injury flared mid-race, and I pushed through on the motivating knowledge that an orthopedic surgeon would be waiting for me at the finish line. Also motivating: a lady on the course handing out slimy, wet olives, and capybaras, because Brazil.

The best part had nothing to do with my foot. Our friend Jane finished her seventh continent that day, and celebrating her was pure joy.

Medal secured, I was booked into foot surgery and spent the following months rehabilitating my poor old paw.

Oceania: the Buller Gorge Marathon, 2024, Middle Earth with coin-operated showers

The Buller Gorge Marathon in New Zealand was magic, and I recommend it to anyone. We ran through landscapes straight out of Middle Earth (Jay tells me that is a reference to something), soaked in hot springs, partied with local friends, and attempted the haka. My version looked more like a malfunctioning Muppet.

I also learned that not every brown bird is a kiwi. Good to know. And two-dollar coin showers? Game changer.

Who keeps the list

Here is the thing nobody tells you when you set out to run a marathon on every continent: there is no official world registry of people who have done it. The closest thing is the Seven Continents Club, founded in 1995 by Marathon Tours & Travel at the same time as the first Antarctica Marathon, and it only counts the runners who join and report in.

Its rules answer the questions you would not think to ask. A marathon or a half marathon on each continent qualifies. Antarctica means the land mass, its ice shelves and the islands around it, which is why a race on King George Island in the South Shetlands counts. By the club's own definition, even an iceberg south of 62 degrees latitude would do, though I would not recommend the footing. Membership is a one-time $200 fee.

The club's current count of full-marathon finishers on all seven continents is 633 men and 348 women. Set that against the roughly 1.3 million people who finish a marathon somewhere on Earth in a typical year, and the slightly unhinged statistic I joined starts to look about right. (The percentages that float around online, the "1% of people have run a marathon" kind, do not hold up; the best available estimates put it well under that.)

And no, we did not do it in a week. That is the World Marathon Challenge: seven marathons on seven continents inside 168 hours, hopping between them by charter jet, with a 2027 entry fee of $50,700. I took seventeen years and paid by the race, which I maintain is the reasonable way to do something unreasonable.

Africa: Cape Town, October 2024, the grand finale

Africa took two trips. First came one of the most meaningful half marathons we have ever run, among the Big 5, with a week of the most excellent human company and murder kitties galore. Then we went back to claim our rightful marathon medal.

Cape Town was the finale. Jay and I danced through vibrant streets before the start, traded loads of high-fives with the littles along the course, and ran at a comfortable pace through colorful streets beneath Table Mountain and out to the sea.

What we did not fully appreciate at the time was that the race itself was being graded. Cape Town had been a candidate to join the Abbott World Marathon Majors since 2021, assessed every year on how it runs, how it is organized and how it treats its runners. The 2024 edition we ran drew a record 20,000 marathon entries and completed the first stage of that assessment. The next year, gusts tore down tents at the Green Point start and the 2025 race was canceled on the morning, about 75 minutes before the gun. In May 2026 Cape Town passed the final stage and became the eighth Major, and the first ever in Africa.

We crossed the finish line hand in hand, to the millisecond. It capped more than twelve years of planning, thousands of miles by air and by foot, and more bandaids than I care to count.

WE FINISHED.

KGW, my old station back in Portland, even put us on the news.

The pain, the glory, and everything in between

Innumerable miles, or kilometers if you are reading this in Copenhagen. Every pair of shoes and every shirt donated afterward (Hoka, I see your orthopedics). Chafing, blisters and those dang toenails, sacrificed to the marathon gods. Accidental waterboarding, courtesy of Jay's attempts to hydrate me mid-race. Sunburn, mud, relay crews, a drawer full of safety pins, and windburn.

Through the grit, sweat, sand, dust, ice, snow, wind and tears, running gave us more than medals (and an extended Starbucks mug collection). It gave me a deeper love for the world, and for the man who ran beside me.

Thank you to everyone who carried us over those lines: our race teams and clubs, the strangers on the sidelines, the wedding gifts that covered race fees, the Strava kudos, the time off work, the 4 a.m. run clubs in Dubai, the pandas on the course, the Anchorman song ringing in our ears, and every race-day cheer. And to our running wolf pup, Magnus Waffles, for joining in the fun. It was meant to be.

To my husband, my cabana boy, my teammate, my love: you paced me when I wanted to sprint, handed me water when I refused it, and never once crossed a finish line before me, no matter how fast you could have gone. You complement my crazy with your own.

If you go

• Cape Town Marathon: It is now an Abbott World Marathon Major and has moved from October to May. The next edition is May 23, 2027. Two-thirds of entries are reserved for African runners, so international places will be competitive. In 2024 the start village was at Green Point, with Table Mountain behind it, and the 2025 cancellation proved the morning wind is not a rumor.
• Dingle Marathon: On Ireland's Dingle Peninsula; ours was September 2, 2017. Pack for rain, wind and hills you will feel the next day.
• H.C. Andersen Marathon: Jay's European pick, held each autumn in Odense, Denmark (his was October 4, 2015). Two laps, flat as a pancake, and an easy train ride from Copenhagen.
• Seven Continents Club: Join through Marathon Tours & Travel for a one-time $200. Half marathons count, if you want the continents without all the toenails.
• Antarctica: Book years ahead. Everything we learned is in the Antarctica story.
• Trail races: Check the cutoff for your year before you sign up. The Vietnam Trail Marathon 42 km has run with a 15-hour limit in recent editions, and you will want every one of those hours.
• Buller Gorge: A February race that has run since 1983, starting at Hawks Crag and finishing in Westport on New Zealand's West Coast. Bring coins for the showers.

What's next

Probably brunch. Let's be real, definitely massages. After that, who knows. Here's to the finish lines we have crossed, and the ones still waiting.