Meet the Sask. woman who has run a marathon on every continent

Regina’s Gay Renouf has now run a marathon on every continent after she checked off South America with her race in São Paulo, Brazil earlier this month.

“I guess I knew I could do it because it’s an achievable thing right? You don’t have to be super fast. You just have to stick to your goal in order to do it,” Renouf said.

Renouf did not always have this goal in mind.

“Not until I’d probably done well over 100 marathons and one of those races was this special race in Africa. Once I finished that I was thinking, ‘Geez, you know, I’ve done marathons on three continents now, maybe I should try for the rest,’” she said.

Renouf, 62, also just recently checked Antarctica off her list back in March, the second last continent she needed.

“I thought I was going down there [to Antarctica] to put a check mark on some goal I had and I loved it. It’s not that cold, it’s only about zero degrees, but the winds are really fierce. We couldn’t land on King George Island for a few days because the winds were so bad and they couldn’t set up the race course. So we didn’t know if the race was going to happen,” she said.

“You get taken out there on Zodiac Boars. So there’s 10 runners in a boat and you get shipped off to the island and it looks kind of black. It’s just dirt everywhere and mud. But you look around and there are penguins playing on shore. It’s amazing.”

Renouf after completing a marathon in Antarctica. (Courtesy: Gay Renouf)

Renouf has run 183 marathons. She began running when she was 23-years-old and ran her first marathon at 30 in Saskatoon.

“I tell people I started for my body and I continue for my mind. I started because I wanted to lose weight and now I just find it so great from a social sense and contemplative sense,” Renouf said.

Her fastest time did not come until over 20 years into her journey.

“It was in Phoenix, I was in my late 40s. I used to coach and I would tell people that because they would be saying, ‘I’m 35 I’m just going to get slower and slower.’ And it’s not true. You can train hard and can be fast well into your late forties and fifties. I ran 3:28 [3 hours and 28 minutes] in Phoenix,” Renouf shared.

Renouf has a stand in her living room with all of the medals from her and her husband’s races over the years. When asked about one that stands out to her the most, it’s the one she received for completing the six major marathons in the world.

“It’s called the Abbott 6 Star medal. I really prize that. So it’s Boston, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Berlin, and London,” she explained.

• Download the CTV News app to get Saskatchewan breaking news alerts sent to your device

“There was another race that I did that was an eight-day race. We ran from Germany to Italy, over the Alps. It was so hard, so because of how difficult it was, I also really cherish that medal.”

Renouf completed a marathon that took her through parts of the Swiss Alps. (Courtesy: Gay Renouf)

When asked what her favourite marathon of all time was, none of those came to mind.

“I love Big Sur which is in California. It’s by the ocean and so you’re looking out over the ocean going, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this and it is spectacular,’” said Renouf.

She tries to run between 8 and 10 marathons a year. Now that she has completed her goal of hitting every continent, Renouf plans on continuing her love for running as long as possible.

“I just want to do as many countries as I can. I just want to enjoy travelling and do a race every time I hit a new country and just want to go as long as I can,” she said. “I want to do Prague and Stockholm. I’m running in Wales later in the year. I’d like to do the Bermuda Triangle challenge, I think that would be fun.”

Renouf has yet to but will receive a special medal for having completed marathons on every continent.