Have you ever think to yourself about women being able to do amazing things while running? I bet not as women are often perceived as weak species but little that all these stereotypes people know that women are actually much stronger than they actually think they are. From running a marathon on her first day of period to running when she’s seven months pregnant, to running 100 marathons in 100 days, and many more!
Here are the 13 amazing women runners who will change your perception towards women.
1. Irene Sewell
Irene Sewell, 28, took on the challenge after reading about a woman who attempted to run a marathon wearing a pair of 3-inch stiletto heels and set a Guinness World Record in the process. She felt that the challenge would be for her as she was a former professional ballroom dancer.
Sewell went through a lot to complete the challenge, from training with different stiletto heels on the treadmill, to deciding which stilettos will be the best one for her and so on.
2. Kiran Gandhi
Kiran Gandhi, 29, ran a marathon while bleeding freely on her first day of period. Her main purpose of doing this is because she wants to stop period shaming and also raise awareness of women who do not have access to menstruation products.
3. Beatie Deutsch
Beatie Deutsch, 28, ran a marathon while she was seven months pregnant with her fifth child. She used to be the fastest runner in her family but after she got married and had four kids, she came in last place. From there she realised that she had to do something about it and decided to train for a marathon to get herself back in shape.
Even after she knew that she was pregnant with her fifth child, she kept training. Despite her pregnancy and stress fracture in her foot, she completed the marathon with a time of 4:08, which is below the average time for women marathoners.
4. Claire Lomas
Claire Lomas, 38, completed the 2012 London Marathon to help raise money for the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation despite being paralyzed from chest down. She ran the marathon using a bionic suit, which enables people with lower-limb paralysis to stand, walk, and climb stairs through motion sensors and an onboard computer system.
5. Celeste Bell
Celeste Bell was the first woman to run 8 marathons in 8 days on 8 continents, amazing isn’t it? It is known as a Triple 8 Quest where daring runners race 26.2 miles on one continent, and then hop on a plane to fly to another continent and do it again – eight times in total.
Before deciding to participate in the Triple 8 Quest, Bell ran a marathon in every single U.S. state and many would have thought her as a professional runner, but she is just a special projects director at Major League Baseball.
6. Bryony Gordon and Jada Sezer
Bryony Gordon and Jada Sezer ran the London Marathon in their underwear to promote body positivity, literally they are running in nothing but bras, knickers, socks, and trainers. Their purpose of doing this is to encourage the other curvy women to embrace exercise and also to raise money for mental health charities.
7. Aoife Curran
Aoife Curran, a member of the Irish Defence Forces ran the VHI Women’s Mini-Marathon to fundraise for CMRF Crumlin, which provides funding for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital and The National Children’s Research Centre by carrying 13kg on her back while running.
8. Amy Hughes
Amy Hughes, 31, a sports therapist from the U.K. ran 53 marathons in 53 days, never imagined anyone doing that, right? She did it to help raise money for the daughter of a friend, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of two, by doing “something different”.
Hughes decided to hit on the idea of attempting the world record for the most marathons run in consecutive days after reading about Dean Karnazes, the American who ran 50 marathons in 50 US states.
9. Amy Cameron
Amy Cameron, 31, project manager for Facebook, dressed as a poo emoji when running for London Marathon. She developed bad stomach pains within days of returning from the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, undergoing emergency surgery to remove a bowel obstruction, only for the medics to find a 4cm long tumour in her colon.
By wearing the poo emoji costume, Amy wanted people to take notice of her so that she will be able to explain to the people that she had bowel cancer, and what are the symptoms. Through that, she hope to spread awareness to the people about bowel cancer.
10. Dianne Sullivan
Dianne Sullivan ran the Virgin Money London Marathon to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Research UK in memory of her mum, who died from an Alzheimer’s disease. The diagnosis was a huge blow to Dianne as she was the only child in the family, who lost her father at 11, and now it’s her mum.
11. Dawn Gerrard
Dawn Gerrard was born with a genetic condition she inherited from her father who is also blind, called Aniridia. The condition causes a part of the eye to be under-developed and led to a number of other eye conditions. Dawn was also diagnosed with epilepsy and suffers from three different types of seizures.
She ran for the guide dogs, which was a charity close to her heart. She wanted to give something back to the charity that has helped her so much and that’s how she started running in the London Marathon with her older brother, Chris.
12. Rahaf Khatib
Rahaf Khatib, 34, started a fundraise by running the Boston Marathon on behalf of the Syrian refugees. The reason as to why she started this fundraising for the refugees is because when she look at all the refugees that are in Michigan, she felt that they are in need of so much help. The refugees have no resources, and the charities that do support them have so little. The government doesn’t give them anything so with more fundraising like what Khatib is doing, she feels that it will help the refugees in return.
13. Mina Guli
Mina Guli, 47, decided to run 100 marathons in 100 days to raise awareness of the world’s water crisis. In 2016, she decided to challenge herself by running 7 marathons, on 7 continents. Then in the next year, she upped the ante and decided to run 40 marathons in 40 days. But as the countries continue to struggle with water scarcity, Guli herself knew that she needed to keep on running, which come to a point where she decides to run 100 marathons in 100 days.
Guli said,
I’m going to run until we don’t have a water crisis.
To start something amazing doesn’t have to come from anyone else, it comes from within yourself. Do you know anyone that does amazing things like they do?
