Chau Smith has run more than 70 marathons in her 70 years of life. For most people, that would be enough. Time to settle down and spend some much deserved lazy days in bed. But Smith didn't want to settle down. She wanted a new challenge, so she joined a group of runners attempting to run 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 different continents. And she pulled it off.
The race was part of the Triple Seven Quest, put on by Marathon Adventures. Between January 25 and 31, Smith and the others joining the quest ran marathons in Perth, Australia; Singapore; Cairo, Egypt; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Garden City, New York; Punta Arenas, Chile; and King George Island, Antarctica. And Smith ran them all wearing a pink pussy hat, according to NBC News.
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There were 8 other people doing the challenge, six of whom ran full marathons during all seven races, and Smith was the oldest in the group. She plans to apply to the Guinness Book Of World Records as the oldest person to run seven marathons in seven days.
In our humble opinion, she completely deserves that spot. Running even one marathon is incredibly hard, and takes months of training.
It can be painful, too, which Smith has no shame hiding. She just chooses to use mindfulness to power through the pain.
"I always try to train in my mind the good things. So even when I'm really in pain, I'm able to think about something else positive," she told NBC News. "So you don't think about, 'Oh my god, it hurts so bad.' You just think about, maybe, the waterfalls, the streams, and the lake."
We're betting it took a whole lot of waterfalls, streams, and lakes to make it through seven marathons in a week.
Read all about how Smith got into running at NBC News.
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