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HILLSBORO, Ore. (KPTV) — From training in her Hillsboro neighborhood to finishing a marathon in Antarctica, Ginny Turner has truly run all around the world.
Running is life for Turner, who has finished 208 marathons – including three ultra-marathons – as well as 147 half-marathons.
“A lot of people do races, but then when I put them all together like this, yeah, it can be overwhelming at times,” she said.
Running sparks joy for the 66-year-old retiree who lives in Hillsboro and is a grandmother to six.
“It puts a smile on my face every morning,” she said, adding that she also likes the “bling” in the form of all those marathon medals.
Turner has raced in all 50 states twice, all seven continents twice, all the providences and territories of Canada and the North Pole.
She’s been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records and recently scratched off her last major bucket list item.
“We started in Antarctica on the 31st of January, then we came back to Cape Town, South Africa and did number two and there was a 100-degree difference in the temperatures between those two,” she said.
Turner also racked up a half-marathon on seven continents in seven days during the fifth-annual World Marathon Challenge, going from hub to hub in a chartered plane with 40 other global thrill seekers.
“Our jet was our hotel. We slept there. We ate there. We were race ready when we got off the plane,” she said.
Turner said she worked two jobs, raised her children and only started running by accident. Now she is using her accomplishments to bring attention and funding for the Portland-based Operation Walk: Freedom to Move, an organization performing knee and hip replacements in developing countries.
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