There are endurance athletes — and then there are the athletes who run a marathon every day for over 600 days. Marie “Lootie” Leautey, the fastest woman to run around the world, is in the latter category. Leautey, a business person turned globe-trotting adventurer, ran 17,500 miles across four continents from December 2019 to September 2022, becoming only the second woman and seventh person to cross the globe on foot.
In addition to documenting her journey through her blog, Leautey, a 48-year-old from France, also reflected on the challenges and triumphs of the experience in her book, Lootie’s World Run (Mascot Books, 2025). We talked with Leautey about her inspiration, memorable moments, and why a baby stroller was key to her success.
Q&A: Marie ‘Lootie’ Leautey
GearJunkie: What drove you to attempt this feat?
Marie Leautey: I had lived a very nomadic life since age 20. I went to live and work in many countries around Europe and Asia, where I ended up working as a CFO in Singapore. This nomadic existence was really driving my life. That was the one goal I had: to go around the world one way or another and try to get to know more about different places and cultures.
This idea came to me randomly, like serendipity. I drew this little sketch [during a meeting], without consciously knowing what I was doing, of a globe with a little woman running around it. When I looked at this sketch, I thought it would be a fantastic idea to go on an adventure running around the world.
I went to Google and I found out to my amazement that yes, five men and one woman had run around the world before. So in my head, therefore, it’s possible.
GJ: What did your training look like? How did you know you were physically ready to embark on the expedition?
Leautey: My job happened to be 20 km [12.4 miles] away from my home in Singapore. Every night when I finished with work, I said I will come back home by running. I’m gonna find if my body can be in a comfortable zone. I would see if after a full day of work, I would be able to run these 20 kilometers, and come back fresh the next day and be ready to run again by the evening.
I would use my vacation days to go do three marathons in 3 days, or five marathons in 5 days. I went as far as 8 or 9 days [doing marathons].
GJ: How did preparation for this journey differ from typical endurance running preparation?
Leautey: There was no way I would go into this journey if it was just about suffering and and being in pain and finding it tremendously tiring. I wanted to enjoy this journey.
When you train for a race and run, you give it your all, and you’re expected to suffer and to ignore those signals in your body, and it’s fine after because you can rest and recover. In my case, it was only an afternoon and evening to recover, because the next morning, I would be running a marathon again.
The key for me was to relearn everything. Running with numbers dictating how I feel was not for me. [You have to] listen to every signal your body gives you. I was letting myself run naturally.
GJ: What were the key components of your mentality and attitude that helped you keep going?
Leautey: [I would ask myself], why are you doing this journey? What do I seek out of it, and what is my reward every day? My reward every day is not, “Oh, I’ve done a good time,” or, “I’ve done this better than last week.”
My reward was: Is it fun? Did you discover something new today? Did you see any animals, landscapes, sunrise, sunset, anything that really fed you? Did you meet people that you’ve never met before? Did you create connections?
All of this was part of my daily reward. And I can assure you that in two-and-a-half years of running, there was not one day where I didn’t get a reward.
GJ: You completed this route unsupported. How did you carry and manage all of your gear?
Leautey: [I asked myself] how do I be self-sufficient? I had to find practical answers, and I actually found that a baby stroller was the best way to carry all my gear.
My gear, depending on whether I had my camping gear or not, was anywhere from 12 to 15 kilos [26 to 33 pounds]. The baby stroller went on all sorts of trails, on mountains, on rocks. It crossed the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rockies, the Appalachians. It was really good and comfortable, with shock absorbers.
GJ: In your years of running around the world, you formed many connections with all kinds of people. Tell us about one that still really touches you.
Leautey: I had just finished crossing Montana, and I was coming into North Dakota. I was running along a big empty road. The day before, a small-town paper put me on the front page. It was just an explanation that I was running around the world and currently crossing the region.
The next day on my run, there was this car that swerves past me and stops on the road. This woman comes out of the car, and she’s in a flood of tears. She explains to me, “Look, I read the article yesterday and I didn’t pay much attention to it. This morning, I took off and I drove, and I don’t know where I’m driving. I was trying to find a sign that life was worth living because today is the one-year anniversary of my only son’s death.”
She goes into her purse and takes out a piece of fabric embroidered with the name and the date of death of her son. She puts it in my hand and asks me, “Promise me you’ll take this with you to the end of your journey.” I say yes.
I realize that from now on, she’ll be able to think of her son and think of him brought on the wonderful journey with the runner, going around the world.
GJ: How did writing the book differ from writing your blog during the course of the run?
Leautey: The blog was a daily report. The book was about opening myself up more to how it felt, how it affected me … It’s about telling your values, what you believe, what makes you tick, what keeps you going.
Writing the book was a lot more difficult because writing it is placing the final dot on your journey. If you miss that, you don’t do justice to your journey. If you fail to share, you are failing your journey. I took the book writing very seriously.
GJ: Why do you think so many people connected with or felt inspired by your adventure?
Leautey: Anyone can relate to this journey. It’s about finding this thing that’s powerful enough in you. There is the dream and there is what you do to make it possible. My journey shows that even with the craziest dream, the moment you start working on it, then you are on the road to achieving it.
I have nothing spectacular about me. I’m just a completely random, normal person. But this is what I’m able to achieve because of my mind, because what I’m seeking out is so strong.
We are all flawed. We all have our failures. I’m as flawed as anyone else, but I’ve found this one thing that was essential to my being, and went as far as I could with it.
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