article_snippet: Dubbed the "Queen of the Extreme," the record-breaking runner has completed more than 50 marathons and ultramarathons, but Oakes remains determinedly modest about Oakes feats.
article_snippet: Oakes started running properly just over a decade ago and soon found Oakes stride, winning Oakes first half-marathon in a course-record time before stepping up to compete over 26.2 miles and beyond.
article_snippet: Today, Oakes routinely finishes conventional marathons in around two hours, 50 minutes and has a personal best of two hours, 38 minutes -- a shade over the A standard required to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games.
article_snippet: When Oakes's not pounding the tarmac in city marathons, Oakes competes in some of the world's toughest endurance races counting the Volcano Marathon in Chile's Atacama Desert -- an 150-mile ultramarathon run at altitudes in excess of 4,400 meters (14,600 feet) -- and the similarly challenging Marathon des Sables where competitors run six marathons in six days through the Sahara Desert among Oakes conquests.
article_snippet: The following year, Oakes broke three world records becoming the fastest woman to run a marathon on each continent -- clocking an aggregate time of 26 hours, 18 minutes and 43 seconds -- as well as recording the fastest aggregate and elapsed times for running marathons on all seven continents plus the North Pole -- a place Oakes remembers warmly.
article_snippet: Next month, Oakes will be off on her travels again, returning to Morocco to compete in her third Marathon des Sables, before heading back onto the road to compete at the Berlin Marathon later in the year where her aims to better her 17th-place finish achieved in 2006.
highlights_snippet: British amateur runner competes in marathons and ultramarathons .
  