14-Year-Old Girl Will Finish Seven Marathons on Seven Continents Quest at the Athens Classic Ma

ATHENS, Greece - Nov. 6, 2013 - PRLog -- Winter Vinecki, a 14-year-old American girl, will be the youngest person ever to complete marathons on all seven continents once she crosses the finish line at the Athens Classic Marathon on November 10, announced Marathon Tours & Travel (http://marathontours.com/), a US-based niche travel agency and organizer of the Antarctica Marathon (http://marathontours.com/index.cfm/page/Antarctica-Marathon-and-Half-Marathon/pid/10734) and Seven Continents Club (http://www.sevencontinentsclub.com/).

Vinecki, who entered her first road race at age 5, set her seven 26.2s on seven continents goal in 2009 after her father passed away from an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Team Winter (http://www.prlog.org/pub/), the non-profit organization Vinecki founded as a 9-year-old to raise awareness of the disease and funds for prostate cancer research, has raised approximately $400,000US for the cause so far.

"He kept fighting and never gave in," Vinecki says of her dad, Michael Vinecki, who died at age 40. “I am just out there doing what I need to do for the 1 in 6 men in the world who have prostate cancer.” Vinecki is expected to cross the Athens finish line while raising her arm and pointing in the air -- a gesture Vinecki says she likes to make over every finish line she crosses – as a salutation to her father in the sky.

Vinecki, who lives part-time in Salem, Ore. and Park City, Utah, has completed marathons in the United States, Kenya, Antarctica, Mongolia, Peru and New Zealand.  She placed second or third women overall in four of the marathons and won the women’s division outright at the grueling Inca Trail Marathon to Machu Picchu in Peru.

Last March Vinecki became the youngest person to finish a marathon on Antarctica, the coldest, windiest most formidable continent on earth. “She’s the real deal,” says Thom Gilligan, president of Marathon Tours & Travel, race director of the Antarctica Marathon and founder of the Seven Continents Club. “After seeing first-hand what Winter was able to accomplish at the Antarctica Marathon, I have no doubt she will reach her goal in Athens, fittingly where the sport originated.”

Gilligan created the Seven Continents Club in 1998 to recognize those who have finished marathons on all seven continents. Since then, 489 globetrotting runners have achieved the goal.

An ace student at Stanford University’s prestigious online high school and two-time Ironkids triathlon US champion, Vinecki is also a member of the Fly Elite aerials ski team as a 2018 Olympic hopeful.

Vinecki and her mother, Dr. Dawn Estelle who is also running the Athens Classic Marathon, will be the first mother-daughter team to finish marathons on all seven continents.

For more information on Marathon Tours & Travel, the Antarctica Marathon and the seven Continents Club, please visit www.marathontours.com. For more information on Team Winter, please visit www.teamwinter.org.