Samantha Gash doesn’t just run. She traverses deserts, scales Himalayan ridgelines, and pounds across continents – driven not just by stamina, but by a stubborn belief that movement can move the world. “I’m not an athlete. I’m too small to be strong.”
That’s the story she once told herself. Signing up for her first ultramarathon was supposed to be a personal dare – the sort of illogical challenge that forces you to find out what you’re made of. Instead, it became a complete rewiring of how she saw her limits. “The real challenge wasn’t my legs, it was my mind,” she says. “Growth comes from catching those limiting beliefs and staying with the unfamiliar long enough for it to change you.”
From Corporate Law To A New Mission
It’s a lesson she’s carried far beyond the start line. A former corporate lawyer, Gash traded a stable career for a life of unpredictable terrain – literally. What began as a quest for personal endurance evolved into a purpose-driven mission: tackling the world’s toughest environments to spotlight the girls and communities most often left behind.
That mission is at the heart of her role as a World Vision goodwill ambassador and her support for the charity’s 1000 Girls campaign – an annual initiative that began in 2018 to raise the voices of girls in need and give Australians tangible ways to change their futures through child sponsorship. “It’s not just about telling stories,” Gash says. “It’s about changing them – with people you trust, standing alongside these girls in ways that last.”
Her pivot from law to ultramarathons might sound extreme, but for her it was a natural – if daunting – progression. “Stability can keep you in spaces where you’ve stopped growing,” she reflects. “I wanted to get closer to people’s lived experiences, not just their stories on paper. I remember thinking, ‘If I want something I’ve never had, I have to do something I’ve never done before.’ That’s not just a motivational line, it’s the way I live now.” She found that connection in the most unlikely places: sand-blasted deserts, storm-lashed mountain passes, tiny villages high in the Himalayas.
When the World Becomes The Classroom
In 2016, she ran 3800km across India with World Vision – a 77-day odyssey that raised almost $200,000 for six education-focused programs. Along the way, she shared the journey online, drawing a global audience to see the barriers children in India face in accessing schooling. The run became a window into the lives of the students, parents and teachers she met – their challenges, hopes and hurdles.
It was in one remote town, Pauri, where the abstract became unshakably personal. A young woman with a disability – someone Gash was told was never allowed to be seen in public – joined her for a meal. “Her eyes were wide, a mix of apprehension and gratitude. It hit me that empowerment doesn’t always start with grand gestures. Sometimes, it begins with the smallest act of inclusion.”
Spend enough time in the field and you learn that advocacy isn’t quick, photogenic or easy to measure. “True change means shifting the systems around a girl’s life, not just her immediate needs,” Gash says. For World Vision, that means the basics of safety, education and community-led change.
“If a girl isn’t safe, nothing else can take root. But it’s not enough to get girls into classrooms, we have to make those classrooms places where they can thrive.” Her runs, she insists, are not the point – they’re the spark. “The challenge itself is never the end point. The work starts long before the start line and continues long after the finish. That’s how you turn awareness into something tangible, not just a moment in the media cycle.”
Beyond The Finish Line: Advocacy s Endurance
How does Gash keep going when her body is screaming to stop? Perspective. “I’ve met girls whose daily lives require a persistence that makes my challenges feel different in scale,” she says. “Remembering those conversations doesn’t make the pain disappear, but it shifts the story in my head from ‘this is too hard’ to ‘I can take the next step – and how lucky am I that I get to do this?’”
That mindset – resilience as adaptability rather than invincibility – also runs through her Her Trails, the women’s endurance community she co-founded. “Strength and vulnerability can coexist,” she says. “Being human, not untouchable, is what makes bravery accessible. I want women to see that you don’t have to wait until you feel ready. You just have to start – messy, uncertain and real.”
Motherhood And The Meaning of Impact
Motherhood, too, has shaped her mission. In 2023, she traversed Nepal’s Great Himalaya Trail – a 50-day expedition with a focus on financial and digital literacy for rural girls. She took her son, Harry, for the preacclimatisation phase. “We’d sit with the map, and he’d trace the line I was about to walk. It made the expedition something we both held a piece of,” she says. “I don’t want him to think impact is abstract. I want him to see that caring is active and that we each have a role to play.”
Leadership Starts Where You Are
If Gash has her way, her legacy will be less about the kilometres she’s clocked and more about the doors they’ve helped open. “For the next generation of changemakers, I want to prove that leadership can be human – that you can push boundaries without leaving yourself behind,” she says. And if she can inspire people to take that first, imperfect step towards a purpose-driven life? All the better. “Purpose grows through action, not theory. Start where your values meet what you can offer right now. Build from there. You don’t need the whole map – just the courage to take the next step.”
For the 21 million women and girls in Afghanistan, the 12-year-old in rural India, the young woman with a disability finally invited to dinner – the ripple effect of that approach is the real finish line. And Gash, unsurprisingly, has no plans to stop running towards it.
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