Sally Orange MBE

Endurance Athlete, Motivational Speaker & Mental Health Campaigner

Former British Army Major, Sally Orange MBE, is an endurance athlete, motivational speaker and mental health campaigner, who holds the unique distinction of being the only person on the planet to have completed a marathon on every continent dressed as different pieces of a fruit! 

Sally joined the British Army in 1998 and completed 22 years exemplary service in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Physiotherapy Officer. This included an operational tour of duty in Afghanistan treating severely wounded service personnel. 

After retiring from the Army on medical grounds, Sally has devoted her time to fund-raising and campaigning about mental health and has raised nearly £1m for charity. Having faced her own challenges with severe depression and chronic anxiety, Sally is passionate about tackling the stigma around mental ill health.   

In Sally’s own words, her colourful and flavoursome choice of costumes “firstly make people smile and secondly, opens conversations about my desire to break the stigma and change the narrative surrounding mental ill health.” 

Sally holds six Guinness World Records and four Invictus games medals.  She has run over 80 marathons, including the infamous Marathon des Sables and brutal World Marathon Challenge whereby she ran 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 consecutive days.  She founded and captained the first British female team to complete the relentless Race Across America and was a member of the successful team who hold the Arch to Arc ultra-triathlon record.  She has cycled the length of New Zealand, rowed and swam the English Channel, climbed numerous 6000m+ mountains, skied 250km across the largest plateau in the Arctic Circle and run the length of Iceland – whilst dressed as a pod of peas!

Sally was awarded an MBE for her services to charity and mental health in King Charles III’s first Birthday Honours List in 2023 and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham.  Passionate about championing young people, she is the first and only female National Ambassador for Army Cadets UK.