Roe was born in
Auckland in 1956. In 1981, she won both the
Boston Marathon and
New York City Marathon, becoming the second of only two women to accomplish the feat in the same year. In Boston, she ran 2:26:46 to improve the course record by almost eight minutes, set the previous year by
Jacqueline Gareau. In New York, she set a world best women's marathon time with 2:25:29, to break
Grete Waitz's time of 2:25:42 from the 1980 New York Marathon. However, after re-measurement, the 1981 course was found to be 150 metres short, though Waitz's 1980 record is also disputed. Also in 1981, she set a 20 km world record in
Miyazaki,
Japan. In the
1993 Queen's Birthday Honours, Roe was appointed a
Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to athletics. In 2010, she was inducted into the
New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame. ==Political career==