What does it feel like to swim wetsuit-free in ice-cold water surrounded by glaciers? For Icelandic ice swimmer Birna Hrönn it’s a form of relaxation and escape. Birna swims in zero and sub-zero temperatures in oceans, lakes and rivers, and has loved cold water for as long as she can remember. Last year, she won her age group at the International Ice Swimming Association Arctic Cup World Championship (1000m freestyle), although being competitive is not her motivation for cold water swimming and she doesn’t enjoy it.

Birna kindly let me quiz her about her passion for cold water swimming for the Q&A below, but I’d also encourage you to check out Endurance Sports TV’s beautiful documentary about her love for ice swimming, Birna: The Woman who Swims in Ice, which follows Birna around her native Iceland which is truly stunning. 

Obviously, Birna has years of experience swimming in cold water and has built up her resilience over time, so choose your own water escapades carefully!

Coast Ultra Xtreme winner, Julia Davis, is a former road marathon runner (2:39 PB) who switched to ultra trail distances two years ago. Since then she has set a new women’s course record for the South Downs Way 50 (6:54) – her first 50-mile race! – finished 4th woman at Cape Town’s Ultra Trail World Tour, and claimed a Fastest Known Time on the 39-mile Mid-Sussex Link.

Last month Julia won the 3-day Coast Ultra Xtreme race, her first multi-day event, which included a combined 80-mile distance and 5000m+ of elevation. You can watch the documentary about it, The Ultra Mindset, which features Julia, via Endurance Sports TV if you’re a subscriber. 

In the meantime, read our Q&A where I quiz Julia on her love of hills, her fuelling strategy, and typical training schedule.

In 2018 adventure-loving rower Claire Hughes set a new Atlantic rowing world record in the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic challenge, as the only woman in the four-person team, Team Tyne Innovation. Overcoming exhaustion and 40ft waves, the team rowed 2-hours on and 2-hours off for 42 days to break the mixed fours team record by 14 days.

Now, two years later, Claire is preparing for a new row which, if successful, will see her and her expedition teammates claim a world first. Described as ‘the last great first’, the Northwest Passage is a 2000-mile Arctic route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. With extreme Arctic conditions, unpredictable ice and polar bears, only three attempts have been made this century to row it, all of which have been unsuccessful.

To find out more about this incredible expedition (due to begin next year) and how she’s preparing for it, I put some questions to Claire about the demands and dangers of attempting the Northwest Passage row.

© Cary Johnson

I am so excited to bring you my interview with American ultrarunning legend Pam Reed! Pam was the first woman to win Badwater 135 outright in 2002 before repeating her outright win a second time the following year. Pam will be 60 in February and is still crushing (and winning) 100-milers – she has finished a mind-blowing 98 100-mile events. Her goal is to have one hundred 100-milers under her belt before her 60^th birthday!

Pam, who lives in Jackson, Wyoming, was the first person on record to run 300 miles without any sleep and has broken American records in 24-hour, 48-hour and six-day running events. She really is incredible. I hope you enjoy our chat in which Pam recalls her Badwater days and shares more about her ultrarunning approach and achievements.

Former Olympic heptathlete, Louise Hazel, was an integral part of Team GB and won Commonwealth gold before retiring in 2013. Louise now lives and works in LA, training Hollywood clients through her female-focused gym, Slay, on Hollywood Boulevard. 

When she’s not training or putting high profile clients through their paces, Louise is also a podcast host, TV presenter, and racial equality advocate. This summer she published an open letter to the fitness industry, signed by 120 professional women of colour who work within it, to address racial inequality and representation within the industry. As part of this, Louise put together The Playbook, featuring guidance and solutions as to how inequality can be addressed in all areas of the industry, from working environment to hiring.

© Finisher Pix

Former military engineer Caroline Livesey was a successful age group triathlete before turning pro in 2015, and subsequently racing to a 2nd place finish at IRONMAN UK the same year. More recently, Scottish-born Caroline took a nail-biting win at XTRI’s gruelling iron-distance Canadaman/woman race last year. 

Dubbed one of the toughest extreme triathlons, the course races point-to-point across Quebec’s beautiful Mégantic region and includes a 3.8km swim followed by a 180km bike (accumulating 2500m of elevation) and, finally, a trail marathon with 1500m of vertical gain!

Rewind four years and Australian Kelli Jackson harboured a dream to one day ride a unicycle across the world. However, in her own words, Kelli was an ‘overweight, middle-aged smoker who couldn’t walk up a hill’ and had never ridden a unicycle, let alone trained on one. This didn’t stop her. Four years and many major life changes later, 52-year-old Kelli has unicycled across Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea – the first person in the world outside North Korea to do so – and has many more worldwide unicycling adventures planned.

In this Q&A, Kelli shares the impetus behind her goal to unicycle the world, plus the tricky logistics of riding a one-wheel bike without handlebars up and down hills whilst carrying luggage. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story, Kelli.

American CrossFit athlete Breona Evans Wallin is a six-time CrossFit Regionals athlete and a former contestant on The Rock’s Titan Games. A former gymnast and competitive cheerleader, Breona discovered CrossFit seven years ago and now squeezes in several hours of training each day at CrossFit Identity, the box her husband owns in Atlanta, alongside her fulltime job as an accountant.  

In between working and training, 29-year-old Breona took time out for quick-fire Q&A about her training, background and CrossFit experience to date. Thanks, Breona!

© Holmlands by Matt Grayson

Professional skier, climate change advocate, storyteller and mother, Izzy Lynch, has been skiing since she was a child and started ski racing at the age of nine. As an adult, she competed on the Freeride World Tour and since retiring from competing has focused on backcountry skiing, combining her love of powder adventures with her talent for filmmaking.

Based in the mountain town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, Izzy features in Holmlands’ latest film project, The Revelstoke Diaries (watch the trailer below), set to be released online on Sunday.  With a new winter just around the corner, we caught up with Izzy, who is mum to three-year-old Knox, ahead of the release of the project to learn more about her life in the Columbia Mountains, the work she does with Protect Our Winters Canada and her upcoming film, Motherload.

© Chris Milliman/Red Bull

If you’re a mountain bike or cyclocross fan, you’ll know Ellen Noble. The talented American CX pro is known not only for her technical skills, such as being able to ‘bunny-hop’ cyclocross barriers (lifting the front and then back wheel to allow you to ‘hop’ over obstacles), but for being an equality advocate and supporter of aspiring young riders. However, behind the scenes, Ellen, whose career has seen a staggering 21 UCI podiums and multiple national titles, has spent the last two years battling an invisible illness behind the scenes.

As the 24-year-old revealed in an Instagram post earlier this year, in 2018, after she’d enjoyed a successful start to the race season, ‘the lights went out’ on her health and she spent the next two years searching for answers. Eventually, Ellen was diagnosed as having Hashimoto’s, an incurable autoimmune disease related to thyroid function, which has turned her life and racing career on its head. Very kindly, Ellen agreed to chat about her experience in this Q&A, along with her future plans for her coveted Quest cyclocross camp for young women, and what’s making her smile right now (spoiler: it’s dogs).