Photo: Rini Sugianto

Ultrarunner Elizabeth Crow’s passion for running inspired her to write a bucket list of endurance adventures in her thirties, but it wasn’t until more than a decade (and two kids) later that she felt inspired to take on the challenges that excited her soul. First came a marathon. Then, ultras followed. And last month, Elizabeth completed her first 100-mile ultra event, adding to her list of race finishes which include the Zion 100K, Javelina Jundred 100K and Race to the King’s 53-miler.

In this email Q&A, California-based Elizabeth shares more about her running journey, alongside her training and tips for would-be ultrarunners. Plus, if you’re after healthy meal inspiration, I highly recommend hopping over to Elizabeth’s Instagram, where she shares recipes and pictures of her delicious meals alongside her training and racing photos.

Today, I’m thrilled to bring you a Q&A with the incredible Jacky Hunt-Broersma, an ultrarunner who’s currently on a mission to run 100 marathons in 100 days in a bid to inspire others and raise money for the non-profit charity Amputee Blade Runners. Jacky lost her leg to cancer (Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer) when she was 26 and runs wearing a prosthetic. She hopes that the funds she raises during this incredible running challenge can be used to give other amputees, including children, the opportunity to be active.

No stranger to ultra-distance events, Jacky has completed multiple ultramarathons and even set a world record in 2020 when she became the first amputee to run 100 miles on a treadmill. All this, and she only began running six years ago!

Now on marathon 38 out of 100, which she fits in alongside coaching work, professional speaking and parenting, Jacky is due to finish her momentous marathon running challenge on the 27th of April. Please do visit her charity giving page here: www.gofundme.com/f/100-marathons-in-100-days.

Thank you for the inspiration, Jacky!

© Mikayla Lyles

I’m thrilled to have American ultra-endurance cyclist Sam Scipio on Lessons in Badassery today! Sam discovered cycling at college, and since her twenties has raced cyclocross, road, crit, gravel and mountain bike. However, she’s most at home riding a single-speed (no gears!) mountain bike a very long way on gnarly terrain with unreasonably high levels of elevation gain.

In 2018, Sam was the second woman across the line and sixth overall at the Trans North Georgia Adventure mountain bike race – a 357-mile self-supported race featuring 56,000ft of elevation, which she completed on a single-speed MTB. A year later, she joined the adventure racing team, Team Onyx, and took on Bear Grylls’ gruelling Eco-Challenge in Fiji, a non-stop adventure race covering 400 miles of jungle, mud-clogged trails, rivers and mountain passes, on foot and via climbing, mountain bike, raft and paddleboard. Significantly, Team Onyx made history as the first all-black expedition racing team.

A designer by trade, Sam has recently launched her bike frame building business, Jubilee Manufacturing, so check out her website at Jubileemfg.com. In the meantime, have a read of our email Q&A, where we cover Sam’s journey into cycling, her go-to strategies for low moments, and her experience preparing for and taking on the brutal Eco-Challenge.

When travel writer Amy Aed was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at 15, she knew little about the incurable autoimmune disease. Getting to grips with her diagnosis and its day-to-day impact on her health was a struggle, but six years on, with dreams of completing an expedition, Amy hatched an epic plan: to become the first person in history to walk the length of the Danube River, from source to sea. 

The 1770-mile journey takes in ten countries and sees Amy walk around 35km a day. Having started her journey on the 1st September 2021, she currently has four countries still to cross and is due to finish her challenge in February, although she’s currently resting due to a hip injury.

I caught up with her via email to find out more about her Danube adventure.

©  @FuryPhotography

It’s a brand new year, and I’m thrilled to have Australian CrossFit pro Kara Saunders as my first interview of 2022! Kara has been a fixture on the CrossFit scene for over a decade, notching up nine CrossFit Games appearances, including a second-place podium spot in 2017. In 2019, she welcomed her first child, daughter Scotti, into the world (check out Kara’s Instagram to see Scotti join her in their home gym), and less than six months later, she came 12th in the 2020 CrossFit Games Open.

Last year, after placing third in the 2021 worldwide open, Covid then got in the way – literally – as Kara contracted the virus in July whilst in transit from Australia to the 2021 CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin. Still suffering from the after-effects (which included reduced lung capacity), she was forced to retire early.

I caught up with the inov-8 athlete over email to chat about her reflections on the past year, what her training looks like with a toddler in tow, and how she juggles being an athlete, parent and business owner.

© Morgan Maassen

Growing up on a remote island in French Polynesia, surfing was a fun, family pastime for Tahitian surfing champ Vahine Fierro. Despite not competing until the age of 14 (when she moved to Tahiti for high school), she quickly became one to watch, and within a year, had surfed Teahupo’o – widely considered one of the world’s heaviest and most dangerous waves. (Incidentally, also the location for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games surfing competitions). 

At the age of 18, on a wildcard entry, Vahine was crowned Junior Pro World Champion. Then, at 19, she won Surfer Magazine’s Best Barrel (women) award. Now she has her sights set on achieving Rookie of the Year in 2022.

Once you’ve read our Q&A, check out filmmaker Morgan Maassen’s short film, Goddesses, below, which goes behind the scenes of Tahitian life for Vahine and her surfing sisters, Heimiti and Kohai.

I last caught up with ultra-endurance cyclist Amanda Coker in 2018, hot on the heels of her record-breaking HAM’R (Highest Annual Mileage Record). You can read the interview here, but to summarise, Amanda rode an average of 237 miles every day for 365 days in order to smash the highest annual mileage record (male and female), clocking up an incredible 86,573.2 miles. Then, instead of taking a well-earned day off to celebrate, Amanda continued riding for an additional 58 days to break the 100,000-mile record, ticking off this immense milestone in a total of 423 days.

Fast-forward to the 23^rd of October this year, and Amanda rode herself into the record books once again, this time by breaking the women’s 24-hour distance record. Riding a 28-mile out-and-back route on open roads in Florida, USA, Amanda cycled 512.5 miles, obliterating the previous women’s record by 73.5 miles, and in the process making history as the first woman to break 500 miles in 24-hours. Not only that, but despite the shorter records not being her main focus, the 29-year-old American broke the following ten records* on the way: fastest 100km, 100 miles, 200km, 200 miles, 300km, 300 miles, 500km, and 500 miles, as well as new distance records for 6 hours and 12 hours. Phew!

I caught up with Amanda to get the lowdown of how it all happened.

© Tristan Bogaard

For most of us, 100 miles on a bike is a very long way. For Lael Wilcox, ultra-endurance cyclist and Komoot ambassador, that’s barely a day’s racing. Long is Lael’s forte. The 35-year-old adventure cyclist’s endurance endeavours include winning – outright – the 4,400-mile 2016 Trans-Am race, which she finished in 18 days in 2016, and holding the women’s self-supported FKT for the 2745-mile Tour Divide, an off-road route following the Rocky Mountains from Banff in Canada to the Mexico border.

Whilst most people like to arrive rested for a record attempt, Lael chose to cycle 2100 miles from Anchorage in Alaska, her home state, to reach the Tour Divide start line in 2015. After developing bronchitis during her Tour Divide attempt, she rode herself to an emergency room mid-ride with the clock ticking and still broke the FKT record. Not satisfied with her new record time, however, Lael returned two weeks later to ride the 2745-mile route again, breaking her own record by a day and a half. Oh, and this time her warm-up was an 850-mile ride to the start line. 

You might imagine someone with Lael’s talent having grown up riding, but the American only took up cycling in her early 20s, first to commute, then to explore the world. And by explore the world, I mean ride 150,000+ miles across 40 countries before she entered her first race. 

More recently, in August this year, Lael led an all-women group on the self-supported Komoot Torino-Nice Rally, a 700K route through Italy and France, accumulating 15,000m of climbing over the week of riding. I got the chance to quiz Lael about this, and many other things, in the Q&A below. 

Officially the highest-paid female American footballer of all time, 29-year-old Santia Deck negotiated plenty of bumps in the road to find herself where she is today. Injuries devastated her early dream of becoming a professional track athlete and later ended her hope of trying out for the Tokyo Olympic US Rugby sevens squad. However, her sporting career finally fell into place when she was headhunted in 2019 by Los Angeles Fames owner, Lupe Rose, to play American football in the new Women’s Football League Association (the women’s equivalent of the NFL) in a history-making, multimillion-dollar deal.

Behind the scenes, Santia was already several years into building her business empire, first as a fitness trainer and social media expert, and more recently as the CEO of her sneaker brand, TRONUS (in the process becoming the first female athlete to own their own sneaker brand.) 

While Covid has put the launch of the WFLA on the backburner for now, Santia’s training hasn’t stopped, and in this Q&A, we discuss how she went from star track athlete to history-making American footballer and company CEO.

Ultrarunner Sophie Power made headlines in 2018 when a photo of her breastfeeding her then 3-month-old son during the 106-mile Ultra-Trail Du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) went viral. Undoubtedly, you’ll have seen the iconic image (below), but you may not know that Sophie had previously lost a place at the 2014 UTMB when pregnant with her first child due to UTMB’s policy on race referral. 

Not wanting to lose another opportunity to run UTMB, Sophie (whose race finishes include the Marathon des Sables and the 153-mile Spartathlon) toed the line at the 2018 race – three months after giving birth to baby Cormac and whilst breastfeeding. Since then, she has campaigned for races to allow women to defer their places until they have recovered from pregnancy and childbirth.

Now a mum of three, Sophie continues to share honest accounts of her own experiences of postnatal life, including the challenges that women often face when returning to running after childbirth. Many of these are included in the short film Pregnancy to Performance, made with HOKA, which documents her postpartum return to running following the birth of her daughter, Saoirse, last November.

In this Q&A, we chat about the story behind that UTMB photo, how Sophie fits training into a busy life alongside work, campaigning and three kids, and her mental strategies for approaching tough times in races.