© Iko PB Photographer

Last year, Norwegian CrossFit athlete Kristin Holte clocked up a career-best second-place finish at the 2019 CrossFit Games, beating some of the sport’s biggest names to earn the title of second Fittest On Earth. Since then, Kristin’s repeated her national title win, earned a second-place finish at the Filthy 150 event and taken third place in the 2020 CrossFit Open, whilst gearing up for a very different spectator-free CrossFit Games this summer.

In this Q&A, Kristin, a former national pole vault champion and a member of the Norwegian heptathlon team, shares her journey to CrossFit, her training during lockdown, how she prepared for last year’s Games and some of her favourite workouts.

*N.B Kristin answered my questions last month before the controversy surrounding CrossFit’s then CEO Greg Glassman, which is why it is not covered in this interview*

Finishing a 100-mile running event is an unfathomable feat for most of us – an epic ultrarunning milestone that even experienced runners take years to achieve. But not Texas-based runner and amateur IRONMAN triathlete Roni Garrett– Roni achieved her goal in 2017 just three years after running her first marathon!

Here, in her own words, 37-year-old Roni (who competes in marathon, ultra-trail, duathlon, triathlon and aquathlon events) documents her experience running the Brazos Bend 100 race three years ago, sharing what it took to get herself across the finish line after 27 hours of running in minus temperatures.

When an inoperable hip injury crushed Nicole Mericle’s dreams of becoming a professional runner, the talented track and steeplechase athlete was forced to change plans. Her passion for climbing led her to find obstacle course racing in 2016 and, after placing second in the world at the OCR World Championships just months later (despite being a newbie to the sport), it’s fair to say she hasn’t looked back.

Last year, Nicole racked up win after win, ending the 2019 OCR season as the Spartan Race world champion, the OCRWC 3K world champion and Spartan Trifecta world champion. However, it’s climbing that’s her true passion, so we dive into this (along with her love of OCR, the training sessions she swears by, van life, and much more!) in the Q&A chat below.

Thanks, Nicole!

© James Goldsmith

She only started running at the age of 33, but Sarah Sawyer’s journey from novice to race-winning ultrarunner has followed an impressive upwards trajectory and has featured everything from 24-hour track races to multi-stage events and 100-milers. In 2019, Sarah took on Greece’s infamous 153-mile Spartathlon race and ran her way to a brilliant fourth woman finish.

In this Q&A Sarah reveals her how her running journey began, her typical training schedule (when the world isn’t experiencing a pandemic), how her race calendar has changed due to coronavirus, and lots more.

Thanks, Sarah!

© Sean Robinson/Velofocus.com

Last week, 2018 Zwift Academy winner Ella Harris chatted about her pro training schedule and the highs and lows of her transition to life as a pro rider within leading women’s pro cycling team, CANYON//SRAM. This week, we’re back to chat about Ella’s racing experience with the team, a typical day in her life, and the races she’s looking forward to this year.

N.B Ella answered my questions in early February before much of the world went into lockdown.

*You can read part one of Ella’s interview here*

© Sean Robinson/Velofocus.com

When Kiwi cyclist Ella Harris won the 2018 Zwift Academy as a 21-year-old, she also earned something most riders can only dream of: a professional cycling contract at leading women’s pro cycling team CANYON//SRAM.

The move to pro cycling saw Ella up-sticks and relocate thousands of miles away from her home in New Zealand to live in Girona, Spain with her new teammates as CANYON//SRAM’s newest rider. So what’s it like being flung into the world of pro cycling? In this two-part interview, Ella talks about the challenges of the transition, the changes in her training and how she’s adapted to life in Girona.

*Check back next Wednesday for the second part of our interview!*

© David Gonthier

Kiwi trail runner Ruth Croft has won some of the most prestigious and well-known races on the trail running circuit, from the 55km OCC by UTMB, which she’s won for the last two years, to the 42km Mont Blanc Marathon (ditto consecutive years). But she’s also got road speed too, as she proved last year when she swapped her SCOTT trail shoes for road runners and completed a brilliant 2:34:16 time at the Seoul Marathon, earning herself a Marathon World Championships qualification.

If that wasn’t impressive enough, she quickly switched back to the trail in time to take silver at the 2019 Trail World Championship just three months later. Phew! Luckily for me, I caught Ruth ahead of the race season so she had a bit of time to squeeze in answering my questions about her racing, training volume and plans for 2020.

Meet Julia Andersen, endurance sports nut and mum to a 5-year-old daughter. A former GB Masters swimming record-holder, Julia discovered swimrun after her daughter was born and competes as a mixed pair with her husband, Martin. Together they’ve been crowned Breca Swimrun Sprint champions and last year finished the notoriously tough Ötillö World Championship – a mad combination of 6 miles of swimming and 40 miles of technical trail running.

With an impressive talent for endurance, Julia has enjoyed wins in triathlon, aquathlon, open water swimming and swimrun. Below, the 36-year-old tells me where it all started.

© Mark Colon/World Marathon Challenge

In February 2019, British runner Susannah Gill became the fastest woman to complete the 777 World Marathon Challenge, running a marathon on each of the 7 continents in 7 days – in a total time of 24 hours, 19 minutes and 9 seconds. She ran in minus temperatures in snowy Antarctica and through the night in Australia. Her average marathon time was a speedy 3:28, despite running the 7 marathons back-to-back on blurred time zones.

Susannah’s written a book about her experience, Running Around the World – How I Ran 7 Marathons on 7 Continents in 7 Days, which has just launched. Between training, work and book publicity, she made time to answer my questions about this incredible endurance feat, along with what she’s been up to since.

© James Appleton

At the 2019 Spartan Ultra World Championships in snowy Åre, Sweden the temperature dipped to as low as -30° degrees, but this didn’t stop women’s champion Rea Kolbl from smashing out 70 miles across 350 obstacles and 28,000ft of elevation, during the 24-hour race.

How did she do it? I quizzed the dryrobe ambassador about her training and fuelling – after first asking her about her experience racing the 800km Eco-Challenge team adventure expedition race in Fiji last September.