© Tommy Zaferes

Triathlete Katie Zaferes had a storming 2019 season, winning five out of eight World Triathlon Series races to take the ITU Triathlon World Champion title by a huge 849 point margin. The 30-year-old American athlete, who is also the Super League Triathlon champion, went into 2020 focussed on Tokyo Olympics success, but then came COVID-19 and with it an unknown race calendar.

In this Q&A, Katie chats about the challenges of training in lockdown, the uncertainty of an unknown race schedule, and her thoughts on the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics. Plus we dive into the mental aspect of Katie’s elite performance and how the 2016 Rio Olympics led her to focus much more on mental training.

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!

© Sunny Stroeer

Unless you’re embedded in the world of high altitude running, climbing and mountaineering, Sunny Stroeer might not be a name you recognise. The German-born endurance athlete and adventurer has somehow flown under the radar despite setting some incredible endurance records. Although she’s previously raced (and won) 100km and 100-mile events, Sunny’s speciality is solo and unsupported high altitude FKTs – fastest known time records.

Sunny’s speed records include two separate ascents of Aconcagua – the second highest of the seven summits – one via the ‘normal’ route and the other via the 360 route, a 64-mile journey with 17,000ft of elevation gain which takes trekkers 15-18 days. Sunny completed it in under 48 hours.

She also holds records for Nepal’s 136-mile Annapurna Circuit and China’s 100km+ high altitude TransQilian route, which takes place at an altitude of 10,500ft and includes around 50,000ft of elevation change. Sunny ran it in 20 hours 59 minutes, beating the men’s record by four hours.

A Harvard Business School graduate, Sunny previously worked 80-hour weeks in a high-flying corporate career before quitting in 2015 to follow her passion for climbing and adventure. She now lives out of a converted van with her husband in the US and also runs a mountaineering guiding and high altitude adventure company for women, AWExpeditions. Have a read of our email Q&A to find out more about her backstory and incredible achievements.

© 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!*

Markella Mildenberger was fit and active before a routine surgery went wrong in 2011, affecting her ability to walk and leaving her with chronic pain. Life, as she knew it, changed forever and for the next five years, she watched her world unravel. The turning point came in 2016 when Markella learned that her pain was permanent, and she made the decision to start ‘living life again’.

Three years later, whilst looking for a new challenge, and with no mountain bike experience (but a huge amount of pain just sitting on the saddle), Markella, a mountain bike newbie, signed up for one of the world’s most gruelling multi-day MTB events, the BC Bike Race in British Columbia – 7 days, 300km and 10,000m of elevation along some of the sport’s most technical trails – and made a film of her experience: “It’s Just Like Riding A Bike”.

Ahead of the UK premiere on Monday 16 March, which kicks off a week of adventure, wildlife and environmental films at the annual Four Seasons Film Festival, I caught up Markella via email to hear more about her experience.

© Friction Collective

When Mel Nicholls suffered a series of strokes in her twenties, she ended up losing full use of her left side and her ability to walk. She didn’t lose her thirst for adventure or endurance sport, however, and followed her passion for both, becoming a two-time Paralympian and world record holder in track wheelchair racing before moving into marathon racing and handcycling for Great Britain.

Last June, Mel set off on her biggest challenge yet: Handcycle Britain, a world record attempt to break the 10-day female handcycle record for riding 874 miles from Lands End to John O’Groats. She smashed it in an incredible 6 days, 22 hours and 18 minutes, riding a monumental last day of more than 300km!

Mel’s LEJOG achievement is documented in the film “Dream Big” which follows her handcycle record attempt last year. I spoke with Mel ahead of the London Premiere of her film, taking place on Monday 16th March at The Charlotte Street Hotel as part of Four Seasons Film Festival– a boutique festival celebrating storytelling inspired by adventure.

Marathons, ultras, multi-stage races, FKTs – ultrarunner Kristina Madsen has a diverse race CV and the records to prove it. In 2018, the Danish runner set a fastest known time record (FKT) for her ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro, completing it in 6 hours 52 minutes despite living in the relative flatlands of Denmark. And despite being a trail runner first and foremost, a few weeks ago she won the World Marathon Challenge outright, setting a new world record for running 7 marathons on 7 continents in 7 days.

How does she do it? From training for her Kilimanjaro FKT and last year’s 66-mile Bob Graham Round to her meticulous approach to race prep, we cover it all below.

Adventurer Paula Reid has made it her mission to live life to the full. Since her teens, she’s been working through what she calls her ‘Living Life To the Full’ list; challenges and experiences she wants to complete before she dies. So far, she’s completed 118 of them, including mammoth challenges such as skiing 1000km from Messner to the South Pole and sailing 35,000 miles around the world.

Paula is part-way into her latest challenge, ‘50 Good Turns’, which includes cycling across 50 countries and doing a good deed in each. With a Masters in positive psychology, she’s also recently launched a new genre of psychology, adventure psychology, which we cover below.

© Callum Jolliffe

This week the 300-mile Montane Yukon Arctic Ultra is nearing its 8-day cut-off point. Come tomorrow, the few racers who haven’t scratched will have been on the go for 7 days, and Canadian ultrarunner Jessie Gladish knows just what they’re experiencing. Jessie has completed the 300-miler once and is a three-time finisher of the 430-mile distance which runs every other year – last year becoming the first woman to finish it on cross-country skis. It took her almost 12 days.

Set in the frozen, snowy Yukon wilderness in Canada, the race is utterly brutal with temperatures sometimes reaching -50c. Competitors are self-sufficient and the clock never stops as they pull their gear, food, survival kit, bivvy and water behind them in a heavy pulk, sleeping by the trail in bitterly cold temperatures. Days are relentless and dark for up to 14 hours. Frostbite is a real danger. Fascinated by this race, I put some questions to Jessie, who has also completed the 300-mile Iditarod winter ultra in Alaska, on what draws her to the ‘world’s coldest and toughest ultra’.