© 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.

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.

© 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’.

© Joe O’Connell-Danes

Given Lou Gibson’s lengthy list of cycling achievements (which include riding the entire Tour de France one day ahead of the pros with the InternationElles, and representing Great Britain at Grand Fondo racing) you’d be forgiven for assuming that she’d been attached to a bike from a very early age. But in actual fact, the events manager got to the age of 31 without having owned one.

Here, Lou tells me how a running injury and the breakdown of her marriage inadvertently kicked off her cycling journey, plus she shares the highs and lows of riding 3460km during last year’s InternationElle’s Tour de France ride for equality.

For American Liz Warner, an impending 30th birthday milestone was an opportunity to plan something that would mix her passions for adventure and social change. In January last year, with 10 marathons already under her belt, Liz launched a fundraising project: Run to Reach, with the aim of running 30 marathons in 30 countries before her 30th birthday, whilst supporting different female-focused NGOs (non-government organisations) in each country.

With only 5 left to run before her birthday, Liz, who lives in Paris, spared some time to tell me about the project and her experience so far.

© 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.

© David Styv/BikingMan

When 44-year-old Australian Julie Melville crossed the finish line of last year’s non-stop BikingMan Taiwan ultracycling race she had ridden 1150km with 20,000m of vertical elevation, unsupported, along a route that included 90km of one of the world’s longest and most feared climbs: the Taroko climb.

Overcoming severe cold and sleep deprivation, Julie was the first and only female finisher and set a new course record despite it being a tougher course. It took her 114 hours and 41 minutes. Below she chats about her background, training, and just how tough it got in Taiwan.