© Bikingman

Bring up the topic of tough triathlons and for most people ‘Ironman’ comes to mind. However, for the crazy few, like French lawyer, Perrine Fages, there’s a bigger challenge to complete: the Enduroman Arch to Arc, a brutal event that starts with an 87-mile run from Marble Arch in London to Dover, followed by a swim of the English Channel and, finally, a 181-mile cycle from Calais to the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.

To date, only 34 athletes have completed the challenge. Yet, in August 2018, Perrine not only finished the event but set a new women’s world record (wetsuit swim) in the process. I grabbed some time with Perrine to get the details and to find out why she’s drawn to such immense endurance challenges.

© Pete Scullion

Guiding riders across some of the Europe’s best mountain bike trails is all in a day’s work for Julia Hobson, who has spent the last six years working as a mountain bike guide. No stranger to racing either, Julia has completed seriously testing MTB and enduro events such as the Megavalanche, Nepal’s Yak Attack and the Andes-Pacifico, where she came third.

Julia, who recently launched her own guiding business, Endless Trails, first fell in love with mountain biking while living in Sheffield as a student and continues to support the area as an ambassador for Ride Sheffield who maintain and build local and Peak District trails.

© Joel Caldwell

When Lizzie Carr was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 25, it inadvertently kick-started a journey that led to her discover paddleboarding, set two world records and use adventure as a vehicle to raise awareness of plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans.

Lizzie, who was the first person to stand-up paddleboard the length of Great Britain (400 miles) and the English Channel, went on to set up Plastic Patrol, a nationwide campaign to clean up our waterways, and an accompanying app enabling the public to document their plastic finds. I chatted to Lizzie about her experiences, including last September’s challenge to SUP 170 miles along the length of the Hudson River, from Albany, New York to the Statue of Liberty.

I’d like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and also thank you for reading Lessons in Badassery this year. I have lots of exciting projects planned in 2019 to bring you access to even more incredible women in sport, fitness and adventure, so stay tuned.

I’m taking a little break over Christmas week so my next post will run on New Year’s Day.

Have a wonderful Christmas and see you in 2019!

Katie x

Edwina Sutton is a coach and ultra-runner whose achievements include taking silver medal at the British 100km Championships, competing at the Ironman World Championship in Kona and winning the South Downs Way 50 mile ultra. She is also mother to three children aged 3, 6 and 8, and lives with her husband and family in Morzine, in the French Alps.

Here, Eddie shares some brutally honest chat about the demands and joys of being a mum and ultra-runner, and just how crazy the juggling act is.

© Alastair Staley

A veteran of the CrossFit Games, Annie Thorisdottir is one of the sport’s most recognisable faces. She was the first woman to win the CrossFit Games twice, after being crowned ‘Fittest Woman on Earth’ in 2011 and 2012, and has stood on the podium four times. But ‘Iceland Annie’ isn’t done yet.

Here, the Polar brand ambassador shares her goal for 2019, chats about ‘contrast bathing’ and reveals how practicing positivity has helped her overcome setbacks.

Having spent a decade writing the beauty, health and fitness pages on women’s online and print magazines as well as running her own digital consultancy, Yanar Alkayat recently joined Women’s Health and Runner’s World as commercial digital editor managing all branded health and fitness content.

When she’s not busy creating digital content for fitness, nutrition and wellness brands the 39-year-old is usually training for a marathon or two and lifting heavy weights at her local CrossFit gym in London. Here, she explains how she juggles it.

© Jeff Liu

In August 2018, 100 seasoned adventure-loving endurance cyclists gathered for the start of the inaugural Silk Road Mountain Race, a fixed route, 1700km unsupported bikepacking race across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan via crumbling old soviet roads, single and double track gravel, remote mountain villages and 26,000m of mountainous ascent. Only 29 riders finished, including Canadian endurance adventurer (and former blog guest) Jenny Tough, who battled through snow blizzards, altitude and hike-a-bike terrain to finish in 13 days as first solo lady.

As someone who’s run solo and self-supported across Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan Mountains, Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and, most recently, the Bolivian Andes, Jenny is no stranger to demanding endurance challenges (as you may remember from her last blog interview). So what was her Silk Road Mountain Race experience like? And was it as brutal as it looked? Jenny spills the beans below.

P.S Registration for next year’s SRMR is open until 31 December. #justsaying

When Francesca Eyre started running she found the trails helped her briefly escape the sadness of losing two of her siblings to cystic fibrosis and her mother to cancer. After entering her first ultra, Francesca, who runs the successful Chilly Powder ski chalets in Morzine, signed up to run the 220km multi-day Manaslu trail race in Nepal in 2014, in memory of her mother and to raise money for cystic fibrosis charities.

Francesca has since completed a host of endurance events including the difficult and technically demanding 110km ski-mountaineering race, Patrouille de Glaciers, and the 169km road bike race, the Etape du Tour. I’d urge you to watch the moving Searching for Pearls video below, which shares Francesca’s story more beautifully than I could try to.

© Matt Georges

Slopestyle snowboarder Aimee Fuller is a two-time Olympian who has represented GB at the Sochi and Pyeongchang Olympic Games. A boarder since the age of 12, she was the first woman to land a double backflip and a cab double 900. *High-five!*

As we head into the winter season, the 27-year-old Roxy ambassador lets me quiz her on (amongst other things) strength training, future plans and cycling up Mount Etna.