© Chris Milliman/Red Bull

If you’re a mountain bike or cyclocross fan, you’ll know Ellen Noble. The talented American CX pro is known not only for her technical skills, such as being able to ‘bunny-hop’ cyclocross barriers (lifting the front and then back wheel to allow you to ‘hop’ over obstacles), but for being an equality advocate and supporter of aspiring young riders. However, behind the scenes, Ellen, whose career has seen a staggering 21 UCI podiums and multiple national titles, has spent the last two years battling an invisible illness behind the scenes.

As the 24-year-old revealed in an Instagram post earlier this year, in 2018, after she’d enjoyed a successful start to the race season, ‘the lights went out’ on her health and she spent the next two years searching for answers. Eventually, Ellen was diagnosed as having Hashimoto’s, an incurable autoimmune disease related to thyroid function, which has turned her life and racing career on its head. Very kindly, Ellen agreed to chat about her experience in this Q&A, along with her future plans for her coveted Quest cyclocross camp for young women, and what’s making her smile right now (spoiler: it’s dogs).

Regular readers will remember I last interviewed French lawyer Perrine Fages back in 2018 when we chatted about her incredible Arch to Arc world record, which involved running 87 miles from London’s Marble Arch to Dover, swimming the English Channel and then cycling 181 miles to Paris (I know!). Since then, Perrine hasn’t stopped – she took the crown of the BikingMan Ultra 2018 women’s champion, ran the Oman by UTMB ultra, gravel biked the Annapurna route self-supported and last week completed a relay swim of the English Channel in a swimsuit.

In March this year, Perrine joined fellow ultracyclist Steven Le Hyaric in attempting a crossing of Siberia’s frozen Lake Baikal by bike. Their 635km ride, which took place in -30°C temperatures, was cut short due to the unusually snowy conditions (it’s usually ice, not snow) which delayed their journey and risked Perrine missing her flight home for work. To find out more about this and Perrine’s Himalayan cycle adventure, I put some questions to her via email.

© Yoshi Tanaka

I’m thrilled to have American pro surfer Nique Miller as today’s Lessons in Badassery interview. Nique resides in Waikiki, Hawaii (check out her Instagram handle for crystal clear turquoise ocean shots) and is self-taught in both longboarding and stand-up paddle surfing. She competes in both and reached a ranking of fifth in the world in stand-up paddle surfing in 2018.

To find out more about Nique’s surfing, I caught up with her via email where she shared details of her pro career so far, including the reality of choosing between entering a contest or paying rent, and the sponsorship challenges of being an Afro-Latina surfer. Nique also reveals her typical day in Waikiki and her aspirations to pave the way for minority surfers as she moves towards her first world title win.

© Skyrunner World Series

American ultrarunner Brittany Peterson is on fire. Last year, the 34-year-old moved from short, technical Skyrunner World Series races to the ultimate benchmark of the 100-mile distance: the Western States Endurance Run, where she battled it out with eventual winner Clare Gallagher to place second and record the fourth-fastest women’s time in history.

Then, in June of this year, Brittany and her ultrarunning partner, Cody Lind, set a new fastest known time (FKT) on Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail, a super-gnarly, 300-mile route that accumulates almost 40,000ft in elevation gain. It took the couple four days, 9 hours, 27 minutes and 18 seconds, and at one point, due to 94 per cent humidity and an electrolyte issue, Brittany was peeing blood for six hours. Gulp.

As you’ll see from this email Q&A, Brittany is a total badass and I’m thrilled to have her on Lessons in Badassery.

© Matthew Hoffman

Eight years ago, Favia Dubyk was halfway through medical school and making great strides in her side passion of bouldering when she developed problems breathing when lifting her arms. After investigative surgery and an initial misdiagnosis, she was told she had Hodgkin lymphoma and subsequently spent six months bedbound during chemotherapy, which left her so weak that even opening the refrigerator door was a struggle.

A passionate climber, Favia used her return to bouldering as a goal during her recovery. Seven years after her last surgery, she is a kickass climber and qualified pathologist, and on the side, runs the blog Traverse Girl, a guide to the best bouldering traverses in the US, from her home in New Mexico. A two-time Ninja Warrior contestant, Favia also has insane upper body strength – check out her weighted pull-up and one-arm pull-up videos on Instagram after you’ve read our Q&A!

© Colin Clarke

In 2017, Jacqui Bell hit rock bottom after enduring a downward spiral that included breaking multiple bones and becoming addicted to prescription pain killers. Struggling to find a reason to get out of bed, she signed up for a crazy challenge that would change the direction of her life – to complete four multi-day ultramarathons across the world’s most inhospitable deserts, from the Namibian Desert to Antarctica, the Atacama Desert and the Gobi Desert.

With just eight months to train, Jacqui threw herself into the world of ultrarunning and at the age of 23, became the youngest woman to finish Racing the Planet’s Four Deserts Grand Slam. Since then, Jacqui, who is an Ultra X pro athlete, has become the youngest person in the world to run an ultramarathon on all seven continents. I caught up with her via email to find out more about how it all came about.

© Suguru Saito/Red Bull Content Pool

Twenty-year-old BMX star Saya Sakakibara is no stranger to hard work. The half-British, half-Japanese athlete, who grew-up between Japan and Australia, has been competing since she was four, after joining her successful older brother, Kai, on the BMX circuit. A six-time Australian national champion, Saya was sixth in the world in her rookie year and is currently ranked 7th in the world.

In this Q&A we chat about Saya’s Olympic dream being put back a year, the strength training she does for that all-important explosive power on the bike, plus the Red Bull athlete shares an update on the condition of her brother, Kai, who suffered a serious brain injury whilst racing earlier this year.

Two years ago, I ran an interview with amateur ultrarunner and ski mountaineering enthusiast Francesca Eyre, owner of Morzine’s in-demand Chilly Powder hotel in the French Alps. Francesca shared the story behind her journey to ultrarunner and how running helped her in the aftermath of grief and loss. It led her to run the Himalayas’ multi-day Manaslu trail race and, following that, live a life packed full of endurance sports adventures – from cycling the Etape du Tour to competing in the revered skimo race, Patrouille des Glaciers.

However, last year, Francesca suffered a devastating head injury during a 300km cycling event in the UK, where she was unconscious for an estimated 20 minutes. The fall-out from severe concussion has been traumatic and life-changing. I caught up over the phone with Francesca to chat about life following her accident and how, with the help of her family’s new property in Provence, she got through a tumultuous 13 months.

© 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.