Rewind four years and Australian Kelli Jackson harboured a dream to one day ride a unicycle across the world. However, in her own words, Kelli was an ‘overweight, middle-aged smoker who couldn’t walk up a hill’ and had never ridden a unicycle, let alone trained on one. This didn’t stop her. Four years and many major life changes later, 52-year-old Kelli has unicycled across Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea – the first person in the world outside North Korea to do so – and has many more worldwide unicycling adventures planned.

In this Q&A, Kelli shares the impetus behind her goal to unicycle the world, plus the tricky logistics of riding a one-wheel bike without handlebars up and down hills whilst carrying luggage. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story, Kelli.

American CrossFit athlete Breona Evans Wallin is a six-time CrossFit Regionals athlete and a former contestant on The Rock’s Titan Games. A former gymnast and competitive cheerleader, Breona discovered CrossFit seven years ago and now squeezes in several hours of training each day at CrossFit Identity, the box her husband owns in Atlanta, alongside her fulltime job as an accountant.  

In between working and training, 29-year-old Breona took time out for quick-fire Q&A about her training, background and CrossFit experience to date. Thanks, Breona!

Last month I ran an interview with former UTMB winner and all-round ultrarunning badass, Francesca Canepa, where she admitted she runs ‘as little as possible’ in training because – shock! –she doesn’t actually like running that much.

This intrigued a lot of people (myself included) so today I’m back with more details about what Francesca’s training involves after she kindly offered to dive a bit deeper into it with me.

Thanks, Francesca!

N.B You can read our interview from last month here: Francesca Canepa: The UTMB winner who doesn’t like running.

© Holmlands by Matt Grayson

Professional skier, climate change advocate, storyteller and mother, Izzy Lynch, has been skiing since she was a child and started ski racing at the age of nine. As an adult, she competed on the Freeride World Tour and since retiring from competing has focused on backcountry skiing, combining her love of powder adventures with her talent for filmmaking.

Based in the mountain town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, Izzy features in Holmlands’ latest film project, The Revelstoke Diaries (watch the trailer below), set to be released online on Sunday.  With a new winter just around the corner, we caught up with Izzy, who is mum to three-year-old Knox, ahead of the release of the project to learn more about her life in the Columbia Mountains, the work she does with Protect Our Winters Canada and her upcoming film, Motherload.

© James Poole

After lining up for her first ultra less than two years ago, UK-based Malaysian ultrarunner Alison Walker leapt straight into 100+ mile distances with events such as the Samphire 100 and Tooting 24 – her first 24-hour race, in which she ran 185.9km and broke six Malaysian national records.

Having completed a 108-mile ‘quarantine’ backyard ultra this summer and several Fastest Known Time achievements, Alison eyed up a new challenge and just over a week ago, she became the first person to complete London’s continuous ‘Smog Graham’ round. An urban nod to the Lake District’s legendary Bob Graham Round, the challenge saw Alison bag every ‘peak’ in all 32 London boroughs – no mean feat at 302km and 3211m of elevation. Despite some navigational issues, she finished in 54 hours and 33 minutes.

From McDonald’s meltdowns and non-existent naps to borrowed shoes and blisters, the 32-year-old inov-8 ambassador shares the ups and downs of her ‘Smog’ with me in this Q&A, where we also chat about her 100-mile training weeks and the steps she takes to stay injury-free.

© www.inov-8.com/ James Appleton

Rewind to 2009 and Sabrina Pace-Humphreys was looking for a way to get fit after her fourth child. Despite hating the idea of running, she gave it a go anyway, running for a minute then walking for a minute. Eleven years later, the British 42-year old mum of four and grandma of two is a Marathon des Sables finisher and has just completed her first 102-mile run on the Cotswold Way!

Sabrina is also co-founder of Black Trail Runners which was launched in July to create a safe, open community for black trail runners and campaign for greater access, skills and representation within trail running. We dive into this further in the Q&A below, where Sabrina also recalls her experience and preparation for the multi-day desert ultra, the Marathon des Sables (MdS), and her recent, epic Cotswold Way 100-miler (extreme nausea included).

Italian ultrarunner Francesca Canepa was a podium-bagging professional snowboarder before switching to running at the age of 38. Despite not having run before, she came tenth overall in her first race. Incredibly, just two years later, in 2012, Francesca came second at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB). And if that wasn’t crazy enough, one week after UTMB she won the notoriously gruelling Tor des Geants, an unimaginably tough race covering 330km with 24,000m of vertical elevation.

Since then the mum of two has gone on to win more of trail running’s most revered and challenging races, including Laveredo Ultra Trail and, in 2018 at the age of 46, UTMB – six years after she ran it for the first time.

Incredibly, for an ultrarunner, Francesca avoids running as much as possible in training – yes, you read that right. In this Q&A, Francesca, who is a trained psychologist, shares what her training actually involves, how she fuels her ultras and what’s got her through the toughest moments she’s faced in her racing career so far.

©TRR Nutrition

Swedish IRONMAN athlete Sara Svensk’s journey into triathlon only began six years ago, but she quickly found she was a natural in the sport, going from a newbie in the 70.3 discipline to Swedish national champion in just a year – all whilst working fulltime as an intern surgeon!

More recently, in 2019, the TRR Nutrition ambassador came 10th at the 70.3 IRONMAN World Championships in Nice and clocked up the fifth-fastest women’s pro time (full IRONMAN) in history with her 8:34 win at IRONMAN Barcelona.  I got the lowdown on Sara’s background, training and the sessions she loves to hate, via email for this quick Q&A.

As a mental endurance coach Vanessa Foerster equips her IRONMAN triathletes with the game-changing mental skills to help them race their way to the ultimate IRONMAN event: the World Championship in Kona, so I am super excited to have her here to share her knowledge on how to improve your performance by training your mind.

Vanessa, who lives in Montana, USA is an IRONMAN age group athlete herself (with a Kona qualification, no less!) and revolutionised her performance and race success using the same coaching techniques she teaches her clients. In addition, she recently set up The Diversify Triathlon Movement in a bid to help change the landscape of what is a predominantly white sport and introduce more black, indigenous, and people of colour to triathlon. Read on for more on this, plus insider mindset tactics Vanessa uses to train her brain to endure mental discomfort and perform at her best.

© 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).