© 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.

For ultra-runner turned OCR athlete, Rea Kolbl, the longer the event, the better. Unbeaten in all of her 8-hr+ obstacle course races, the former Slovenian gymnast has a strong work ethic carved out after spending four hours a day training for the national team as a child.

A two-time World’s Toughest Mudder winner, Rea has excelled in 24-hour obstacle races and her success spreads across OCR to ultra-trail skyrace podiums (she came second in the Broken Arrow Skyrace). The Dryrobe ambassador trains every day, but took a break from her training in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives, to answer chat mountain running, 90-mile weeks, and her propensity for suffering.

Rea gave me such wonderfully detailed answers I decided to make this a two-part interview. Check back on Friday for part two!