On the 10th September 2018 - I started my next challenge, cycling over 4,000km down the Pacific Coast Highway to San Diego, before crossing the border into Mexico to cycle the Baja Divide to Cabo San Lucas.

During this podcast I share more about the journey and what I learned along the way!

Show notes

• What this episode is about
• Flying of to Vancouver in September 2018
• Check out the previous episode which is all about the planning and preparation before the trip
• Talking the talk and walking the walk
• Stepping outside my comfort zone
• Questions from the Tough Girl Tribe
• Choosing my bike… 
• Flying into Vancouver and buying a second hand bike
• Being scared the first time I rode the bike
• Navigation on the Pacific Coast Highway
• Packing…. being a minimalist and being conscious of weight
• Clothing and wanting to be warm at night
• Taking my laptop with me….
• Trying to do two very separate challenges
• Borrowing an off road mountain bike
• Riding the off-road section and breaking my chain
• Breaking my back rack in the desert
• FASS Bike Shop - Baja California - deciding on options
• What would you do differently…
• Posting the bike back from Cabo San Lucas
• What I should have done!
• Navigation on the Baja Divide - Garmin etrex 10
• Where I stayed and how I organised my accommodation
• Looking one day a head for camping
• What I packed and what I didn’t use
• Why I took my laptop with me
• Swapping bikes half way through
• Highlight from the trip
• Meeting awesome people to cycle with
• Biggest difficulty from the trip
• What I loved about the trip
• What I learned about myself
• Food and nutrition
• Bike repair and bike maintenance
• Safety while travelling
• Injuries and chafing

Check out the vlogs from the adventure on Youtube —>>

• https://www.youtube.com/c/SarahWilliamsToughGirlChallenges 

Support the Tough Girl Podcast —>> Become a patron www.patreon.com/toughgirlpodcast

Allie has run over 60 races, from half marathons to 100 mile ultras, and her race sheet for 2018 is looking pretty interesting. In 2017 she gained her first podium place at The Ox 50 where she came first woman, repeating this at the Cotswold Ultra 44 mile race. 

In October 2017 she finished her first 100 mile race in under 24 hours. She’s passionate about empowering women in sport and especially about endurance racing. 

In January 2018 she became the first woman to cross the largest body of freshwater in the world on foot, taking part in a 100 mile multi-stage event on Lake Khovsgol in Mongolia. She has also trained people to run marathon and ultra distance. Having suffered from mental health problems for a lot of her life, she’s a passionate advocate of running as therapy and will be supporting Mind Hackney as her charity of choice in 2018. 

Show notes

• Coming back from Man V Lakes (Rat Race Event) 
• Why she introducers herself as a mid pack runner
• Getting into running 6 or 7 years ago
• Being rubbish at sport
• Deciding to go on her first run
• Working in the music industry in a high stressed environment
• Running her first 10K
• Trying to raise some money and entering the London Marathon
• ITB Injury…
• Why she had to run another Marathon.
• How her running journey progressed and why sibling rivalry motivated her
• Doing her first trail run and what she loved about it
• Deciding to do an ultra!
• Venn diagram of runners
• Swapping music festivals for running
• Comparing her 20s to her 30s
• Playing a role
• Becoming a freelancer
• What she loves about running communities
• What she thinks about while running
• Bad Boy Running - Online Running Community - Facebook & Podcast
• Creating her own running community for women - She’s Electric
• Running 100 miles across a frozen lake in Mongolia
• Not liking the cold!
• Using running spikes on the lake
• The issues with sleep and nutrition
• Wanting to get to the end
• The book - Relentless Forward Progress

Social Media

Website - www.alliebailey.co.uk

Tough Girl Kikkan Randall - 5X Olympian, Olympic champion cross-country skier 2018 & World Champion, “Get-Activist” and Mom Athlete.

Kikkan Randall is an American, Olympic champion cross-country skier. She has won 17 U.S. National titles, taken home 17 U.S. Championships, made 16 podiums in the Stage World Cup, made five trips to the Winter Olympic Games and had the highest finish by an individual U.S. woman at the World Championships (2nd in the Sprint FS at Liberec, CZE in 2009). She was the first American female cross-country skier to take a top ten finish in World Cup competition, to win a World Cup race and to win a World Cup discipline title. She won the silver medal in the individual sprint at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec, becoming the first American woman to win a medal in cross country skiing at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, and in 2013 teamed up with Jessica Diggins to win the first ever American FIS Nordic World Ski Championships gold medal in the team sprint. She and Diggins won the United States' first ever cross-country skiing gold medal at the Winter Olympics in women's team sprint at Pyeongchang in 2018.

Show notes

• Retiring from cross country skiing and being diagnosed with breast cancer
• Seeing herself in a number of different ways
• Being focused, energetic and determined
• Where her name comes from
• What life was like for her growing up
• Being on skies since she was 1 years old
• Growing up in an active family
• Starting cross country skiing at age 6 - but not loving it at first
• Setting goals at a young age
• Having benchmarks to reach which help to keep her motivated
• Creating her roadmap to the Olympics
• The female role models she had growing up
• The motivation to keep going to get her Olympic gold medal
• Patience
• Working to fund her training
• Getting out of the dark places in her mind and how she changed it around
• The 2008 season - the high points and low points
• What a week looks like for an athlete at this level
• Spending a lot of time being her own best cheerleader
• The 2018 Winter Olympics (her 5th and final)
• The race and winning gold!
• What happened next, after 20 years of chasing a goal!!
• Finding out she had breast cancer
• Being diagnosed and what it was like
• Staying practical and focusing on what she can control
• Get Activist - what it means and where it comes from
• “Little goals, small success. build your confidence and become the person you want to be”
• Having her son, 2 years before the Olympics and the impact on her life
• Having an amazing support system in place

Social Media

Website - https://www.kikkan.com 

Instagram - @kikkanimal  

Facebook -  @kikkanrandall 

Twitter - @kikkanimal 

During this podcast we speak to Kat and Bettina about solo female travel in Asia and Africa, what it’s like being location independent, how they met and why they decided to create Aurora Wild Women of the World.

More about their mission with Aurora Wild Women:

“A mission to bring back the knowledge of the female wisdom from the depths of Africa, the continent of the heart, the birthplace of the Sapiens.  Engage with its medicine women. Visit its sacred spaces where rituals were performed, generation after generation. Bring back our learnings to a world that is re-learning to honour mother earth, care for her and care for each other. The world as we know it is changing, shifting, from a patriarchal system that is becoming obsolete, to a balanced union between the masculine and the feminine. Our aim is to do our bit to bring the balance back.”

Bettina Guirkinger

Fascinated with "why people do what they do", Bettina has been engaged in a 10 year-long exploration of human nature - including her own! - Which has taken her to the four corners of the world in an attempt to figure out what it is that makes us truly human & alive. Half-french half-colombian, Bettina grew up in France, Belgium, Benin and Peru before pursuing her studies in international relations in England. Today Bettina manages her company Explore Your Elements from Cape Town in South Africa 

Kat Scriven

“A traveller, a wishful thinker. I dream to call the world my home. A writer, a designer. Inspired by the little things. An african heart but a wandering soul. A goddess-warrior. A beautiful mess. Kundalini yoga teacher.” 

Show notes

• Speaking to Bettina - living a nomadic life and now living in Europe
• Speaking to Kat - spending 10 years travelling the world
• How Bettina got into travelling and how her parents impacted on her life
• Being curious to meet new people and to engage with new cultures
• How Kat got into travelling and why travel is her greatest passion
• Solo travel in South East Asia and South America
• Practical advice for other female travellers
• Awareness and going with the flow
• Why you should trust your gut and develop your feminine intuition 
• How you can work on and develop your feminine intuition 
• How Kat and Bettina met in the desert in South Africa
• Afrika Burn
• Building a giant structure in the middle of the desert
• Attending Afrika Burn in 2016 after going through a massive heartbreak
• Deciding to move to South Africa and wanting to contribute to the festival by building it
• What the festival is like
• Bettina and how she made changes to her life
• How the idea for Auora Wild Women of the Word came about
• 2018 the year of the divine feminine and figuring out what it means to be a powerful woman
• What it means to Bettina to be a powerful women
• How the trip through Africa evolved
• Digging into the detail - the car, the trip, the plan
• What life was like on the road
• The women they met along the way
• How they decided to document the conversations they had with the women
• What they have learned from the women they have spoken to and why it comes back to Love
• Why this project is just the beginning
• Plans for the future and where they would like to take the project - the 3 year vision
• Wanting to go to Asia
• How they are funding the trip

Social Media

Aurora Wild Women

Facebook - @aurorawildwomen 

Instagram  - @aurorawildwomen 

Bettina Guirkinger

Website -  www.exploreyourelements.com 

Kat Scriven 

Website - https://thesaltyseawench.wordpress.com 

Instagram - @katscriv  

Twitter - @KatScriven