Chris is a wife, mother, and business owner who loves to get her hands dirty and feet wet. Her adventurous spirit shines through in her work as a writer, speaker, trainer, and consultant. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, teenage son, and two labs, Winston and Kiya.
Chris and her husband Marty became the first American married couple to ski without guide, resupply or other assistance to the South Pole and became Guinness World Record holders.
When not outdoors playing in the wild, you’ll find Chris leading creative discussions in corporate conference rooms and at off-site locations around the country.
Show notes
Social Media
Website - https://chrisfagan.net
Instagram @chriscfagan
Twitter @chriscfagan
Facebook @chriscfagan
Youtube @3belowzeroexpedition
Book - The Expedition: Two Parents Risk Life and Family in an Extraordinary Quest to the South Pole (She Writes Press, September 3, 2019)
Nienke in her own words…
I am an equine veterinarian and have travelled the world pursuing my career.
Although I have always been an active person I found the love for sports later in life and ended up reasonably good at it! I dreamt of becoming a professional athlete on the mountain bike and as an adventure/multi-sport racer and with the belief of my coaches I starting racing elite in 2013. I was however still working full time as a veterinarian and I ended up overtrained with a serious back injury which put a halt to my sporting aspirations in 2016.
I couldn’t really let go of what I was so passionate about and although running was not an option with the persistent pain I was feeling in my legs, I started to focus on mountain bike adventures.
This led to the dream of traversing the Great Himalaya Trail by mountain bike through Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan.
The first leg was Nepal which I completed in December 2019 achieving a world first by mountain biking the Great Himalaya trail from Hilsa in the West to Phaplu in the east covering 1700kms, 85000m ascend and around 15 passes between 3500m-5000m with two passes over 5000m high.
Show notes
Social Media
Challenge Website - https://saikalako.com
Personal Blog - https://nienkeventures.blogspot.com
Fenella shares more about her journey to becoming a professional triathlete. We learn more about her childhood and growing up, her loves of sports and competition. Fenella, also shares more about what day to day life is like, we go into training, recovery, nutrition, dealing with injury and the pressure to perform.
“Triathlon is achieving the unbelievable and pushing yourself beyond limits, to find inner power in the drive for success”
Show notes
Social Media
Website www.trifenella.co.uk/
Instagram @fenella.alicia
Facebook @Fenella-Langridge-Triathlon
Twitter @Fenella_Alicia
Kathryn Bertine is an author, athlete, activist and documentary filmmaker. During her pro career in cycling, she was a three-time Caribbean Champion, six-time national champion of St. Kitts and Nevis (SKN) and raced five years on pro circuit with four UCI domestic and World Tour teams Colavita, Wiggle-Honda, BMW and Cylance Pro Cycling. Now retired from professional racing, Bertine serves as Trek’s Ambassador for Equality in Cycling.
Off the bike, she is a filmmaker, activist, journalist and author of three nonfiction books, All the Sundays Yet to Come, As Good As Gold, and The Road Less Taken. From 2006 through 2012, Bertine was a columnist, author and senior editor for ESPN. When she pitched a documentary film on women’s pro cycling to ESPN in 2012, they rejected the proposal. So Bertine decided she would make it herself. After a two-year labor of love and crowdsourcing adventures, in 2014, HALF THE ROAD: The passion, pitfalls and power of women’s professional cycling was released. It won five film festivals, debuted in 16 nations, scored international distribution and successfully brought the hammer down on the corruption and sexism in sports. Half the Road is now available on iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon Prime and DVD. Five years later, she continues to receive royalties on a film ESPN said no one would watch.
As an advocate for equality in women’s sports, Bertine then started the social activism movement Le Tour Entier in an effort to bring parity to women’s professional road cycling, starting with the Tour de France. She and her team succeeded, and women’s field was included in 2014 with the addition of La Course by Tour de France. In 2017, she founded and serves as CEO for Homestretch Foundation, which provides free housing to female professional athletes struggling with the gender pay gap. Bertine was featured on the cover of Bicycling Magazine and profiled in Outside Magazine for her platforms of implementing change in the world.
As an activist, Bertine continues to serve as a public speaker/lecturer on equality and advocacy. She shares her journey and her message—that through passion, disruption, opportunity and focus, anything is possible and we’re all capable of effecting change—with corporations, universities and other professional outlets. She is currently at work on her fourth book.
Show notes
Social Media
CEO, Homestretch Foundation: www.HomestretchFoundation.org
Author/Activist/Pro Cyclist: www.kathrynbertine.com
Documentary Filmmaker: www.HalfTheRoad.com
@kathrynbertine
@halftheroad
@letourentier
@HomestretchFdn
@kathrynbertine
@halftheroad
@letourentier
@HomestretchFdn
Kristina shares more about her journey into running and how she ended up becoming the World Record holder for - 48 hour treadmill running! Kristina is an introvert by nature, but she asked herself the question; “What can I do with this ability to run?”.
In 2015, Kristina took it upon herself to challenge her own personal fears and prejudices. Kristina made the decision to run alone across Iran, a distance of 1,840 kilometres.
In the process, Kristina, became the first women to have run across Iran. She was running an average of 37 kilometres per day. She started in Bazargan by the Turkish border and finished in Bajgiran on the north-eastern border, the run took her 59 days to complete.
Kristina filmed the journey and created a film called: Alone Through Iran - 1144 Miles of Trust.
During this podcast, we will learn more about Kristina, her life, the challenges she has faced, how she has overcome failure, how she set a world record for treadmill running, as well as life on the road while running across Iran. We also talk about kindness, learning how to say no and why you have to be yourself.
Show notes
Social Media
Personal Website - https://palten.se/en/start-en/
Website Alone through Iran - https://www.alonethroughiran.com
Facebook @kristina.palten
Instagram @kristina_palten
Emily is an ocean advocate, skipper, international public speaker and advisor on issues relating to our ocean, her goals are around shifting mindsets and making changes for our future society.
Emily is on a mission to inspire and facilitate a community of change makers through her organisation eXXpedition. This will be done by training athletes and celebrities to be impactful advocates on ocean issues.
Emily believes in developing upstream solutions to the ocean plastic issue by working with corporate partners, scientists and government bodies. During this podcast we talk more about eXXpedition, its formation, plans and goals.
Emily has previously been on the Tough Girl Podcast (July 12th 2016), where she shared more about her early life and career.
https://www.toughgirlchallenges.com/single-post/Emily-Penn
Show notes
Social Media
Website - www.emilypenn.co.uk
Instagram - @missemilypenn
Twitter: @emilypenn
eXXpedition - All women's voyages to make the unseen seen, from the #toxics in our bodies to the #plastics in our seas.
eXXpedition is a Community Interest Company and not-for-profit organisation that runs pioneering all-female sailing research expeditions to investigate the causes of and solutions to ocean plastic pollution.
Founded in 2014, they have run expeditions all over the world. Previous scientific research has highlighted the endemic nature of micro plastics within our ocean environments globally.
Their focus now is to advance a better understanding of the plastics issue as a whole and to work with industry to pinpoint solutions and policy at a global level by addressing knowledge-gaps and delivering evidence to inform effective solutions.
Website - https://exxpedition.com
Twitter - @eXXpedition
Instagram - @exxpedition_
Facebook - @eXXpeditionCIC
Youtube - eXXpedition
On January 1, 2020, walking therapist Carmen Rendell will leave her childhood home in Weston-super-Mare, and head south to follow the coastal path around the entire British Isles. Her goal is to raise awareness of the huge mental health benefits of walking in nature. Local communities and individuals across the nation will have the chance to join her along the way.
Throughout her journey, Carmen will be hosting regular ‘Soulwalks’ – simple, short, group walks in nature for anyone to join. Her message is simple: families, individuals, schools, businesses can come together to walk for three kilometres. For no other reason than to be in nature and talk to each other.
People can also pledge to support an individual ‘Sole2Soul Walk’ with Carmen – where they, someone they nominate, or a stranger, can join her to walk and talk. As a trained integrative therapist, with experience as a private practitioner, Carmen will use this time to give individuals the opportunity for therapy, whilst walking in nature.
A Loughborough University Alumni, national league hockey player, sailor on the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race and Camino de Santiago walker, Carmen is familiar with the benefits of exercise, sport and walking for mind, body and spirit balance.
Commenting on her ambitious goal, Carmen says: “Walking therapy benefits us in many ways. Science has proven that walking in nature can improve our mental wellbeing, by quietening our nervous system, reducing inflammation, repairing our brain and lowering our blood pressure.”
Reinforcing these benefits, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara says: “The experience of walking can allow you to escape yourself and this non-ego focus is healthy. We should spend more time not thinking of ourselves.”
Carmen’s route will primarily follow the coastal path, and she will let people know the calendar of events on the Soulhub website – www.soulhub.co.uk. Soulwalks can be organised in towns, villages or cities along the route and people can contact Carmen to organise one on her behalf that she can join.
Carmen will be interviewing people along the way for her ‘SoulCast’ podcast. From local fisherman to business owners, teachers and artists, her goal will be to understand the true state of the nation and establish how people feel in the current social, economic and political environment. Carmen will also be hosting ‘SoulTalks’ in schools and communities and is keen to hear from anyone who would like her to come and talk about mental health and walking in nature.
Show notes
Social Media
Insta: @soul_hub
Facebook: @soulhubstories
Website: www.soulhub.co.uk