This conversation is with the incredible athlete Jasmin Paris. I am such a fan of the way Jasmin does life, extremely modest and straightforward but so passionate about the things she loves.

Jasmin is a record-breaking mountain and fell runner, who has dominated in UK and international sky running, fell running and ultras for the past few years. Those into running will know about her record-breaking runs on the Bob Graham, Charlie Ramsay and Paddy Buckley rounds in 2016 and since then she’s placed sixth in the UTMB and won multiple races like Glencoe Skyline.

She’s also a new Mum, with her baby still under a year old.

We talk about her decision to become a mother, her pregnancy and labour, challenging convention of running as a pregnant woman and new mother and the specifics of how life has changed. This isn’t so much a conversation about Jasmin as an athlete or runner but more her approach to life and journey into motherhood. Jasmin was so open and honest with my questions and I’m so grateful for her willingness to share her story, which I hope helps others think about conventions and maybe just get outdoors into the hills more. Just a few days after our recording Jasmin placed second in the Glencoe Skyline race, just seconds off the leader, and feeling great to be challenging at the front again. Congratulations Jasmin and hope you all enjoy this one!

Angela Mudge is a legend in fell and mountain running who won the World Mountain Running Championships back in 2000 and set many course records around the world, many of which still stand today, including running the first sub-3 hour time for a female at the iconic mountain race Sierre-Zinal. Angela is proof that you can achieve incredible things whilst keeping it really simple and staying true to the grassroots ethic of fell running. No specialist sports products, gels, coaching strategies – just hard work day after day, and the odd cheese sandwich. She isn’t a fan of social media and exposure and is a fantastic role model for women – and men – out there, showing that you don’t need to overcomplicate training and racing to explore your own potential and reach your goals.

We talk about Angela's path to sports and running after being born with both feet pointing the wrong way; getting started in fell running when very few other women were competing; her most rewarding racing experience; and what led to the performance gains between being three-time runner up in the European Mountain Running Champs to winning the World Mountain Running Champs in 2000.

Introducing the brilliant Caroline Toshack...a true inspiration in personal development and recovery from exercise addiction and eating disorders. Caroline is a yoga and pilates instructor and specialist in movement therapy, eating disorder support and sports-related exercise addiction. She has heaps of experience in these fields, originating from her own years of struggle with anorexia, bulimia and compulsive exercise of over 30 hours every week. Caroline trained and competed for many years at an international level in duathlon and it became her world, at times saving her from eating disorder behaviours and at times feeding right back in to destructive and addictive habits.

We talk about Caroline’s early years; what an unhealthy relationship with sports and food looked like for her; how she found her path to self-esteem and full recovery; her transition from corporate life to working in movement and therapy; the experience of training as a pilates and yoga teacher; the issues of disorded eating and compulsive exercise in relation to endurance sports; and the many myths related to eating disorders.

Caroline is a positive force in this world and proof that you can recover fully from an eating disorder and exercise addiction. I’m grateful to her for talking so openly about these subjects, which are hugely tricky to navigate for so many people. I hope this conversation is helpful and thought-provoking to you too and please do share with others who might benefit.

Sophie Mullins is an Edinburgh-based and plant-powered software engineer and runner. She was good enough to sit down with me just a few days after the 95-mile West Highland Way Race in June, with an impressive array of bumps and bruises, and tell me the story of some pretty sizeable life challenges she’s been through over the past few years. Sophie has a rare disease called Mastocytosis, where the body’s mast cells (a kind of white blood cell) become too active, increasing the risk of life-threatening allergic reactions through anaphylaxis. Sophie talks about her journey from diagnosis and being told she couldn’t run again to treatment and discovering how she could be active whilst managing the disease – a pretty unprecedented move in the community of sufferers.

Since then, Sophie has become Scottish champion at the 100k distance – on punishing road no less – run sub 3 hour marathons and won 5km races outright. But more importantly to Sophie, she’s been able to just keep active and moving in the outdoors and it was so interesting getting an insight into the strength of mind that helped her prove doctors wrong.

Enjoy this conversation! It’s about dealing with the unexpected roadblocks life throws at us, self-belief and the huge role of outdoor activity.

A California native living in the west of Scotland, Jamie has a string of adventures and running achievements behind her, and a few more in the pipeline this year. In 2015, she won the 95-mile West Highland Way and last year she set a course record on the 55-mile Cateran Trail. In 2013, she hiked, skied or snowshoed all 282 of Scotland’s Munros in a single year. She has tackled some monster endurance races and last year developed a rare condition called rhabdomyalysis during a multi-day event, which brought her close to kidney failure and landed her in an Italian hospital for a week. She is inspiring for sure, but it’s not all about races and results for her, her love for the outdoors shines through in everything she does and she has a refreshing approach to training and competing. In this episode we talk about what it took for Jamie and her partner Andy Taylor to successfully achieve climbing the Munros in a year whilst holding down full time jobs; the struggle involved in taking on such a demanding project as a couple; and the raw realities of her date with rhabdo. Andy joins us too, to give his perspective on the year of Munros.

Laurie is a blogger, yoga teacher and sober advocate, whose work has been featured in The Guardian, Huffington Post, Look magazine and The Times. Her blog, the skillfully named Girl & Tonic, shares her stories of new found sober-ness, yoga teaching, struggles with depression and all sorts of life stuff in between. Laurie worked in the intense world of media and marketing in London before taking the step to relocate to rural Norfolk and in our conversation we talk about what led to her quitting drinking, the messiness of the process, finding her way through changing dynamics with friends and family, dealing with depression and anxiety and her experiences training to be a yoga teacher.

Laurie was so open and easy to talk to and has a heck of a lot of wisdom and golddust advice for others contemplating similar change. Really hope you enjoy this conversation, please subscribe on iTunes, share with friends and check out the blog post on Laurie on ofmountainsandminds.com, as well as Laurie’s blog Girl and Tonic.

At the age of 9, Adam was told he would not live to see 18. Born a blue baby, he had over 60 operations growing up and grew so ill that he was confined to a wheelchair, with his heart working at a fraction of its capacity. A tragedy for another little boy and another family led to a successful heart transplant for Adam and following the operation and recovery, Adam discovered trail running a little later in life, throwing himself in head first to the Lakeland trails on his doorstep. In this conversation, we talk about the reality of growing up with serious health issues and how it has influenced his lens on life, as well as his journey to trail running and attempting the notorious Bob Graham round in the Lakes, a circumnavigation of 60 miles and 42 peaks. His trail adventures are depicted in the short film Life on the Fells, which you can find on You Tube. He had me giggling into the mic and was a joy to talk to. Please check out Life on the Fells and show Adam your love on social media.

This episode digs into the story of Michaelagh Broadbent, her family and her writing. Michaelagh is an American-born writer based in Edinburgh, wife to Harry and mother to two beautiful boys aged five and two. In 2009, at 25, Harry was diagnosed with a grade three malignant brain tumour and in a matter of weeks had brain surgery and radiotherapy, being told the tumour was life limiting. They got married and had their first child, Harry junior, and five and a half years later, in 2016, the tumour began growing faster again. A second operation followed, then chemotherapy, before Michaelagh gave birth to their second child, Alex. Today, they are an active and busy family, balancing all the demands and excitements of childhood, school, work and adventures, with one exception; the time they have left as a family is uncertain.

Michaelagh's approach to having to brain cancer in her young family is one which I am still thinking about. Inspired by her eldest son Harry, she wrote a children’s booked called ‘My Daddy is my Superhero’, as a tool for starting the conversation about serious illness and death with young children. It was just last month released so please check it out and share with anyone you know who might benefit. If you enjoy this conversation please reach out to Michaelagh and look up her website at michaelaghbroadbent.co.uk where you can order the book.

Ben Page is an award-winning filmmaker and adventurer, with a shining talent for solo-powered travel, self-sufficiency and capturing corners of the world on camera to share with others. In 2014, he set off around the world on a bike, travelling for three years and filming his journey. His film The Frozen Road, which follows his highs and lows of cycling through the vast and frozen Yukon Territory, caught the imagination of many thousands around the world when it was featured in mountain film festivals like Banff and Edinburgh, scooping multiple awards. If you haven’t seen it, check it out now! You can stream it free online at benpagefilms.com and please donate to support his work.

In this conversation, we talk about the reality of Ben’s travels through some wild and inhospitable places and what was involved in filming his own bike tracks, staying alive in minus 40 degrees, struggles with loneliness and what it’s like coming home and settling back into the UK after such an experience, whilst carving out a career as a filmmaker.

Here I talk with Damian Hall. Damian is an elite-level endurance runner, outdoor journalist and writer as well as a husband and Dad to two little ones. He was challenged to run his first ultra-marathon as part of his job and discovered a talent for lumpy and lengthy trail races. His approach to exploring his own potential in racing is inspiring; since taking on the notoriously brutal Spine Race – an ultra running the 268-mile Pennine Way in mid-winter - for the first time, he made it his purpose to become somewhat of an expert in what it takes to do well. He's since run the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc a handful of times, a fastest known time on the South West Coastal Path and a stack of other challenges around the world. In our conversation we delve into the struggles of striking the right balance between family commitments and ultra training and racing; Damian’s journey to competing at such a high level; his lowest lows on the trail; and the changing realities of a career in adventure journalism. Enjoy and share it!