I'm Caroline McKay, host of the new podcast Of Mountains and Minds with side habits in ultra running and adventure. This is a conversation with my lovely friend Caroline Wills, as an introduction to why I'm starting this project and an honest chat about our backgrounds, passions, struggles and ambitions in life, with a few laughs thrown in. Listen in as we delve into a few issues on our minds and those that we feel we need to talk about more in this country, as well as chat about our own journeys to deciding what we want to do in life. New episodes will now be released every Friday at 9am, featuring interviews with people who have been through life-changing endurance challenges or big changes and transitions.

Here Ruari Fairbairns shares his story, and it's one incredible path. Ruari grew up on the Isle of Mull on the west coast of Scotland and struggled hard with ADHD and suicidal tendencies through his teen years, which were also fuelled by heavy drinking, partying and in his own words feeling like a ‘fruit loop’. After setting up several businesses, Ruari fell into commodities trading in London, living a life of business success accompanied by playing hard to real excess, and all the fallout that delivered: relationship struggles; health issues; poor sleep; and constant burnout. He stopped drinking and ventured down his own personal development path and with that, uncovered a new purpose. His coaching and self-care programme One Year No Beer now has 300,000 subscribers and has built a global community of likeminded people finding healthy alternatives to numbing life through alcohol. This conversation was as open and honest as they come and Ruari shared stories on trauma in his younger years, ADHD and mental health struggles, workaholism, the growth of One Year No Beer and many pearls of self-care wisdom for others facing stresses in their life.

Today we meet Giles Ruck. Giles has some incredible stories to share. He’s an accomplished mountaineer, ski mountaineer, endurance runner and International Mountain Leader, and if that doesn’t make you tired then his day job heading up a community foundation might, through which he travels all over Scotland. In 2011 he summited Everest and has also climbed Ama Dablam, Aconcagua, Mont Blanc and the highest active volcano in the world, Ojos del Salado in the Andes. Sometimes he runs – he’s finished the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the West Highland Way Race and last year completed the Bob Graham Round, a circumnavigation of 42 peaks in the Lake District in under 24 hours. In this our conversation we talk about his experiences in the big mountains: on Everest and other expeditions; the struggles of daily life at altitude; the psychological and physical preparation; what’s it like being responsible for leading an expedition; going through the loss of a parent early in life; and his strategies around staying healthy and working on performance as you get older.