Sparta Chicks Radio: Mindset | Confidence | Sport | Women

Sarah Anne Evans and Pippa Lyon who are both members of the Veloroos; an Australian non-professional women’s cycling team.

This is Sarah Anne’s second time on the podcast. She joined me with her Veloroos teammate Julie Ann Hazlett in July 2017 to talk about winning their category at the 5,000km Race Across American in 2015 (you can find that conversation here).

In 2019, Sarah Anne and Julie Anne, together with a third team member, Pippa Lyon (who you’ll meet today on the podcast for the first time) are about to tackle their hardest challenge to date.

The ladies have joined an international women’s cycling team called the InternationElles for an ambitious project.

Together with a female women’s cycling team, the InternationElles will ride every stage of the 2019 Tour de France, one day ahead of the men’s professional race.

So basically, yes, they are riding the Tour de France!

It’s a journey of 3,640km over 21 stages, which works out at roughly 1200km of cycling per week - for 3 weeks!

And, if that’s not hard enough, the route chosen for this year’s Tour de France has been described as the mountainous in the 106 year history of the race!

The reason: to raise the profile of women in cycling and to fight for equality in the sport. The biggest cycling race in the world has no female representation. The InternationElles are hoping to be part of the push to change that!

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow the InternationElles on Instagram: instagram.com/lucy_bartholomew 

How does ocean surf ski paddling figure into one woman’s version of a mid-life crisis?

We ask Quona Ross Atkinson on Sparta Chicks Radio this week!

Quona grew up on a cattle station in North Queensland and started competing in rodeos, camp drafting and show riding from the time she was 3.

An extensive career in barrel racing followed before she took up adventure racing in her 40s.

Fast forward to 2019 and after just 5 years in the sport of ocean surf ski paddling, she’s about to compete in the famous 52km Molokai Challenge (considered the hardest ski paddle race in the world) as well representing Australia for the first time at the age of 51 at the Ocean Racing World Championships.

What’s incredible about Quona’s story is that she is a FIFO worker (‘fly in, fly out’), so for 2 weeks every month, she works 800km from the ocean!

Plus with 2 sons and a husband who is deployed overseas for 6 months at a time, she somehow manages to find the time to chase her extraordinary goals.

The secret: being truly committed to them!

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Kelli Jackson was in her 40s and an “unassuming middle-aged overweight accountant who smoked” when, at a retreat in Bali, she blurted out that she wanted to ride a unicycle around the world.

That was in 2010, but it wasn’t until she “survived” 2015 that Kelli started pursuing her goal - which included:

• learning to ride a unicycle (she didn’t know how when she set the goal!), and
• getting a large tattoo of a unicycle and the date she planned to start her adventure.

Talk about being committed to your goals!

Since then, Kelli has ridden her unicycle the length of Taiwan (430km) and later this month will set out to ride the length of South Korea (635km) and hopefully become the first Westerner to unicycle inside North Korea!

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Kelli on Instagram: instagram.com/1wheelonly

With a background in social work and after losing her beloved Dad tragically to bowel cancer, it’s hardly surprising Annie Crawford decided she wanted to “make a difference” rather than returning to the paid workforce when she returned to Australia after living in the US for several years.

And she’s made a profound difference in the lives of thousands of Australians ever since.

Annie founded Can Too in 2005, a charity with the goal of creating a healthier and fitter community while also funding innovative cancer research.

To be honest, I always thought of Can Too as a cancer fundraising organisation first and foremost.

But as Annie points out in this conversation, Can Too is dedicated to promoting health and wellbeing and encouraging people to step out of their comfort zone, by committing to an event - perhaps their first 7km, first marathon or first ocean swim - with the support of like-minded people and professional coaches, while raising funds for cancer research.

If you’re in Australia, you’ll no doubt be familiar with the ubiquitous orange singlets worn by runners at most events around the country these days.

Over the last 14 years, over 15,000 people have participated in Can Too programs and raised over $21m for cancer research.

While I was familiar with the work and programs run by Can Too, I wanted to know more about the woman with the vision behind the scenes, so I asked :)

We discuss:

* what inspired Annie to establish Can Too,

* the role running has played in managing her mental health,

* why you need to remember that you can’t die of fear (my new favourite quote!),

* her experience with the Imposter Complex,

And more.

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Can Too on Facebook: facebook.com/CanTooRunSwim

Emily Duggan’s story is a perfect example of why it’s important to share the stories of women in sport.

When Emily was a little girl, she was watching TV one weekend and came across the Supercar motor racing series here in Australia and was instantly hooked.

However Emily, in that moment, also realised there were no women racing and thought it was a “boy’s sport” and put it to the back of her mind (as the saying goes, “you can’t be what you can’t see”).

Thankfully the voice that whispered to Emily that day never disappeared and as soon as she started working, she began saving for her first racing car - and hasn’t looked back since.

In 2016, Emily became the 1st female driver to race in the V8 Touring Car Series here in Australia and now in 2019 is racing in the Super3 series (which is the 3rd tier in the Supercar series here).

And sometime soon, I know we’ll see Emily line up on the start of the iconic Bathurst 1000 race (a race I’ve promised to watch, for the first time ever, when she does!).

Emily shares her story with me on Sparta Chicks Radio this week.

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Emily on Instagram: instagram.com/emilyduggan1

In November 2013, Renee Kiley joined friends to watch the Noosa Triathlon. And life hasn’t been the same since.

At the time Renee was an overweight, unhealthy, pack-a-day smoker.

Yet the race reignited Renee’s childhood love of competitive sport. And despite not having ridden a bike or swum laps since she was a kid, Renee set a goal to compete in the Noosa Triathlon the following year.

She did that, and more.

In March 2014, Renee lined up at the start of her very first triathlon; a Sprint distance triathlon.

And less than 3 1/2 years later, Renee raced for the first time as a professional triathlete. 

Many people involved in endurance sports have undergone dramatic transformations; from losing weight, quitting smoking and overcoming major health issues.

But I was curious how Renee was able to take her performance and achievements to the next level and became a professional athlete in a sport she didn’t know even existed only a few years ago.

So I asked :)

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Renee on Instagram: instagram.com/reneekiley_/

If there is one woman who has had an up-close-and-personal relationship with fear, it’s Kristen Ulmer.

At 20, Kristen was skiing for the love of it and in jeans.

By 23, she was on the US moguls ski team, starred in the first of 20 extreme skiing movies and was named the ski media as best woman big mountain extreme skier in the world (a ‘title’ she held for 12 years).

This is a woman who came face to face with fear, in life-and-death situations, regularly and she developed a very intimate relationship with it.

However it was only towards the end of her career, as injuries, illness and PTSD took their toll, she began to realise her relationship with fear wasn’t healthy and that it has caused or contributed to many of these problems.

And so she began an in-depth study and obsession with fear.

Fast forward to now and she’s the author of a book called 'The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won’t Work and What To Do Instead'.

The premise behind it is that conquering, mastering, and trying to overcome fear doesn’t work and instead, we need to learn to embrace our fear and listen to it (rather than trying to ignore it or quieten it down).

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Kristen on Instagram: instagram.com/kristen.ulmer/

I first spoke with Michelle Lee back in July, 2017 when she shared her goal to complete the world’s toughest nautical challenge; the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.

A 5,300km / 2900 nautical mile solo, unassisted and self-supported ocean rowing event across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain all the way to Antigua in the Caribbean.

(You can find that conversation here).

In February 2019, Michelle achieved her goal and, in the process, became the first Australian woman to row across an ocean.

Now there’s one key piece of information you need to know; Michelle did not come from a rowing background.

At the time she set the goal, she had never pulled an oar through the water.

In fact, when Michelle pulled out of the dock at the start of the race, she had never rowed in the open ocean (all her training had been confined to inside Sydney Heads). Wow!

So in this week’s episode of Sparta Chicks Radio, Michelle rejoins me to share what’s happened in the last 18 months since we first spoke, as well as how this incredible race unfolded for her.

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Follow Michelle on Facebook: facebook.com/FirstAustralianFemale/

Dr Stacy Sims is an environmental exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at the University of Waikato in NZ.

She’s an incredible athlete in her own right too, having competed at the Hawaii Ironman in Kona as well as the Xterra (Off-Road Triathlon) World Championships in Maui.

And she’s the author of an important book called Roar. It is a profound book that will challenge everything you thought you knew about training, nutrition, racing and recovery.

At the core of Stacy’s work is the concept that women are not small men.

It seems obvious, I know!

However the majority of sports science research - and a result, the majority of what we understand about the best way to train, eat, drink, race and recover - has been done on men.

Even the common training program structure of 3 weeks of training followed by 1 week of recovery is - you guessed it! - based on research done on men, without any regard for the hormonal changes experienced by women each and every month.

Yet given that every system in our body changes across the month (not just our hormones), it’s hard and frustrating to believe this “shrink it and pink it” approach has also been applied to sports science.

But unfortunately, it has! We’ve been taught to train, eat, drink, race and recover the same way as men!

Stacy and I bust some common myths about how women should train, race, eat and recover in this in-depth conversation.

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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3 months after finishing High School at the age of 18, Jess Fox qualified for the 2012 London Olympics.

She left those Games with a Silver medal and, in hindsight, admits she felt the need to prove herself and to show that her result in London wasn’t a fluke.

Of course, it wasn’t a fluke - in fact, it was just the start of an incredible career!

A 2 x Olympic medalist (Jess won Bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics), Jess has also won 7 World Titles (and counting!) making her the most successful canoe slalom paddler - male or female - in the history of the sport.

And she’s on Sparta Chicks Radio this week!

We discuss:

- how Jess got into the sport (given she initially thought it was “uncool”)

- the power of writing down your goals and seeing them on a daily basis,

- why you should welcome conditions that aren’t ideal in training, and

- her experience with the Imposter Complex, especially after the London Olympics

Get the full show notes for the episode here.

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Visit the Sparta Chicks Radio website here 

Follow Sparta Chicks Radio on Facebook: facebook.com/SpartaChicks 

Follow Jess on Instagram: instagram.com/jessfox94