The Way of the Runner - conversations on running with Adharanand Finn

Last year she broke Zola Budd's 40-year-old European junior 5,000m record, and now she is getting ready to shake things up at the Commonwealth Games and European championships. Innes Fitzgerald talks to Adharanand Finn about how she first discovered running - like many people - during lockdown, what it was like to be dubbed 'the Greta Thunberg of sport' by The Times newspaper, and how she has her eyes already firmly fixed on LA 2028.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Stephanie Case is an elite ultra runner and the founder of Free to Run, an organisation empowering women in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In this episode she talks about running in war zones, the desapir she felt when the Taliban returned to power, and her deeply personal story of going through fertility treatment while competing at the very highest level in trail running.

She can be found on Instagram at @theultrarunnergirl, while Free to Run is at @freetorunngo

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Megan Boxhall set off from Suffolk in October 2025 to run 200 marathons in 200 days around the coast of Great Britain. Around day 150, she stopped mid run to talk to Adharanand Finn to explain why she was doing such an epic run, what it had been like, and what she felt about finishing after so long on the road.

Megan can be found on Instagram @megan.runbritain

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Ultra runner, author and green campaigner Damian Hall is still competing as an elite athlete at the very top of his sport at the age of 50. In this episode he shares some of the insights from his new book, Run Forever: The Secrets To Becoming An Ageless Athlete. We also get the inside story of his recent attempt to complete the world's most infamous race: the Barkley Marathons.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Allie Bailey is an ultrarunner, coach, speaker, podcaster and the author of There is No Wall. She has run in some of the most extreme places in the world, such as running 100 miles across frozen Lake Khövsgöl in Mongolia and the full length of the Panama Canal. She has finished over 200 marathons and ultramarathons all over the world, but the most remarkable thing about all of these achievements is that she accomplished most of them while battling depression and alcoholism.

In 2022, she was named as one of the most inspiring female adventurers in the UK by The Guardian, and she has appeared on numerous mainstream TV programmes including The One Show and Lorraine. She lives in Yorkshire with her rescue dog, Pickle.

Here she faces questions from a live audience over Zoom.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Alex Hutchinson is an award-winning journalist who writes about the science of endurance, fitness and health. His books include the New York Times bestseller Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance and, most recently, The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map. His Sweat Science column appears in Outside magazine, and he was previously a columnist for Runner's World. Before journalism, he was a postdoctoral physicist and a long-distance runner for the Canadian national team.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans, The Way of the Runner, and The Rise of the Ultra Runners. Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Rebecca Ajulu-Bushell is the author of These Heavy Black Bones, a prize-winning memoir of her brief but stellar swimming career in which she became the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. In this live online author Q&A she talks about her difficult relationship with her coach, the value of mentoring for young athletes, and how she came to be such an accomplished writer.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans, The Way of the Runner, and The Rise of the Ultra Runners. Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Richard Askwith is the multi-award-winning author of books such as Feet in the Clouds, Running Free ("a runner's journey back to nature"), Today We Die a Little (a biography of the great Emil Zátopek) and The Race Against Time (about running in later life). A keen runner for over 40 years, he claims to have achieved "almost nothing" in the sport apart from "life-changing satisfaction". But he did appear as an extra in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire. Here he faces questions from a live audience over Zoom.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans, The Way of the Runner, and The Rise of the Ultra Runners. Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Michael Crawley is a runner, writer and social anthropologist based in Durham. He has been a runner for over 20 years, and ran a 2:20 marathon in 2018. His first book, Out of Thin Air: Running Wisdom and Magic from Above the Clouds in Ethiopia, documents his time living and training alongside runners in Ethiopia, while his latest book, To the Limit: The Meaning of Endurance from Mexico to the Himalayas, takes a similarly immersive approach, featuring overnight bike rides, ultra marathons and runs into sweltering canyons in Mexico. Here he faces questions from a live audience over Zoom.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com

The podcast is supported by Adharanand's Patreon page, which is full of original and exclusive material: patreon.com/adharanandfinn

Music by Starfrosch

Paula Radcliffe is one of the true legends of running, a former marathon world record holder, multiple world champion over the marathon and cross country, winner of the London marathon (3 times), the New York marathon (3 times) and the Chicago marathon. Now 51, Radcliffe discusses her decision to return to the roads to run the Tokyo and Boston marathons. She also discusses her greatest races, how her childhood running club in Bedford played a key role in her success, and she addresses the thorny issue of doping and the time she was publicly accused by the Sunday Times.

Podcast host Adharanand Finn is the author of three award-winning books, Running with the Kenyans (2012), The Way of the Runner (2014), and the Rise of the Ultra Runners (2019). Follow The Way of the Runner podcast on Instagram: @thewayoftherunner or find it at thewayoftherunner.com