 Good evening and welcome to this evening's talk, the first of three talks this week where we will be tomorrow night we will be talking to Nadir Khan, an adventure photographer and then on Friday we'll be talking to back at Coles who's an Alpernist as well, so you might want to join us for one of those but this evening we're excited to have Kerry Wallace here from Girls on Hills, she's a trail runner and she runs or she's a co-founder of Girls on Hills, Scotland's only trail running and fell running company to cater exclusively for women, so it's great to have her here with us, she's just on mute at the moment but she will be unmuted very soon, so thank you for joining us, just a few things, when Kerry gets started you can post any questions you like using the chat function at the bottom if you're on Zoom we are going to be streaming live on Facebook as well, so if you're on Facebook then you will want to maybe add in the comments any questions as well and they will come to me here and I'll ask Kerry at the very end for those questions and I do hope that you'll stick around till the very end because at the very end we have a competition to offer you so I hope you will enjoy the talk and still be with us to ask some questions and enter the competition as well so without further ado, I'd like to invite Kerry to switch on her microphone and I will hand over to her here we go, so there we go, Kerry and you with us hello can you hear me okay yes we can, yes thank you so Kerry over to you, I'm going to disappear okay alright thank you hi, well thanks for joining me, we're in sunny Balahulish at the moment and Ellis Brigham have asked me to speak to you this evening about why trail running so that's kind of why trail running for me, how did I start trail running and why do so many people love trail running so it's kind of a bit like a talk of two halves really the first bit is how did I get into trail running, well I definitely didn't get into trail running at a young age I think I was like most children and to be honest really hated running, I grew up in the west country so there was no mountain running for me as a child and I was kind of running around on beaches and moorland and that kind of thing and some of my earliest experiences of running were actually oh one moment I can't seem to move through my slides there we go was actually a surf life saving championships and events and this is me doing beach flags, I was national champion at beach flags when I was a junior, which is a completely obscure sport that nobody else has probably ever heard of but took out quite a lot of my time as a child competing in these events and also athletics, this is the county championships I was always a sprinter, definitely no long distance running for me and the thing that I remember most about it was how I absolutely hated it, the competition, the nerves, I was always just sick to my stomach with nerves totally ruined it for me and the pressure and the structure and anytime there was a meet or a competition, a tournament, I just hated it, I was always so nervous and my childhood was really dominated by playing a lot of sports and it was always like that, I was always nervous about competitions the one thing that I did do dabble with or tried at that same age, age 12 was rock climbing and this was me age 12 at school activities week it was the first time I ever tried climbing and I absolutely loved it and I thought this is something I really want to do it didn't have that kind of competition feel, it didn't feel competitive and I kind of couldn't find a way to do it, I couldn't find a way to get into it so after that one week of rock climbing, I never actually touched rock again until I was in my mid 20s so I just couldn't find an avenue to pursue the sport so yeah, running and climbing and mountains were just not on the agenda at all for me until quite a lot later in my life it was actually 2006 when completely randomly some friends of the family said do you want to join a three peaks challenge like many people do, walk up the three highest peaks in the UK and see how you get on and have the experience and I thought well that sounds amazing, I've never been up a mountain before, give that a crack and unfortunately that also was not to be because the very first summit we tried to climb was Ben Nevis and I had a kind of really terrible experience that day on the hill where I was there and counted a gentleman who had had a heart attack and unfortunately he needed first aid and I had recently done first aid qualification so I ended up stepping forward and giving CPR and speaking to the mountain rescue and giving them our coordinates and the weather was deteriorating it was all a highly stressful experience and unfortunately the guy didn't make it, it was really sad he had family and I found it really traumatic and it took me a long time to get over it and come to terms with the fact that I couldn't have done more or that it wasn't my fault or I shouldn't have done something differently it really really affected me and that was my first ever time on a mountain so it probably wasn't ideal but the thing was that prior to that actually happening I was having a really amazing time and I was thinking this is incredible I really want to be in the hills this is just like so exciting I totally loved it so I was struck by this real kind of I don't know internal battle between I want to do more of this but I realized that there's this safety aspect and I want to be able to do this safe safely and I want to know what I'm doing I want to be competent so I just I went on a bit of a my life really went on a bit of a tangent at that point and I totally totally changed direction so the following year which was 2007 everything was different I decided that I was going to quit my job I was going to move to north wales I was going to take up rock climbing I was going to go fell running I was going to be this totally different person this is just what I wanted to do and so I thought it would be really good idea to teach myself to navigate by reading a book and then signing up to the low alpine mountain marathon which was my first ever hill race turns out that's actually a really bad idea and it went horrendous it was terrible everything that could possibly have gone wrong went wrong we were on the hill for so long and there were lots of tears and it was it was hard but again I just totally loved it and I just thought this is brilliant I want to do more of this and the same year I started rock climbing I thought I'm going to sign up to become to do my training to become a rock climbing instructor and I just literally threw myself in the deep end I thought I've got loads of time to make up for this has been too long in the too long to come so yeah I'm going to make up for the for the lost time so yeah I went straight into that and I've never really looked back and climbing and running have been a really big part of my life ever since and totally in parallel with each other as well and when Mark asked me to mention where running has taken me it made me realize that actually it's not if I think about that from a geographical point of view it's not running that's taking me places it's it's climbing that's taking me places and I really spent a lot of many years climbing all over the world so this I've actually quite enjoyed just going through my hard drive and taking out old photographs but these are just a tiny portion of the photographs that from experiences of climbing different places on rock and ice and in the Alps and so there's pictures here from from Morocco and and Red Rocks and the Yosemite and Cognia and Chamonix and just you know have had amazing time traveling around climbing and but I never really never really ran abroad um to me running was always something that I did um did at home did in Scotland or in North Wales when I first started um and it was just the way that I kind of explored the the hills and the mountains that I where I lived and I've definitely done more I feel like I've done more running than I have climbing because I used to always run when it was wet and it was more often not suitable for climbing and more suitable for running so I definitely felt like I did a lot more of that um and that's how I got to know the hills really um I did do races as well um and I carried on doing the mountain marathons I used to do a few a year um because I just found them to be a way to to run and to race in the mountains without again having that nervous kind of start line feeling and of competing with others I really like the way the format of kind of racing with somebody racing against yourself and not having you know competing with other people but not not in that in that kind of same way I found it quite a relaxed way of uh of racing um but I've always done fell races as well but just not not loads I tend to just do a few a handful a year I'm definitely not one of those people that race every single weekend for me fell running is not synonymous with fell racing at all I definitely just mostly running hills um with friends or by myself um and that that's what I've been doing you know for years and years now um and uh it got to a point where I thought you know I really want to to push myself and challenge myself but I didn't know where to take it so I kind of decided to come up with my own challenge um rather than enter an event so I I I can drive this thing called the UK big three challenge which was around uh I think it was 2011 I'd always had an interest in um the Bob Graham round the Paddy Buckley round and the Charlie rounds around but I always thought I'll I'll never be able to do those in 24 hours so why don't I just do them all together in one long journey and just make it my own so I decided that this was going to be my challenge um but the thing that intimidated me about it which is the reason why I wanted to do it wasn't that it was really long I actually thought it would go fine it was actually just that um that I wanted to do it completely solo and I wanted to do all the navigation by myself and I wanted it to be an independent thing um and that made me really nervous um so I started training and planning I should say that I didn't know anybody who'd done any of these three rounds by the way I just literally bought the maps and went to these places and started exploring and checking bits out and wrecking things and plotting and and making my own plan for it so it was it was pretty much um all my own I don't know idea um so I didn't start in the normal places and finish in the normal places I decided not to carry loads of stuff I didn't carry a tent and I didn't carry food for days I just treated it like a stage race really and I just did a day and stopped overnight a day and stopped overnight um and I only had support off the hill stayed in kind of I don't know historical mountaineering establishments around around the UK it was amazing it was quite journey um but I also had the idea was to do it in 10 days the three rounds um with driving in between but I had terrible terrible weather um so I started off with the Welsh round you can see bottom right there um that's a more shabbat than top right is over the glitters I was really bad visibility and hail and they were quite long days so I found it quite stressful constantly decision-making constantly navigating um but I got through that round um got up to the lake district to do the Bob Graham round and it was just so windy and it got windier and windier until I think it was the second day it was 100 mile an hour on the tops it's forecast to be 100 mile an hour on the tops and I just had to draw a line under it and say you know I can't I can't do that and I was gutted gutted that I had failed already um but then I just thought well actually I'll just do two days in one day so on the third day I just did two legs um instead um and yeah just got back on schedule so I thought you know what this has been really bad but I actually think this this might go this is this could be in the bag now um and uh but unfortunately by the time I got home to Scotland it got even worse um and yeah it was a blizzard and it was like really strong winds and by the time I got here which is uh this is actually the summit of Annabeg I'd already been blown over a few times my phone had died um and I thought I just don't think this is safe anymore um so I called it I called it and uh so I have 113 summits that I was supposed to do I did 111 and uh yeah I failed on my challenge and and that was a really steep learning curve for me because I was devastated I put so much hard work into it but I think when you put so much effort into something it's sort of in proportion to what you can get back out of it so although it took me a while to kind of to realize it and step back and see it I actually learned more about myself um learned about my strength and weaknesses um as a person but also about my running you know what what my weaknesses are and where I where I can keep on pushing through that challenge on how pretty much anything else um and if anyone else is interested in taking that kind of more if you like accessible approach to those rounds there is a chapter in the back of uh David Linton's book um that I've written that uh that you can read a little bit more about what what I did there but yeah so that was kind of a really life changing or running changing moment for me to do that um challenge and and off the back of that I really started to um explore more round where I live uh which is here in Glencoe and um this is me in a stretcher with a mountain rescue team training so I joined the Glencoe mountain rescue team and I really got to know the hills around home um all the nooks and crannies and all the places that you would never actually choose to go um and that's how I got to know the area where where I now work um I was probably only on the team for maybe four or five years I sort of felt that I'd almost come full circle since that day on the bend when the mountain rescue had to come up and help this casualty and and I had some dealings with them then and and felt completely useless it felt like quite nice to be able to join the team and to be useful for for a while and so yeah I did sort of four or five years of uh on the team before uh this happened um so I had two children and everything completely changed suddenly there just wasn't enough time for for climbing and traveling and running and racing and training and work um so yeah I just couldn't fit it all in um and that hit me pretty hard for a while trying to work out how to juggle it all um and I realized that something had to give um but I also realized that I guess I'm not I'm not the mum I want to be if I don't run so as long as I get out and get some running and I feel fit and healthy then I can be a much better mum to my girls and it really helps balance me out so um I guess I had to admit that running had become a bit more than a hobby for me um it definitely become part of who I who I am and so it was at that point that I kind of took what I'd learned before which was you know that that experience early on on bed never is it kind of you it made me feel like life's too short you need to just get on and do things and so I thought well do you know what life is too short to not do what you what you want to do with it so um that's when I sort of took the leap really and started Girls on Hills with my friend Nancy who is in the picture up there if you can see my cursor and yeah we started that three years ago now um and the idea is to really empower women I suppose with by using outdoor recreation by using running by using hill walking and and and to empower them with the skills and the confidence to go out and do some of this stuff themselves it's like a terrible business model because I'm always telling people you don't really need me this is all you need to do and you can go and do this by yourself but that but that is the idea um and it's been it's been brilliant it's been really good fun you know we've had a bit more success than we ever thought we would um which has been great but also it's just been really really good fun um and you know I have no idea I have no idea where it'll go next so certainly at the moment it's not going very far with us all being in lockdown up here but um yeah uh so I made running my work and that definitely helped free up some time for for the family so it really helped me balance my running with my family commitments um so so that was the next step but alongside that I've always uh kept my personal running going but since having having a family I've felt that the need to really focus in on the sort of running that I enjoy most so for me that's I suppose it's harking back a little bit to the climate that I miss because I don't really do as much now of any really um hopefully that'll change but you know uh so it's sort of technical running or I like mixing up scrambling in the mountains with with running or um sort of high mountain running um and then even getting out in the winter um and just sort of pushing my boundaries a little bit and finding out um you know what I can and can't do it's always inspired me just to to try and find out what the next thing is that I don't know if it's possible and then and have a crack at it and see if it'll go so that's kind of where I'm at just now um focusing in on that kind of running that I really enjoy so more sky running um definitely on the cards um for me but what has drawn me to running I'm sure has drawn many many people to running but I think what's interesting about trail running is the fact that it just appeals to so many people I've read a report that says that it's one of the it's the fastest growing sport in Europe at the moment and it doesn't surprise me really because of it's just so so varied really it's such a broad it's a kind of an umbrella term really for so many types of running but um even if you just look at running on its pure ascent so take out the trail aspect it has loads of health benefits um so it can uh be used as a tool for for managing stress um for anxiety depression weight management it actually is really good for printing preventing osteoporosis so people always say oh you know runners are you're gonna have terrible news when you go but actually it show it's been shown to improve knee health um lowering the chances of certain types of cancer increasing your life especially and then like most sports there's all those social benefits um not so many right enough at the moment but you know clubs and events and races and all the things that you can do with that sport in terms of meeting other people and interacting with people so there's so many benefits um for running in general I think one of the added appeals about trail running is the fact that it brings you out into into nature into uh into green spaces um and I think it was 2018 when doctors in Scotland first started prescribing time in nature time in green spaces uh to their patients to to treat things or to manage conditions like anxiety and high blood pressure and stress and and it's actually you know been scientifically proven that that is a you know that is a tangible effect um and it's actually only two hours a week that you need to spend in that environment to really see those measurable dist differences in terms of health and well-being um and I just think that that's a really amazing thing and and I definitely think that um that's the reason why you you get that kind of run as high when you if you're a runner and you run a lot then you do get a kind of run as high when you go running and I think that's just it's even more pronounced if you can do that in in in a natural place in an open place and this study um that is on the screen here almost 20 000 people um were analyzed for this report and uh it was shown that the effect doesn't actually work in kind of urban parks it's it has to be really in nature and in green spaces and and it even showed that the best effect was kind of areas of outstanding natural beauty so it really is to do with getting out there and enjoying the the scenery and and the environment around you and I think that's a for me anyway that's a really big part of traveling certainly up up here in the mountains um and and that's definitely part of the appeal and I think perhaps in modern life with the kind of busy lifestyles that we all lead and hectic schedules and lots of commitments and everything so managed and health and safety conscious and there's just so much going on it's there's almost more benefit to be felt by stepping away from all that and some of these sort of anecdotal things I've written on the screen like a sense of escapism being able to get a bit of perspective being able to get privacy or me time and headspace away from whether it's work or family commitments all those sorts of things those are really the things that that I take away from trail running and from hill running from fell running and the most and that that's definitely my appeal and I think the growing interest and popularity of trail running relates mostly to those things and to the fact that they are you know sadly difficult to come by in our day-to-day working lives and so I think that's why they're so important and I think that's why we're seeing so many people take up running now in in this global pandemic because those feelings of being kind of those that feeling of cabin fever is really heightened and yeah I think running is a release and escapism that lots of people have kind of started to tap into and there's a report just recently looking at data from Garmin wearers watch wearers and devices and it showed that there was a 50% decrease in the number of people running on their treadmills and a simultaneous 50% increase in people getting outside and running and we've probably all seen how people are just itching to get back to the hills and to the countryside to the park and to the coast and to get to these open spaces and so I think that that's why trail running is so popular and and I can totally buy into that that's that's totally how I feel and and I do think that maybe after all this is over and lockdown is completely lifted and we can do what we like again eventually um maybe trail running will be you know bigger than bigger than it's ever been but we'll see and that's the end that's the end of my talk great thank you Kerry that's um that's brilliant and we've had a few questions so um if you don't mind me uh putting them to you um I'll just uh I'll just I'll let me go without the slide with the questions um so and and we're asked um how do you manage injury given it's your career do you worry that an injury could jeopardize what you have yes um funnily enough I've always been really injury prone um and that is actually another driver that that forced me into trail running early on I did do some road running initially and I found I was really really injury prone and with the trail running I find I'm far far less injury prone and actually even more so in the mountains and I think that's because um the style of running that I do mostly is I there's obviously a lot of walking involved so I find that to be um a really nice way of easing off and keeping everything really gradual um and I personally I find that if I'm running and walking in the hills and I'm keeping that at a certain level without changing too much I'm I'm pretty much fine I can keep on keep on doing that it's actually I'm sure most runners would understand this but it's it's when things change when you change aspects of your training or change aspects of your sometimes even you know footwear um that you can uh you can experience um the start of a niggle or you start to train harder or increase your mileage or your the amount of essentially you're putting into your training so so I'm really wary of making any changes and you know dramatically I try to to do things ease ease those sorts of changes in but yeah it's a big concern now um I have to be really wary and be really careful of it so just try to be really mindful of of preventative measures really okay um Kevin Kevin Biles on Facebook says um what is your favorite trails in the UK wow that is a different question um I don't know if I could say I have a favorite trail do you know I'm probably one of those people that just never really wants to run the same trail two days in a row and so even you know even locally I always am always mixing up to go to something that I haven't been to for a while I think actually it's kind of the opposite thing it's just the novelty factor so anything new anything different um is always is always a great one and I tend not to want to run the same you know obviously there's routes that I do a lot more than others locally and it would probably if I had to choose it would be something with scram with plenty of scrambling and it's something like um something round the co probably um but yeah mostly I just like to to try different to try different things in different places yeah great um Nicola Diggins asks what do you carry and eat in the way of food on a long hill day um what do I carry and eat in terms of food um basically just food and not gels so I you know if I was racing I do sometimes carry like um sports nutrition in the form of gels or mixes or sweets or whatever but I found that more recently um you know I can go for longer and I feel better if I just eat normal food so it's things that I can um I suppose it's similar to to the approach that people take when they're running an ultra distance event or something like that it's something that's really palatable to you um that you know that you can tolerate um and that you can eat on the go and it's not going to make you feel feel really horrible um I take quite a lot of things like hot cross buns um and I quite like pork pies even though they're really dense and heavy I definitely if it's a long run if it's a big day I definitely crave calories in in the form of like a fat really so it's like cheese and pork pies and things that probably I'm not supposed to take but I never really want um much in the way of of carbs so it tends you know in terms of sugars so I yeah I tend to to just take things that maybe salty and fatty that I want to eat along the way something I'm going to enjoy good honest answer thank you um Lisa Marshall asks how do you minimise your risk of injury I think you've um yeah you've kind of answered that one um but you did you said I also say you do a lot of strength work in preparation so um whilst the question before was um how do you manage injury this is sort of how do you how do you limit your risk of injury for the training you do I think I do try to do a bit of cross training I'd like to do more but I do feel that I sort of touched on this earlier but I kind of I'm definitely trying to balance the whole running thing with the family commitment um and I don't it just there's not enough time I'd love to do more more core strength and conditioning uh and just general sort of strength and conditioning work but I I actually try to build that into my running more in terms of just the style of running that I do so more whether it's be more hill work or different styles of workouts as part of of my training um I do as I mentioned before quite a bit of scrambling I have a bouldering wall at home I can do some climbing um and yeah I try to mix things up a bit like that and if if I feel that I've got a bit of a a niggle coming on perhaps I do a bit more cycling or something to take some of the pressure off um and and keep that aerobic work going so yeah I definitely the answer is probably that I should do a lot more um but I definitely also believe in a kind of um of a specificity of training you know so I do largely do in training what I do for racing so but as I said before racing's a very small component for me of of what I do I don't do a lot of racing and so my my work and my own personal running is generally pretty relaxed to be honest and and that means that there's a much lower risk of injury I think okay great um just sorry I'm looking down to look at my phone we just got a few questions from um uh here's a good good question during uh during lockdown Gail Samson on Facebook says um any reading recommendations for those that was missing the hills oh um one book but uh yeah okay um I think if you haven't read Feet in the Clouds you should read that one to start with if you're interested in being inspired for running in the mountains I think that was one of my first you know reads that really got me interested in the sort of British fell running scene um so give that one a read definitely Richard Asquith I think is that's Feet in the Clouds is it yeah yeah okay great thank you um question from Colin Way what ambitions have you got for the future oh to know sort of feel like it's one of those questions where you like you don't really want to say in case you look a bit stupid because it'll be something totally impossible um yeah I don't know I'd really love to do some um I'd like to do I'd like to have a crack at one of the rounds at some point um that I mentioned in the three you know when I first did those I was like I'll never be able to do one of those rounds it's totally unrealistic um and you know it didn't it wasn't even on my radar but as I've done so much more running over the years I've started to think actually maybe that wouldn't be too bad and I'd like to to do that and I think not yeah just really because it feels like somebody who loves running and has been involved in the running community for a long time it feels like it's something that you have to do like a rite of passage I feel like I need to go and do do that so um I'd really love to but I'm fully aware that there's a lot of time commitment there and I just don't have that right at the moment so that's a definite ambition and there are big races in the Alps I'd love to go and do I'd like to do it I actually was entered I actually was entered had a place for um uh a race in Switzerland this year a sky an extreme sky race I was really excited about doing which has obviously been cancelled so um I'd like to do some more international sort of sky racing that'd be great too um I've got a question for myself um as a as a father of three girls how do you um because how are your children uh three and five okay so similar similar ages um how do you how do you go about getting maybe the five year old interested in running is she's just started to sort of go on a few little few little runs but um she much prefers riding a bike at the moment which is yeah yeah so we haven't actually tackled what we only very recently started to tackle running with her again like you say she's done so she's done some biking and she's cycling her bike and she's she actually really quite enjoys the climbing wall so that's really good but we hadn't really tried to do anything much with the running um but then since lockdown it seemed like a good way to to take her out and get some exercise so we gave her um we gave her a little pair of trainers and like a headband so she felt like she was part of it and then we went running um just on a little loop but it was really like uh you know there's no pressure it was just supposed to be really fun and uh we we sort of made it like clambering up and down and jumping off things and sort of collecting flowers on the way and and actually she's totally loved it I think because at that age they're just sort of finding their feet aren't they they've gone from that sort of like slightly um uncoordinated sort of toddler phase where they look really inefficient and you think please don't run because it's just going to go splat to actually they're suddenly they actually can almost almost do it and and she's really enjoying it actually so just trying to keep the pressure off and make it fun if she wants to to go then we make her feel like she's going on a proper run with mommy or a proper run with daddy and we go and do a little trail loop around the like a couple of k or something and she she's actually really enjoying it but you know how it is with kids they probably won't last so really thank you for that um just go back to a few questions from uh people who are on the uh watched it this evening um have you got any recommendations for kicks clothing shoes or anything like that um that's a that's a big question uh yeah I mean there's things that I use you know that I kind of like loved pieces of kit I suppose um some would be so I have like a really nice wind top I think it's an Arcterics wind top but it doesn't matter what it is really to the extent that I've just thought I've had several over the years I just find them a really really useful piece of kit for trail running because quite often you know you're quite warm when you're running particularly in the hills but the thin layer just really cuts out that you know um that wind chill factor and it just makes a huge difference and it's so light and so tiny you can just stuff it in your vest you can just stuff it in a bum bag whatever however whatever you're carrying and and it makes a huge difference though that that's definitely um one of my one of my top bits um in terms of footwear it's just so personal I mean I I've always well I started out running in waltzes but then more recently I've been running in innovates for years um but as I've been doing a bit more distance I've definitely also been wearing some last whativa shoes for sky running a little bit more cushioning in the middle um but it's just impossible to make a recommendation because it just depends you know on the shape of your foot and what you like and what kind of a runner you are and your race and you know but yeah so it's a tricky one okay I hope that helps Helen um Susan Bern asks um okay she asks what kit do you carry to keep safe so you're um part of the mountain rescue as well aren't you do you work with them well I have done but I'm not anymore since I've got the kids I uh my husband is also on the was also on the team so we ended up that between the two of us one of us could only have any one of us could ever go because we couldn't leave the children alone so I left the team after after a number of years but um but yeah in terms of safety stuff that I carry on the hill I always carry um a first aid kit I always carry a little survival bag um if uh yeah a little head torch um and if it's winter I usually carry a couple actually um because there's a much higher chance of being benighted early on um and um I've more recently got a personal locator beacon although I rarely take it out but I do think that's quite good if you're going to be on your own running uh long way in you know somewhere remote maybe or somewhere you're not familiar with um obviously the basic sort of navigation uh stuff so map and compass um and if I'm guiding then I always have you know a group shelter or something like that and and a bigger kind of first aid kit and and I have lots of spare layers you know I think when you're running on your own in the hills you just have to or if to be running you don't really want your bag to be heavy obviously but you have to completely trade that off against the fact that if anything happens you're totally on your own so um people often say to me yeah I run hot I don't really need this layer or that layer and I think but it's not how hot you run it's how hot you feel when you've been sitting with a sprained ankle for three hours and it's freezing cold and you know you just cool down so quickly um whatever you take with you's not going to be enough but you know I think I always go on the side of caution and have uh plenty of warm layers so a sort of a synthetic jacket of some kind um you know maybe not in the middle of summer right enough but you know in the autumn or the spring and definitely in the winter I would have really a lot of thermal layers with me and and tend to take um several pairs of gloves if it's winter because as soon as you put your hands down on anything and they get wet and you get cold it's really hard to come back from so yeah that kind of stuff great thank you um just in terms of just in terms of kind of um skills that you you would sort of encourage people to have if they're going to go off on on big runs obviously navigation being a key one um girls on hills run a number of sort of courses around navigation and things like that um but what would be aside from the navigate or in addition to the navigation what other thing would you recommend um people would make sure they they sort of were familiar with before going off on their own I think it depends a little bit on this on the kinds of trails that you're going to be running you know where we work here um then when you're good even if you're going into the mountains you're not going up the mountains you effectively need the same skill set um because you're going to a quite remote place and the weather changes quite dramatically and the water levels shouldn't change quite dramatically the visibility um and so yeah obviously navigation is really important but things like um knowing how to cross rivers plan routes that avoid um you know river crossings that might become uncrossable in the conditions or knowing how to um plan a route with a number of escape options so that if you're up in the hills you can say you know if the weather deteriorates and say that a storm rolled in and you needed to get down but you are still a long way from where you'd planned to descend you know you can just you've already thought through perhaps a number of options for getting down that would be safe you know rather than just going I'll just go down there or just get down as soon as I can so I guess what I'm trying to say there is is route planning as well as navigation so knowing what makes a good a good route but having made backup plans as well for when if and when things don't go well um and notifying people before you go where you're going and what your what your plans are um and then there's kind of like more technical skills I suppose there's you know um scrambling and um you know uh knowing how to read the weather and there's as I mentioned before river crossings you know knowing how to deal with when it's safe to cross a river and when it's not um and just basic kind of mountain savvy really I think if you're going to be trail running in remote places in the UK then you're looking at the same sort of skill set that you would need to go to go hill walking or you know in the mountains okay um Lisa Marshall asks how do you motivate yourself this is a good one for me how do you motivate yourself when your head really isn't in the run um would you just love every run no I definitely don't that's definitely something that I think is a bit of a myth that people think oh just because you you know you're a running guide or you work running is your work that you must love it the whole time and that's definitely not true I struggle with motivation a lot um and yeah it depends I think sometimes there's a bit of a trick of the mind I just tell myself I won't I don't need to do anything big or hard I just need to just get out of the door and do something little and I often find that if you can just get out the door you're halfway there and by the time you actually get out and start it's much much easier to do something harder or you know for example if you need to do a speed session and you really don't want to do it just I just won't do I'll just go for a wee jog and then and then I'll get out and see how I feel when you get out they are all right it's not so bad you know um but also if I'm doing something longer if I'm trying to build mileage I use a lot of um audiobooks and podcasts and stuff like that to distract myself to distract me from myself so that I can just shut the world out really and sometimes that helps a little bit with the sense of flow I can sometimes be like oh where did those three hours go and it's just assumed past I could have been sitting in a cinema I haven't really been concentrating I think that's quite nice if you're trying to um pass you know pass the time on uh on a runway you've got to do a lot of miles and and that helps helps me get out the door as well yeah great um an unusual question question from um Florence I think it is um she she obviously wears glasses or contact lenses and she asks how do you cope um we're wearing glasses or contacts during your your long runs um so yeah I um I do have quite dry eyes actually and I do struggle with wearing contacts for a long time um but uh I never run really in my glasses I did have a period where I couldn't wear contacts and it was terrible I hated hated running in my glasses um and so yeah I just I literally just um if I I guess if I had that issue I would literally just carry I have like dry eye drops and I just carry them a little bottle with me and I can can use those and I just keep the lenses in and I find that's fine to deal with if it's like a multi-day thing so I always used to find it quite nerve wracking on mountain marathons because I used to carry I have like monthly disposals and I used to carry them in my pack and had to put sorry daily disposals I had to put a new pairing in the morning and it was always really nerve wracking trying to put this thing in without a mirror inside a tent and thinking if I drop this I can't see for the rest of this event you know um and it was a really scary moment trying to put this lens in every time um so you know yeah if you can avoid having to do that then that's that's really good for you but no I've just had to deal with it just to put the lenses in wear them and keep them as moisturized as possible and carry a couple of smears if you have to I've actually knocked them out with my walking poles my running poles in the past given myself a bonk and lost one so I think it's worth having one in your bag if you can yeah they don't weigh much no I've been there while camping and um trying to put contact lenses and drop them on the floor and then you're uh looking around in the grass for you yes terrifying so just a couple more questions then if you if that's okay and what was um Victoria Bentley asks what was the most challenging aspect of setting up girls on hills because how old is Gilda's on the hills now this is the third year so still quite young um the most challenging aspect has probably been was probably just making the taking the leap to do it in the first place that I'd actually had the idea or something similar for many years before um and just always thought well I can't possibly do that you know that's a ridiculous idea it's like a pipe dream um and not really having the the confidence to do it um and actually you know doing it with Nancy and having two people involved and and having somebody to bounce ideas off and to say look we should just do it just get let's just jump and just put it out there and have a go and that was definitely the hardest bit because and it's not my background to to run a business and um you know I didn't really I don't really necessarily know what I'm doing I thought it's definitely making up as we go along um but to an extent that's really exciting it's really interesting um but it was really intimidating because you feel like you're going to get egg on your face you know you just think well what if this all just doesn't work and it's all goes pear shaped but um it's been a really enjoyable journey and it's definitely been worth doing it so yeah that's great um Phil Phil Cox asks what would your advice be for someone that has done a few organized trail runs and wants to take the next steps to go further bigger or longer if you're interested in racing then I think it's a just a question of finding you know doing the research and finding the event those kinds of events that sort of tick tick the boxes for you I think there is a bit of a step change there between sort of if you decide to to go from something like trail running to fell running so something more like a mountain race because there is that navigational aspect where you need to self navigate and choose your own route potentially and that kind of thing um but if you just want to do a trail race in the mountains that sometimes thing that's quite a nice introduction um because you might find a race that has a way marked course you know um and you can get up into that environment in a in a like in in an organized event where the safety isn't managed and the route is managed and everything is there for you um and it enables you to experience the environment and find out if that actually works for you if that actually ticks your boxes or something a bit higher something a bit longer um and and see if that if that works for you um I think if you're going if you're talking about doing something more on your own and and adventuring out into the hills then I just think that basically going on a course and learning how to self navigate and then just literally go and get stuck in go and have a go at it go and explore and it's it's a really empowering experience it's brilliant because I think it's I think the mountains are one of the few places left if you like where you actually just make all the decisions yourself you know you're allowed to you go out there you decide where you want to go and when and what you carry and uh how far and which way you're going to come back and nobody tells you what to do and how much risk you take how much you push is really up to you and it's not part of our culture here in the British mountains to tell people that they're doing it right or they're doing it wrong and and it's just really it's really liberating to be able to go and do that and I definitely would recommend that just go in and learning how to read a map and come first taking the things that you need to be safe out there and and just you know start small you don't have to go jump straight in the deep end but just to go and do it by yourself is is definitely one of the most rewarding ways of doing it okay um Bryony asks what what sort of distance do you usually run when you go trail running um I presume you go running most days do you carry yeah not most days actually I find as I mentioned before I've always been a bit of an injury prone person and it's taken me years to discover the exact balance of rest and training that I need and I'm one of those people if I ran every day I definitely start to pick up nibble niggles uh and nibbles yeah so um I I definitely uh sort of maybe run two days on one day off something like that um but in terms of mileage uh it really depends what I'm what I'm aiming for if it's if it's work related if I'm doing a lot of work so in the summer season for example then definitely not doing huge mileage is it's really steep around where I live and we can sometimes be out on the hills for hours we've only gone a few miles um uh because there's so much ascent and it's such like rough ground um but if I was training particularly for like an ultra distance event or a sky race then you know I would be looking to push up the mileage of at least one of my training runs during the week and I might do something uh longer at the moment in lockdown if I'm going out on a long run it might be a couple of hours um but you know it's it's a shade of it's for myself the running at the moment but um yeah it really just depends what I'm I've always I know I said I don't race a lot and I don't really but I have usually got something in the back of my mind that I'm training for okay so do you have a plan in the week to kind of think I'm going to do I don't know 20k on yeah treat it more like see if I'm gonna do a race of a certain distance on a certain date in the future I kind of treat it like I want to build up to that gradually by increasing my distance roughly around about 10 a week um oh on my long run say and um I just don't really look at what my mileage is over a week I just kind of look at what my mileage of my longest run might be and everything else is kind of supporting type runs so some hill work and some some you know some speed work or something like that and then just some easy runs but you usually have at least one kind of long run that I gradually try to e-cup the mileage on um and yeah it might just be um it's it's actually less like it's a bit less like with road running where I would say I need to do 20k I need to do 30k it tends to I tend to think more in hours and in terms of hours on feet or time on feet because I think that is more relevant in the mountains somehow so I tend to think in terms of like I need to go on a long run so I'm going to go on three or four hours or I'm going to be half a day or I'm going to be out all day um that kind of approach that's really interesting thank you um Ruth asks do you feel safe running in the mountains on your own yeah definitely and uh I think it's funny when I look back I mean it's taken me a long time to get to that position um I didn't always feel that way but when I look back and all the kind of nightmare scenarios that I've had in the past where you make mistakes and errors it's almost always been because I've been in a group of people or I've fallen somebody else or I didn't you know I've not wanted to pipe up and say something or you know I don't necessarily feel you know I definitely don't feel more at risk being in the hills running or or whatever you know by myself I think um I think it's important that when you're in the mountains that you realize that you know ultimately the responsibility lies with you even if you're in a group of people because you have to you know sometimes people seem like they know a lot more about what they're doing or they seem really confident but it might be that they don't necessarily know or or any more confident than you are um and so I think when you go up there you have to imagine if a worst-case scenario happened and that person that you're hiking with and and relying on um was to to get to get injured and you had to go for help then you know the buck stops with you so I think you you have to sort of take that approach um and that's why I think learning how to navigate and learning how to look after yourself is such a empowering experience because then basically after that you're free to go where you want with whoever you know and make your own decisions and and being a we know when you get back and you've you've done all that yourself and you feel that you've done it well I think it's a rewarding experience like I did that you know I did that by myself yeah yeah um just two more questions if for me uh there's a question here from anonymous um he says have a traumatic brain injury and have found that running in the mountains reduces my cognitive load um has girls on hills worked with people in neurological conditions at all? No we haven't um but I'm not surprised to hear that because it only in that it never ceases to amaze me the sort of benefits that people get um from running and from being out in in the hills and in the mountains um so we haven't come across that but we we have we often we always take kind of medical information from the people that we we take out running and we see all kinds of different um medical conditions and and uh people's in people's backgrounds and um so many people come to the sport to to find a way of managing that or relief and particularly um around sort of mental health and those kinds of things um we it was it was something actually really took us by surprise when we first started uh running we didn't expect people to feel um to be using the hill so much as therapy if you like and and actually to feel that they could open up and talk more more freely um about about you know their situation when they're out in the hill and and that's been a really interesting uh sort of aspect of girls on hills for us has made it really rewarding um but yeah that's interesting to hear that um and final final question um what's as a it was a well Adam is um hasn't started running yet but what's the one bit of advice you'd give him um uh he's thinking about maybe a trail run to kick things off um what would you say to him as a a complete beginner what's the one bit of advice I would say that um my advice would be to just it sounds a bit sounds a bit boring but it's just to build up to build up gradually because I think if you I think trail running is really addictive and I think people get into it and they think this is amazing I'm just going to throw myself in there and before you know what they've gone I'll do a 5k I'll do a 50k I'm going to do an ultra next week and people just go go crazy because they fall in love with it and they want to do it and and when I meet new runners the thing that strikes me a lot of the time is especially if they've found something they feel passionate about is um it never occurs to them they're going to pick up a running injury and and you have to remember that even though the incidence of injury and trail running is lower than in other types of running like road running for example um you still can get injured here there's a repetitious sport is a high impact sport um and there's a lot of kind of particulars you start moving into longer distance running there is that kind of overuse aspect and if you do it right and you build up gradually you don't have to necessarily pick up a running injury but they are so common and it's such a shame for it to happen and if I could sort of go back to I for myself I fell down go a bit just just build up gradually um and don't just go crazy and jump straight in the in the deeper end and injure yourself because once you start building up niggles it's quite hard to to not carry carry them around with you as you you know continue to do more and more mileage so I definitely would say whilst you're not a runner build it build up into being one with with that in mind so that you can build from a really strong base great that's great great advice thank you Kerry um so that I mean that's really all we've got time for so um just wanted to say thank you to Kerry um that's been really really interesting um if you want to check out a bit more um about the courses that Girls on Hills uh offer then it's girlsonhills.com is it Kerry yeah yeah yeah um so go there they do lots of different courses running with lots of um lots of other uh women in the mountains and as soon as they're allowed they'll be starting back up again I'm sure um witness and at the beginning I mentioned about uh entering a competition uh so I'm just posting a link to uh to how you can fill out little entry form um based on things that Kerry's spoken about um if you'd like to win a 50 pound on the spring voucher then go ahead to that link just copy and paste it into your browser and um we'll enter you into the draw uh which will be done on Friday night um and that's that's really um everything and um yeah just to say thank you again to Kerry thank you for having me thanks for listening. No problem at all and um yeah thank you to everyone for joining us this evening and um yes stay stay safe and stay active everyone thank you bye bye.