Karen Ekman - Racing Without Losing Yourself

In this episode of EBR Women, Clare Pearson talks with Karen Ekman after her outstanding ride at the Trans Balkan Race.

Karen is from Finland, and has spent many years living in Norway and Austria. Her route into adventure cycling has been long and winding: team sports, snowboarding, freeride competition, mountain biking, gravel riding, bikepacking, and now ultra-distance racing.

Clare and Karen talk about her transition from long solo bikepacking journeys to ultra racing, including a 2,500km ride through Norway and Finland, and a four-month, 7,000km solo trip from Athens to Porto.

Karen reflects on what she learned from freeride snowboarding, why she once stepped away from competition, and how ultra cycling has helped her rebuild a healthier relationship with racing. She talks openly about self-worth, pressure, curiosity, uncertainty, and learning to compete without losing sight of herself.

The conversation also explores the Trans Balkan Race: the surprise of finding herself at the front, the mental effect of being described as “chasing”, the importance of food, sleep and self-care, and why taking care of yourself can be the fastest way forward in a multi-day race.

This is a thoughtful conversation about bikepacking, racing, trust, uncertainty, mindset, and listening to the curious voice that asks what else might be possible.

You can follow Karen on social media and also learn about her work as a cycling guide via the link: https://www.instagram.com/karenemiliae?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw== 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We have always been felt throughout history. We've been pedaling, running, and finding our way to unique feeding the movement outdoors and breakfast. Inspiring each other. Join me on the talk to inspiring women who quietly get on with their everyday lives while doing amazing things in nature. Karen, welcome. Welcome to EBR Women Podcast. And thank you. Thank you for taking the time to come on. And congratulations. What an epic Trans Balkan race you had.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Well, thank you, Claire. First and foremost, thank you so much for having me. It's uh I've been listening to this podcast for even before we started working with John. So it's really, really fun to be here and to be able to share my experiences. Um and thank you. Yeah, the Trans Balkan, I think, was a surprise for many or my performance in it. But it was an amazing experience. So I'm super happy to be here to share it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah. Um it wasn't a surprise to me or John, actually, your performance, but um, there you go. Maybe we had a little bit of insider knowledge on that one. Um anyway, uh, some people who are listening will know you and some people won't. So it would be really nice if you could just introduce yourself a bit, say a bit about yourself and your relationship with adventure cycling.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah, sure. Um so my name is Karin Ekman, and I'm born and raised in Finland. Um, I'm a bit of a hybrid Scandinavian, I usually say, because I'm Finnish, but my first language is Swedish, and then I've lived many, many years in Norway. Um, so all of the Scandinavians are very close to my heart and very familiar to me. Um my path into adventure cycling has been long and winding. Um I come from a background in in team sports, um, and have uh um but but did grow up with parents who took us camping and was spent a lot of time in nature and I grew up in the forest. So being in nature was always um a big part of how I lived in a sense. Um after team sports, I started snowboarding more. I snowboarded since I was a kid, but then I started prioritizing more time for that and became a snowboard and ski instructor and and ended up in um freeride snowboarding actually, uh, and competed in that for for um a little while. Um and then it wasn't until after that that I found bikes. Um I think the first real bike outside of uh commuting bikes were was uh a mountain bike and endure bike, and I got into mountain biking and then came the gravel bike and bikepacking, and then came many long um bikepacking journeys. Um most most of them solo. Um I think one of the first longer bikepacking journeys I did was 2500 kilometers around in Norway and into Finland. Um and then it kind of through that just became this thing that I do. This is how I travel, this was my main um vehicle of exploration, and um now it's taken me to explore the ultras, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, wow, wow. That transition then from snowboarding to cycling, how d how did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Um no, it was quite I've always kind of been led by curiosity and exploration. I am definitely a curious person who likes to um find out about new spaces and new activities and new countries and languages and cultures and things, and and so um that was it with snowboarding. I I loved spending time in the mountains, I loved progressing and kind of pushing myself, dropping bigger cliffs or like writing lines um more continuously and with more flow and things. Um so it was really cool for me as well to kind of venture into the competition scene of free writing, and I learned a lot in that. I learned a lot of like having a uh a big picture of what you wanted to do and plan ahead and then execute, then go and trust that what you had chosen to do, you will be able to do. Like the the cliff that you have chosen to drop, just go and like write it and not kind of give in to the hesitation just before you're jumping out, in a sense. Um, so I learned a lot from there. Um, but that was many years ago that I competed and my headspace was not really right for competition yet. I went into the competitions with a lot of insecurity about myself, um, and a lot of kind of self-worth and and value tied to the outcome of the competition. Um, so I've really somehow really deep inside me, I felt like I was less worth I was worse if I actually did not succeed. Um I did I wasn't able to take it as a as a as a chance to learn. Um, and I was kind of just like scared of failure, um, which was not a good space to compete in, because then um there was so much pressure and there was only me putting the pressure on myself. So I ended up quitting uh competing, which is just a little bit of a shame. Um, but I ended up quitting competition completely and kind of somehow um developing this mindset that competition is not for me. I don't need to prove myself, I don't need to compare myself to anyone. But then on the same time I was pushing aside this side of me that really loves challenge and that really loves to have a goal and that really loves to work towards something and figure things out. Um, so it was kind of with a couple of years of maturing and getting older um and biking quite a lot, um, and then getting curious on the ultras and then realizing that this is the thing that I need to go in to to figure out. Like I I I wanted to kind of heal my relationship with competing and allow myself to actually challenge myself and push myself in order to develop and in order to learn and in order to learn that it's not about self-worth, it's not about value, uh that has nothing to do with it, it's about development and progression within yourself.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah. It's a very difficult balance, I think. Uh to be uh competitive and to really want something, and and invariably if we're in an event where that you the wanting is uh being faster than somebody else, it's competitive. Um and also just being okay with the fact that you're doing your best and the outcome will be what it will be. Um I'm I I I think two years is a long time, but I I'm not I think it maybe it's a lifelong quest as well.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

I definitely think so. I definitely think so. I um but I think allowing it to be a lifelong quest is also something that um makes it less of a you know task that you have to solve straight away. It gives you more time, um, and it kind of allows you to sit with the progress instead of trying to be there already. Um and it allows you to be able to accept that sometimes maybe you will go into this mindset of comparing yourself with others, and then you can only follow along and see how that affects you. Um, like just for example, if we'll jump into the Trans Balkan, I can take some examples from there. Um there were like on on day one, I ended up um actually leading the race, which I had no clue of because I didn't allow myself to look at the tracker yet, because I didn't know how my mind was gonna handle looking at the tracker. So I didn't look at the tracker and then I came across some local ladies who were offering water and cookies to everyone who came by. Um and they well, I I stopped for cookies and water and thanked them, and and then I biked along and then they just shouted after me, You're the first woman! And I was like, Oh my god, what? And I didn't know until then. Um and so but then I kind of yeah, just sat with it. My was really I was really set on pacing myself for the first day. So I tried to bike as slow as possible in a sense to just keep my heart rate um leveled and and not push too hard. But then came the next couple of days when I um realized that Dilata had taken had um had taken first place and the race director started putting out some media from the race saying that Karen is chasing, Karen's almost catching Delata. And you have the realization of oh, yeah, I'm in a race. This is a race. Yeah. Yeah, so then um the race organization uh race organizers um were putting out some social media posts and writing that I'm running up um only a couple of hours or an hour behind Delata, um, and that the chase is on, Karen is chasing, and this is the point where I actually realized, like, okay, this is not the bikepacking and triff. I am in a race and I'm doing really well in second place. Um, but it also awoke this situation where, okay, now I'm thrown into this learning curve. This is where you're gonna figure out what racing is and how you react to it. Um, and so this ended up happening a couple of times during the race where I'd be thrown into this mental space of like, oh, I need to race, I need to catch her. But then I would kind of forget about taking care of myself. So the one day, I think this was the day that we got to Gospitch, which was the one bigger kind of resupply um town before we headed into another long remote section before CP1. Um, and I ended up coming into the town without really having a good plan, without really having checked that I should go to the gas station, I should get a lot of food from there and a lot of drinks from there. So I ended up finding a restaurant, rushing through, feeling like I can't sit down to have a full meal, just getting some fries to go, and biking out of the town as fast as I can, just because I am chasing. Um, and it wasn't like it didn't take me many minutes of biking out of the town, realizing that I really messed up this stuff. Like I really did not take care of myself, and I haven't not heading off into this section being prepared to do the best that I can. Um, and so I already knew it was gonna be a tough section. Um, and then eventually at the end of that day, I got to CP1 and I was really cold. I had not eaten enough uh whatsoever. I started already feeling pain in my body, just stiffness here and there. Um, and it I knew it only came from not eating enough and not um being able to fuel enough. So that was a hard learning curve for me for sure during the race of realizing that okay, external kind of um input can have this this effect on me. Um and then it just comes up to myself on how I react and how well I can deal with racing but still taking care of myself.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah, it's that line, isn't it, between um racing real or imagined, a race that is imposed by the media and uh real or imagined expectations of other people and the race that you uh originally uh planned. Um but credit to you, you knew straight away. You were like, uh, hang on a minute, this is this is not gonna work. This this strategy does not work for me. Um so what did you do at CP1 to turn it round?

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Um I ate pasta. I ate pasta, I drank iced tea, um, and first of all, I just sat inside in my puffer jacket, just waiting for my body to kind of regain some sort of energy to maintain some warmth inside of me. Um, and then the time was luckily enough so much that I knew that I can just hit out a CP and kind of find a spot to sleep as soon as possible. Um but another thing that I hadn't taken care of that day was fixing my sleeping mat that was got a nice and big puncture on the first night. Um so for the first night I had laid out my sleeping mat in the forest and kind of checked that there was nothing spiky underneath, and then I relaxed, sat myself down, relaxed, leaned back, took my last breath before I was gonna sleep, and then I just felt all the air go out of the mattress. Um uh the first night. I kind of yeah, I um eventually I did some yeah, I did some tape job with some duct tape trying to fix it, but eventually realized it's three o'clock, I'm not gonna fix this mat now, I'm just gonna try to sleep. And then I actually did wake up at 5 a.m. to my alarm. So I did manage to get some sort of sleep just sleeping on the ground the first night. Um, but then that's a another thing. I should have totally fixed that during the day in the sun when the sun could have heated the tape, that could have melted up a little bit, and then you can um could have think I could have fixed the whole way easier with the heat of the sun, but I did not. So after CP1, after my pasta, I head out, I find a spot, and I still need to fix my mat so that I can have some sleep. So yeah, I put on more duct tape and then I just hoped for the best, and then I realized it's holding some air, and then I just hoped that I was gonna fall asleep before it was completely empty. Um it ended up holding air for exactly three and a half hours, which was actually pretty perfect because that was like a quarter of 15 minutes before my alarm was gonna go off. So I woke up and found myself on the ground, but I was kind of like, okay, well, three and a half hours is enough. That's all. Um so um that's what happened after CP1. Yeah, but that was uh that was day two, and so I think one of the big lessons from day two is really to um stick again, just stick to your own race, take care of the things that I need to take care of, and in that way I can be as fast as possible and race the best race that I can do.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah. It's this dance with time, isn't it, on these ultras that is so interesting because actually taking time to do something can save you time. But in the moment it's very difficult to make that decision of no, hang on, if I spend 15 minutes fixing this while I'm having a drink and something to eat, then uh I'm gonna get a better sleep and I'm gonna be faster because uh all you can do is the clock taken away. Oh, if you've got 15 minutes to do this now, you know. So it's uh it there there are all these micro decisions that you've kind of got to make when you're um not necessarily in the best cognitive place to make them, shall we say.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Absolutely. But I think it comes down to these simple things. I don't know, I can't remember the hierarchy, but it's it's it's food, it's sleep, it's kind of mindset and and psychological safety still. So you you have to take the time to eat and you have to take the time to get food, um, and you have to take the time to realize how you will sleep in these longer races, and that's kind of why I enjoy or aim to do the longer races, is because you do have to sleep. So I think they feel a little bit less stressed than the shorter races, actually, because you have to take care of yourself a little bit better. But yeah, so if there's something with your sleeping setup, you have to fix it because otherwise you're just gonna compromise your next night, and then you're gonna compromise the whole next day if you didn't sleep at all. Um so definite it's definitely an investment in your next couple of days to take care of the things. Um, but also mindset. I think for me, one of the most important things, one of my most important goals for this race was to be able to stay in some sort of like positive and good mindset for the the race, and especially also to finish with the with a good mindset because I'm we're all we're heading into these by our own choice. We're paying to do this. So so if we're having a really, really bad time, what's the point with it? What's the point with it? Um and I really wanted to um have fun out there and in the and then I had to take care of myself so that I could enjoy it, so that I could maintain the good mindset. So um it it really like came down to what I can do for myself to take care of myself as good as possible so that I can have as good a possible a time on my like, and then I can bike fast, you know? So that's what it kind of, yeah, that's what I headed into the race with. Um and that's what I yeah, had some lessons in learning, but what I think I the whole race was a big practice of doing.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah. But I think you hit on a really important point there about actually you know, learning to enjoy what we're doing, you know, even when we're pushing ourselves, because um certainly as a coach, that's one of the things that I say to people when they say, Well, what shall I do? I said, Well, you know, it's probably better to do something that you're gonna enjoy in training and in racing, because if you enjoy it, you will push harder. Um and we know we know that. We we know it when we teach children that they learn better when they're enjoying themselves and having fun than when they're miserable. Um we're we're no different. We you know, we're we thrive when we're we're having fun. Um so good on you to to set out with that as a goal.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah, thank you. And then like obviously there's definitely times out there when you're not having fun. It's uh it was six plus days of racing and and lots of going about beyond the the limit of of actual comfort. So definitely there's time when you're not having fun and and really not enjoying every single second of it. Uh we can't really like pretend that everything is fun. Um, but that's also part of it. Um and there has to be some sort of um motivation to challenge yourself, and then the fun comes out of actually going through that kind of challenge and um yeah, those challenging times as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yeah, yeah, I think and some of that is um is about hunger, isn't it? It's about how much do you really want this. Um I remember reading Sonia O'Sullivan's um uh book about her sort of racing career, and uh once she became a mum, that was one of the questions that she asked herself at the start of the race about you know, do uh how much do you really want this? And I think it lessened as you know she sort of went into motherhood and she had other things going on where whereas earlier in her career that that hunger was was massive, it was a really big pull and it pulled her through sometimes to the edge of illness and beyond that. It's not always a good thing. No maybe something to be tamed a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

But also something to really listen to. Um, because before I went into these ultra races, as I said, like I had left competition with the kind of, you know, trying to tell myself that you don't need that, you don't need to compete, you're freeful, you're just gonna bike back and do your own thing. Um but I remember having a call with one of um one of my sponsors actually, um, and him saying that, oh, but we don't need these athletes who are um who are like yeah, going after it through like tears and blood and dust and everything or something, he said. And I felt this tiny little like feeling in myself being like, but I don't like it just need to be like that, but I still want to, you know, maybe I w want the challenge. Um and that tiny little seed of thought was like that was it within me that kind of told myself that, hey, you want to try this. You wanna try this for yourself, you wanna there's something here for you to explore, you know? So I also really, really, really think that it's important to listen to that, like not only like how big how much do you want this, but what do you want? Like, is that actually something that you would like to explore? Um, and then if you have that within you, if you have that little little seed of curiosity. Then I think you need to go. Then I think there's something in there that you need to that you are curious about and then that's a massive um arena for learning and development. And then you just gotta trust that and go.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah. The trust is interesting, isn't it? Interesting that that seed that um that light of curiosity because um it takes a lot of courage to follow that.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

It does. It does.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Um it takes courage but maybe also courage comes from accepting somehow that it's okay if you don't succeed. That things will be okay. You know? So I think maybe it takes more courage if your expectation will be that you have to do it in a certain way or that the outcome again has to be a certain outcome. Um but if you can find yourself in in kind of leaning into it with curiosity, leaning into it with like okay I have this nudge about I want to do this um but accept that you have no clue because you've never done it before. You can't know what the outcome is going to be like. And that doesn't mean that the outcome is going to be bad you know so um kind of just like leaning into it with actual curiosity um and then trusting that your you know problem solving skills or your resilience or your caretaking of yourself will be enough for you to make it through this whatever challenge you set yourself. But then yeah trust the uncertainty and trust yourself to kind of figure it out as you go not trust yourself to know exactly what you're gonna do when because you can't because you've never done it. But um but yeah I think that's kind of how I um approach the trust or maybe that's why I kind of feel like um I can trust myself doing things that I don't know that I haven't done before because I trust that I can figure them out. Um and because I'm okay with knowing that the outcome can be either or the outcome can be whatever but I will have learned. So one certain with the outcome is that I will have experienced something new and I will know a little bit more. And then I can take it from there. I can do it again if I so want to or I can quit and then then I don't have to think about this little nudge or curiosity because then I can be like okay I tried that I don't want to do that and that's also okay but then I tried yeah absolutely absolutely um it's a very um mature approach to racing um and I guess you had you had some experience with the snowboarding which um you know put you in quite a dark place it sounds actually um certainly towards the end when you waved goodbye to it um so you you have some experience of kind of what not to do which is kind of helpful um but you've also had a lot of general experience about just going a long way on your bike you've done a lot of I think definitely that can't be aside kind of yeah or put aside when it comes to doing these um ultra races um I mean I did say that my first bikepacking trip my first real bikepacking trip was a solid trip of 2500 kilometers in the north of Norway um my second like longer bikepacking trip was um crossing Europe actually so this came at a time where I had the opportunity to take some months off and again at this time the only the only obvious for me was that I was going to travel on my bike um and so at this stage there was already some races being covered and I'd come across some some I've come across bikepacking.com and there were so many beautiful pictures and and from places that I was curious about. And then um I found this amazing route um in Greece on the Radavist called the Pindus Traverse um and I was really curious about Greece um and I was really curious about biking through the Balkans and then I kind of like drew this route that would start at Athens and go up to Innsbruck um because I had lived in Innsbruck before and had a lot of friends here so I wanted to bike from Athens to Innsbruck kind of combining race routes and bike packing dot com routes um and then do a big bike trip. And so that was the first plan but then I drew this route up in Comut and then I zoomed out um and then I just saw and realized that this is a perfect halfway mark for Europe. And then that idea just popped up in my mind and I was the first thought was that it's halfway so that already said itself to me that this is halfway it's not finished you have to go all the way through and so the m the the idea just popped into my mind and made me scared for a couple of days because I was like I can't bike through Europe like but then it was there and I couldn't let it go. So then I kind of yeah had to do it. So eventually I biked from Athens to Innsbruck but that was halfway so I continued west and biked uh all the way to Porto in Portugal and so that was four months on the road um more than 7000 kilometers and more than 124000 vertical meters in a solo uh bikepacking trip. So there's a lot of learning that comes out of that and there's a lot of experience from being on the road being hike biking on these trails finding your way and solving things um so I definitely had gathered a fair bit of experience before heading into these ultras so now it's kind of I kind of see it as the same but just faster.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah yeah I mean there's definitely um a lot of confidence to be gained from having experience of just being on the bike for long days of finding somewhere to sleep finding somewhere to eat fixing your bike on the way all those things which are the scary part of ultra cycling is all the oh you know what if my bike breaks or what if I can't find food or what if I can't find water. So that is helpful. But I think the other thing that stands out for me from what you've said there Karen is this um you know confidence isn't this constant is it's some there's something about being confident enough to get to the start line it's about being okay with not knowing some stuff and being okay with the unknown um I don't know whether that's the adventurous spirit because I don't think everybody has it.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

No maybe not um I think it's just the curiosity in me and somehow I think maybe it is also the experience from the bikepacking trips that I've done that on the other side of that unfamiliarity and unknown is not only learning about yourself and whatever activity you're doing but it's also in terms of bikepacking and in terms of traveling by bike. It's learning about places it's seeing new places it's meeting people it's learning about cultures um history everything that comes with that it's about being having the privilege and getting to experience so many magical experiences that comes along the way um I know I can remember vividly from the the longer bikepacking trips that I've done um that eventually when you settle into this kind of rhythm and you you know the route you're doing but you don't really know what's gonna come I would pack up my things in the morning do the routine and then set off biking with this kind of feeling of like well I'll see what today brings like I'll see what people today will bring along the road I'll see whatever's gonna happen to my bike and if my bike breaks then maybe I'll meet someone else or then I'll figure it out or there was always something un unexpected that happened um and that usually always came with something fun or you know quirky that came out of that. Most often it was people um all when you're bikepacking the contact and the connection that you would get with people especially when you're bikepacking alone um was definitely a thing that brought me so much through those um longer journeys um where you would meet somewhere you would be invited into a house for full lunch or full dinner and get a place to sleep or someone would do something amazing. And the long story the point of this all is that that instilled this some sort of trust in trust in the world trust in people trust in that things will be okay um and so then heading into uncertainty and unfamiliarity isn't anymore this sort of scary thing where uncertainty equals um risk or danger somehow it's uncertainty equals um positive things that you couldn't even imagine. So what a great yeah yeah so I think the same kind of comes from me heading into these ultra things now um for me it's a lot about personal development and and and liking and seeing amazing places still you don't have the same connection to your surroundings and and people which is um a little bit of a shame but also one of the reasons why I'm really curious to go back to places that I've been before to race which was a big reason to why I wanted to do the Vulkan. But going into these races the same mindset pops up but it kind of is like okay so how will I learn? How what what challenge will today face and how will I tackle that? Or will I be do everything right and come out of this day being super satisfied with how I did the day and then that's the feedback as well. So it's kind of like what learning will I bring out of this day um instead of something else.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah yeah I like I like what you say about the the trust that you kind of developed um through your experience of people um because I think uh I think there is an expectation um especially for women that there's going to be some negative uh um negative encounters um and invariably that that is possible there are good people in the world and there are bad people in the world but actually what is very reassuring to hear is that your experience overall was of people wanting to help and people being positive um and wanting to enable you to have this passage through the world absolutely absolutely I mean people you know warned me and questioned me when I said that I was going to bike through Europe and um about certain countries there were always people in the country prior that warned me about the next country um and stuff like this but but this was funny because this happened throughout all of Europe you know so it's not really one country about anyone um but I I must say I was I was positively surprised by that as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I walked through all of Europe and I did not have any problems. Any problems or like really I can count on maybe two or three fingers any kind of cert uh situation where I felt like I had to navigate or or take any sort of like security measures for myself. Obviously you need to be kind of you know have your antennas out and then trust your intuition with people and then read situations and kind of take yourself out of them before anything can happen. But no that's that's that's the that's the takeaway I took from Europe and last year I toured um in Georgia um part of the time with a friend and part of the time alone and then I toured in Turkey alone for more than three weeks. And from these experiences as well absolutely nothing else than um excitement and care and um hospitality. So I I know that it's not certain that there's both good and bad people in the world but I'm really happy about having had this sort of experience and being able to actually have trust and hopefully also being able to um influence other people's kind of yeah um nervosity for heading out into the world or trying something because there's there definitely is way more good people and people wanting to help than there are people who don't want or the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Sure sure and the the other interesting thing you mentioned there is that difference between passing through a country in the fastest way that you can and passing through it without that sense of urgency. And they are very different experiences. And it made me think of Quindas um circle at the moment which she's doing um and you know part of that mission was to you know to not have this rush to enjoy the process of just uh going round and and absorbing the the culture and the the experience um and they are very different what do you think you will go back to doing the bike packing I think so I think at the moment I'm really curious about ultras I'm really really enjoying how it kind of gives me a little bit of a goal and structure to work towards and I'm really like kind of leaning into this whole um figuring out racing for myself and enjoying that part a lot.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

But definitely there's so many parts of the world that I haven't had any experience with. I haven't really traveled Asia I haven't really uh experienced it at all I haven't been in South America I haven't been um in in the kind of like far east yet at all so there's so many places but I think it comes with the time um and at the moment I think it's funny to say and I don't really know what my last opinion on this is but I think I traveled so much with bikepacking and such long um journeys that I'm a little bit full. Like my whole taking in of cultures and meeting people and being curious about places is a little bit content actually at the moment, which somehow also feels okay. So then I'm not pushing myself to go to a place where I if I can't be open, if I can't be curious and really open to appreciate and take in and learn about this place, what point is it for me to go there and just travel through without really being aware um in that case I might as well then um um focus on doing the ultras and learning more about myself in that process instead. That said I'm super happy that I got the opportunity to do my first ultra in the Balkan because that was such a special place for me and such an amazing area that I really enjoyed biking through um and it was so special for me to be able to go back. And so at the moment I have a couple of races on in my calendar but no places where I haven't been before um so I don't really know how it would feel to go on a race in a place where I've never been um and so we'll see if that's yet to come for next year.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Maybe yeah maybe that's that's for another year. You've mentioned some races so what's what's next for you this year, Karen?

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Um well at the moment actually unrelated to the ultras I'm finishing off my bike guiding certification here in Austria so I'm doing a mounting bike guide certification in order to maybe hopefully in the future be able to kind of yeah facilitate other people out in the mountains and kind of do the same sort of like bikepacking expeditions that I've been um lucky enough to do um and I would love to to help other people um find and and feel those sort of experiences. So so next week I've got um my last bike guide exam and then I need to do some some assist or tail guiding in order to get that cert. But I've got a couple of further races in at the end of August and September. So a little bit shorter three four days for Severance and the Purenais and potentially the new one in Canada which I'm really excited about. Wow um but then I have uh gotten the opportunity which I'm really happy about because I really wanted this uh and I will go and race Paris in October in Turkey Wow which I'm really happy about I was about to I wanted to sign up when um when uh they released the registration for the race but I was supposed to have another project in October so I did not sign up for the race and then the budget fell through for this project and then I was really gutted because I was missing out on both things that I really wanted to do for October. But then after the Trans Balkan the opportunity luckily arose and um I got to sign up to go back to Turkey which I'm really stoked about because I did tour through Turkey last year and now that I saw the couple of checkpoints in the race manual I haven't seen the route yet but it will overlap with prices the stuff that I biked last year. So I'm really stoked to go back and see the same places and have a similar experience to what I did in the Bachen.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah it does look awesome from what we've seen at the moment so um can't wait um Nelson usually manages to produce something that's exciting in very many ways very many ways yeah yeah I'm excited to see roads that I've biked before but also to go places that I couldn't even imagine us going to so I can't wait to see what he's got in store for us. Yeah sure I think uh it sounds like his philosophy on the the route is very much aligned with your philosophy on on going so it should it it should be great. Um and I mean we're delighted that you've taken up ultra racing because from our point of view it's just fascinating to to watch you progress and to to see you ride.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

And fascinating to see the um the thought processes that are going on which are very thoughtful and considered actually um so um possibly something that's needed for many days on a bike um you can't just I think so no and I think one thing that was actually quite funny about the Trans Balkan race was that on day two I think when um I was heading into one of the first bigger climbs I realized I have the wrong headphones with me. So I was just about to put in the motivational music in order to get up this hill. And I realized oh no we're not gonna have music and we're probably not gonna have music for the rest of the race. Which was a l a little bit of a um panic at the moment. Uh I quickly also realized that the the I had swapped music app just before the race and the music that I had thought that I had downloaded was not downloaded. So then eventually I just saw this as a sign that you will spend the whole race with your head and your head only which I think in a sense was quite um interesting because I then I I couldn't distract myself and I had to kind of sit with all of these emotions and all of these kind of learnings that bubbled up the whole, you know, how do you raise Dilata when the racing and taking care of yourself and how do you maintain a good mindset without the external motivation or the distraction. So it showed me, forced me to realize that I can't sit with my head for six hours, six days and thirteen hours straight. And I can go through this sort of challenge managing my head and not having too many breakdowns. So um no, the whole mind game is I think it's a really fascinating one. I think it's a really funny one. It's um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

I I mean one thing that comes through I don't know whether you always feel this in those darker moments which occur during ultras um but you do come across very much of the as the you know the present observer of things.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

You know to to use the the um uh you know meditation phrase um the you're not you're not completely immersed in it you're kind of oh well this is happening now oh well this is interesting let's see how this pans out oh I'm having a bit of a panic attack here oh well see yeah let's see how this it was actually interesting because um the Europe trip the tr the true Europe trip that I did um I was really curious on um like getting into kind of like a mindset that's a little bit negative like finding myself in a place where I'm not maybe like I'm not having fun maybe I'm not enjoying it and then seeing what pops up what comes up um and so it was when I was I was done with the Alps and I'd biked across south of France and I was in the Pyrenees and at this point I was already well above closer to 12000 vertical meters. Like I had climbed a lot in mountains and I had spent a lot of time in European mountains um and I was really getting sick of it. I was really tired of the same thing over and over again. And this was also a time where I was done with the Alps and the Alps were so busy with so many tourists and so many people around all the time. So when I headed into the Piranes I kind of had this feeling about wanting to be alone wanting to get isolated somehow and then after I had that thought I basically did not meet many people in the north of Spain um or many chatty people. So I got to spend a lot of time by myself. And it there it was really it was a little bit like metaphorical and I don't know philosophical spiritual if you want to say but there was this one night that I decided that this is going to be my last night in the mountains after this I'm just gonna turn left and I'm just gonna boost down into the flatlands and the um the kind of desert areas in the north of Spain instead. And so I climbed up to this canyon the edge of the canyon can Monte Perdido Ordesa in in the Piranes beautiful place. And I sat at the side of the canyon and I really thought about it and I was like I felt lonely I felt super tired I was exhausted I wasn't really particularly motivated to do this anymore but I had set out to do it so it was just doing it day after day and spiking a little bit further to get there. And I had this kind of realization that it's okay it's okay that I feel bad it's okay that I feel unmotivated it's okay that I feel isolated. Those are basically just feelings and the worth of them the impact of them and also kind of the value of them being negative or positive is only within my head. I can choose if it's negative if I say that being alone is really really negative then it's gonna feel really sensitive. But being alone can also be very calm and very peaceful and very you know teaching or or um rich in a sense. So I really realized that okay it's it is what it is in a sense as simple as that things just are what they are it's negative or positive whatever I say it is um and then time passes by the next morning will come and as long as I put one foot in front of the other or one wheel you know rolling a little bit further I will get forward. And so I think that's just yeah instilled in me after that where I'm kind of like yeah I found myself in the middle of this on this road before CP1.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Every single transparent is gonna know the place that I talk about now that I mentioned this but there was this forest owner or something who had cut down lots of trees on a good stretch of maybe maximum like maybe a kilometer stretch and you had to lift your bike and go around and lift your bike over ditches and trees and they were massive and my back was sea stuff and I just had to get through and then you got through and you got to this beautiful green grassy field and the full moon was out and you were out so as long as you just keep putting you know a little bit work in to get forward you'll get out of that and something good will come in the end yeah what what a metaphor that path I I've I don't know that particular path but I have I have been on paths like that and you can really immerse yourself in like oh why is this here? Who has done this?

SPEAKER_00 50:01

The world is out to get me kind of oh man I thought about this forest owner I was like you did not cut any other trees than the trees next to this for this road yeah I felt I felt hit you know but I went through it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

Yeah yeah um and ultimately nothing is permanent everything comes to an end um so whether it's good or bad it will it will eventually end um in some way and your mindset as you go into it will make a massive difference as to how you experience it for sure for sure. Absolutely wow and it sounds like it was a very philosophical journey but um I think you are quite naturally a philosophical person so maybe that's why there will be people out there who have listened to it and thought oh my god she didn't have music for the whole six days I can't believe that um because that is definitely a mainstay for a lot of people but actually if you don't have it then well either you give up or you carry on without it and I just know what are you gonna do? Would I scratch and say it did not finish because she did not bring head up I'm sorry the tiger and it wasn't there when I needed it so sorry I couldn't have my music yeah it was a shame it was a shame but I love music I would have loved to listen to music for all of those hours but I made it I made it without it as well yeah yeah it's interesting um and for me as well thinking about that um thinking about how much uh motivation and also power you can get energy energy how much energy I can get from music just makes me excited for whenever I do an ultra race with music um I'm kind of like if I did this now imagine if I can have music yeah yeah absolutely well um all the parameters won't necessarily be the same because it's different race different terrain but uh it would still be very interesting um certainly um they have done some tests on it apparently there is there is a lot to be gained in in speed and recovery from music so um depending on what you listen to um so yeah maybe music for the next one maybe you can allow yourself some tunes absolutely yeah I will double check I probably think bring two pairs ahead for us just in the case just in case yeah yeah um the um the other thing I just wanted to uh ask you really was um about the message that you might give to people um particularly women and girls I think who might be thinking about an adventure um and not maybe not sure where to start or just not having the courage um what message would you would you give to to those people um I think I'll loop back to something we talked about before where um we talked about that little curious voice that you can have inside of you that kind of goes like oh but what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 53:14

And that was the one that kind of yeah got me to um got me to bike through Europe because I just thought that oh I need to do that. And then that was the one who who told me that I want to try to to race when um I had that chat with the sponsor being like but I would like to be a racer um listen to that. Like there's that little intuition there's that little kind of curious voice inside of everyone um and then when that tells you something when you are curious about something just listen to that and just dare to you know allow it to come up and dare to try. Just dare to put all the doubts aside and you know go and figure it out. I think that's that's the that's the main message. Because I think everyone has their own thing as well. Everyone's not supposed to do ultra racist everyone's not supposed to get into um all of these things but everyone has their own thing that they are curious about and that they would like to figure out if they could do or not um or what it would be to do it. So I think that's the main qu main thing. Like really listen to that intuition within yourself and those that curiosity um and that will take you to you know lots of learning and lots of experiences that you couldn't even imagine. Because you can't imagine because you might never have done anything like that. But just listen to that and follow it. That would be my main kind of hope that people would actually dare to do.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

But yeah be just being open to another possibility of yourself to the possibility of what you could be I think is a great message. Um I Karen I think um good luck with the mountain bike guiding. I think anybody who was guided by you would truly be inspired um because you are intrinsically an inspiring person uh just with your attitude and with your thoughtfulness as well as with you your ability to just say yeah I'm yes yes to the voice that's inside your head says this is a possibility. And thank you so much for your time today. I know you've been super busy this week so um I really do appreciate you you taking the time today um and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you how you get on in in Taurus and in Canada. And did you say you're doing a further race as well.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Yeah I'm doing um the Perseverance uh in the Pyrenees I think it's the last last uh weekend in August and then potentially one more and then we got the Taurus and the Miller Faust so really curious about those really happy to be working with you guys until until then so I'm really yeah yeah looking forward to the process of preparing for those and everything. And thank you Claire for having me um was a pleasure really good to chat really good to yeah share the share the experiences and um yeah be one in one in many amazing um podcasts that you've had on uh yeah I'm sure people love to hear your story so um can't can't wait for to put it out there.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Having someone who's in it with you can make a real big difference to how consistent you are with your training and also to how you complete your event. At Endurance Bike and Run we've got years of experience of working with women helping them to achieve that big idea. So if you'd like some help and support you can contact me at Claire at endurancebike and run dot com. That's E-L-A-R-E at endurancebike and run dot com or you can check out our coaching services at endurancebike and run dot com. We have group training programs as well as one-to-one coaching options. I look forward to hearing from you soon.