Mount to Coast

This is an episode in two parts: we start in Albi, France, where we follow three Mount to Coast athletes at the World 24hr Championships, and we finish with a long conversation, recorded after the race, with record-breaking ultrarunner and physics professor Jenny Hoffman. Enjoy!

This episode we're speaking to Nico Liu. Nico grew up in China and now lives in Switzerland, where he discovered mountain sports and in partidcular ultrarunning. This summer he became the first person to the race the Transpyrenees, UTMB and Tor Des Geants. His name probably won't be one you recognize from the first page of results at these races but his attitude towards racing is infectious - he's all about savouring the moment, and something that I took away from this conversation relates to volunteering at races, and how that sense of community and goodwill can travel with you. I hope you enjoy this chat.

In episode 8 of the Mount to Coast pod, we’re speaking to two Spanish athletes, Manuela Vilaseca and Oriol Antoli.Despite both being super competitive ultra runners, they’re involved in quite different areas of the sport, with Manu focussing on 200 mile trail races, while Oriol has found his niche in the backyard ultra scene. As this episode launches, Manu is travelling from her home in Spain to Moab in Utah for the final leg of the Triple Crown series of 200 mile trail races. We’ll speak to her about that challenge later in the year, but before this final race, we wanted to catch up and find out how she’s feeling going into such a daunting event.

For this edition of the Mount to Coast podcast we spoke to two world record holders, American Meg Eckert and Belgian Mattieu Bonne. Meg recently broke the Women's six-day World Record, covering 970km (603 miles) at the Six Days of France. That was over than 40 miles more than any woman had covered in six days up to this point.Matthieu Bonne meanwhile, in addition to holding the six-day record, broke the 48hr record in May in Poland. He ran 485km (301 miles) breaking Yiannis Kouros’ longstanding record by 11.6km. We spoke to Matthieu and Meg individually - first up is Matthieu, and Meg's interview comes in at 36:55. Read more about Matthieu and Meg (and the shoes that powered them to their records) at MounttoCoast.com

Anna Simonsson-Søndenå is a 21 year old Norwegian ultra runner who has been running long distances since her teens.Born in Norway, she’s lived in Sweden, Norway, and across Europe, living the dirtbag ultra runner life out of her van.Anna started working with Mount to Coast in the summer of 2024 when she ran the length of the Lofoten islands in the arctic circle for a film on slow tourism. Anna has an interesting approach to running and training, and for someone so young, to life in general. There are some nice insights in our chat, particularly around the Norwegian approach to endurance sports.