Jen Dykxhoorn is a coffee-drinking, bicycle-loving, nature-loving, ukulele playing, adventure-seeking wanderer! She is a 30-year-old Canadian living (mostly) in London, UK while working on her PhD in psychiatric epidemiology.
Due to the nature of her research, she also spends several months a year in Stockholm, Sweden.
Prior to returning to school, she worked for several years in the public health and mental health sectors as a research, policy advisor, and health promoter.
Jen spend most of her time thinking about mental health and sees how mental health problems touch everyone in some way. It's become clear to her that she needs to move her body in order to maintain her own mental well-being.
She decided to pair her two passions - cycling and mental health promotion in what she started calling "Pedalling for Mental Health."
As Jen racks up the miles, she is raising funds and awareness to support mental health research, which is a charity close to her heart.
Details of her challenge:
In the summer of 2017, Jen will be biking the iconic LEJOG - Lands End to John O'Groats, across the UK, with her sister. They will be leaving (approx) August 21st and be arriving in the north of Scotland around the 5th of September. Along the way, they will be wild camping (in home-sewn bivy sacks!).
To finish off the adventure, they will be completing the Coast to Coast adventure race, and have signed up to do the "expert" course (all 105 miles of biking, trail running, and kayaking in one day).
You can read more about this challenge here!
Preparation
In order to prepare for this challenge, Jen will be doing a variety of shorter cycle tours, training events, and micro-adventures. To kick off the training, she is heading to Portugal in mid-December to do 1-2 weeks of solo bike touring. Jen also has some plans to participate in some endurance events in Sweden this spring!
Social media
Instagram: @lovelyoutlier
Blog: www.lovelyoutliers.com
Twitter: @jendykxhoorn
(more focused on mental health and epidemiology than adventures)
(Mostly just strange videos dancing and singing around the world!)