Nikki Love is an adventure runner, a sports psychology under-grad, and a motivator of dreaming big, taking action and achieving extraordinary goals.
Nikki turned 50 in 2017 and decided it was time to take her love for travel, marathon running, and cross-country running to a new level.
She is now on a mission to run across, around, or through as many countries that her feet can take her, bringing as many people as she can along for the run.
Her big adventures include running 63 marathons in 63 days through the UK to celebrate her 50th birthday, a craic of a 750 mile run around Ireland, a runcation through Malta and around Gozo, a jolly jaunt across the Netherlands, an extremely muddy and cow-pat laden run from top to bottom of Wales, a 40 day x 1,000 miles treadmill run, and on July 16, 2023 at the age of 56 Nikki set the women’s record for running across Australia from Perth to Sydney 4,044kms in 76 days, 3 hours and 43 minutes.
Driven by her curiosity to answer the question “I wonder if I can do that…”
Nikki shares her adventures – the highs, lows, fun, tears and her experience of overcoming fears, doubts and obstacles as she navigates perimenopause – through her writing, speaking and film-making.
Her goal is to help women know and own their place and space in the world and to keep believing and backing themselves.
Listen to the previous TGP episode with Nikki.
30th July 2020 - Adventure Runner, Ran 63 marathons in 63 days in 2017
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Show notes
Who is Nikki
Being an adventure runner
56 years young
Speaking with Nikki in 2020 on the TGP
A quick recap of Nikki’s previous challenges
Reflecting back on 2020 and 2021
Coming up with idea to do a ‘training run’ on a treadmill
Running 1000 miles and tearing tendons in her toes which ended her adventure
Learning that she could do hard things
Setting herself up to run across Australia for real
Dealing with multiple peri-menopausal symptoms
2021- deciding to run 100 marathons in 100 days
Getting a stress fracture in her pelvis
Starting a process to understand what was going on in her body
Getting advice to downgrade her ambitions and dreams
Being stubborn and wanting to figure out a way to achieve her goal at 56 of running across Australia
Figuring out what was going on and getting advice from doctors
Starting on different versions on HRT
Being encouraged to stop doing her exercise
Having bloods taken and doing MRI scans - privately
Speaking to as many people as possible to come up with solutions
Figuring out that her body wasn’t absorbing the hormone therapy
Going back to basics - getting back to a good diet and doing strength training
Taking 2 years to recover from her pelvis stress fracture
Feeling sad and frustrated
Not being willing to give up on her goal
Starting to wonder if it would be possible for her to run across Australia
Starting to do more planning and putting dates in place
Dealing with setbacks along the way and why it wasn’t easy
Setting the start date for 1st May 2023
Being supported by her partner
Hiring a camper van and driving from Jhalong to Perth and getting to see the route in reverse.
Going after a Guinness World Record to be the fastest women to run from Perth to Sydney
76 days 3hrs and 43 mins * (waiting to see if it will be accepted by Guinness)
Having to increase her running distances pretty quickly and averaging about 53km per day
Getting into a flow with the running after 2 weeks
Dealing with the traffic which was much more intense than she was expecting
What a typical day looked like
How her experiences helped her to keep on going when times got tough
Having a mantra in the morning Start off slow and I’ll get into a flow
Challenges with animals!
Physically not feeling too bad, but mentally feeling very drained and tired
Listening to binaural music to calm her body down and the importance of sleep to help with recovery
Dealing with the adventure blues after the challenge
Making the decision to go to university to study sports psychology
Applying to Loughborough University
Becoming more aware of her time line and getting older
How you can connect with Nikki and follow along with her journeys
Nikki is also blogging about her run on her website
Wanting to keep her adventure passion alive
Feeling that you can - requires that you back yourself
Keeping telling yourself that you can.
Social Media
Website: www.nikkilove.co.uk
Instagram: @nikkiloveruns
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