Trailing Around Asia: Mud, Sweat & Bears chronicles your astonishing year of ultramarathon trail running across Asia and your journey to qualify for Ultra-Trail Mont Blanc. Why was this an important book for you to write?

The idea for Trailing Around Asia: Mud, Sweat & Bears began in early 2024. What was later to become a book started life as a series of short stories talking about my personal experience of trail running in places that many people have never visited such as remote parts of China and Thailand. I realized that there aren’t many books about trail running or ultramarathons and my perspective as a foreigner and as a woman attending races in remote places was unique. In addition, I was writing this as somebody who took up running in her 40s. So this book became important as a way of telling the story of my personal journey learning about trail running. In the book I talk about running over 1850k of races and climb over ten times the height of Mount Everest. Yet more fundamentally I question what it takes to call myself a trail runner and ultramarathoner. So I hope that by writing this book it might inspire others to pursue their interests and goals, regardless of their age or pastime, not necessarily sport.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

This book explores the idea of personal challenges, determination and perseverance. The stories in the book are about personal wins – not necessarily winning races but overcoming individual challenges through incremental improvement over time.

Trail running pushes to people to their limits – extreme weather, tiredness and harsh terrain. It is unpredictable and always changing which is what makes it interesting but also difficult.

It was important for me to share a universal message that it is never too late in life to pursue an interest, and more importantly age does not stop you from achieving goals. By allowing yourself to be pushed to your limits you discover how much further you can go in life and this trait has spillover benefits for other parts of your life.

What was the most challenging part of writing your book, and what was the most rewarding?

This book is not just about running a trail race or providing a race report but about conveying my own personal challenge and how I pushed myself to new limits physically, mentally and as a writer. I didn’t include all races that I completed in 2024 because for the book, each race story needed to be unique and of interest to the reader. Although I visited some beautiful places during the other races, from a storytelling perspective I didn’t feel I would do all the locations justice in terms of my experience or observations. I also talk briefly about training and nutrition however it was very important to me not to be preachy in this part of the book – everybody has their personal preferences and expertise. Most importantly I enjoyed capturing some of the magical yet often fleeting, special moments during races such as the fragrance of the trees, horses cantering around excited by strong wind or the emotion of hot sun at altitude. Although the words are sometimes inadequate, I hoped to give a readers a glimpse of experiences on trail.  

What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your story?

During the space of a year I move from questioning my ability as a trail runner to qualifying for a place at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc World Series Finals held in Chamonix, France. I hope that readers will take away the idea that over time with grit and determination you can achieve your goals through incremental improvements and apply this to some aspect of their lives.

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