Sparta Chicks Radio: Mindset | Confidence | Sport | Women

Natalia Cohen is a member of the Coxless Crew, the first fours boat (and all-female team) to row, unsupported, across the Pacific Ocean (the largest ocean in the world). The journey, which took 257 days at sea, is documented in the film "Losing Sight of Shore" (available on Netflix). In this conversation, we discuss why she decided to apply (despite not having any rowing experience), her...

Lisa Tamati is one of the world’s most experienced ultra marathon runners, especially when it comes to racing in hot conditions. She’s competed in over 130 ultra marathons, traversed almost every desert in the world, cycled through 20 countries, run the length of New Zealand for charity and is a successful businesswoman, running coach and New York Times best selling author. She also suffers severe...

Chloe Chick is the Founder of Sisu Girls, an organisation I love and support that is dedicated to the empowerment of girls through sport and outdoor adventure in order to foster bravery, resilience, determination and self-confidence in them. Chloe founded Sisu Girls in 2014 after seeing her daughter Olive start to show signs of a lack in self-confidence in certain situations (including being intim...

Our first return guest, Kirrily Dear, is about to set out on a mammoth challenge - The Run Against Violence in 2017 will take Kirrily 1,300km / 807 miles throughout remote and regional Australia over 19 days on a mission to raise awareness and start conversations about family violence. This time we talk about how she has prepared, mentally and physically, for such a demanding and challenging event...

Nadine Champion is a Thai Boxing and Kickboxing Champion, an author, speaker and cancer survivor. In her new book called “10 Seconds of Courage” and in this conversation, Nadine shares a real, raw and emotional account of her journey. We discuss her excitement at discovering martial arts at the age of 10, the practical strategies she uses to change her thinking when faced with a situation that is...

Michelle Lee is a quintessential ordinary Australian woman who has set out to do something extraordinary. In December 2017, she’ll attempt the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a 5,000km unassisted and self-supported ocean rowing event across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain to Antigua in the Caribbean. If she completes it, she’ll become the first Australian woman to r...

Margie Warrell is a best-selling author, keynote speaker and Women’s Leadership Advocate whose clients include NASA, the United Nations Foundation, Facebook, the Marriott Hotel Chain, the Australian Federal Police (and the list goes on). Not bad for a girl who grew up on a dairy farm in regional Australia and is a mother of 4. Margie’s expertise is around bravery and courage and helping people mak...

Michael Milton knows all about fear, self-doubt, bravery and courage. After losing his leg to bone cancer at the age of 8, he has gone onto become one of Australia’s most talented, decorated and all-around athletes. He is a 5x Paralympic Gold Medalist who has competed in 6 Paralympic Games, both in Winter for skiing and in Summer for cycling. Michael is a World Record holder in both speed skiing a...

Julie-Anne Hazlett and Sarah Anne Evans are two members of the Veloroos, an Australian non-professional cycling team. The team broke the course record for the 5,000km Race Across America in 2015 and later this year tackle the equally challenging 2,200km Race Around Ireland. In this conversation, we discuss fear and self-doubt, the logistics of riding across America or around Ireland, how everyday...

Katee Pedicini is a coach with a degree in Exercise Science who specialises in managing fatigue, stress and hormones to achieve optimum performance. She runs Holistic Endurance based in Melbourne, Australia. In this conversation, we discuss what stress is, the impact it has on your body, why many women train a lot, eat well and struggle to lose weight (or worse, put it on) and the small changes yo...

Ness Hartge is just like you and I. An age group athlete, a busy mum, small business owner and runner. She’s also someone who struggled to call herself an “ultra runner” despite having completed 3 x ultra distance events — and hoped she’d finally feel comfortable doing so once she finished her first 100km race at the Ultra Trail Australia 100km in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney in May 2017. Nes...

In Memoriam: Dr Simon Marshall In 2017, I was lucky enough to record this conversation with the dynamic duo of Dr Simon Marshall and Lesley Paterson. Simon is a sports psychologist with a distinguished career. He’s been a Professor, has published over 100 scientific publications on the psychology of exercise, been cited over 10,000 times and has real world practical experience as the Performance P...

Melissa Browne’s website describes her as an introverted, socially awkward, shoe-loving accountant. All of those things might or are true. But there is so much more to Mel and her story. The CEO or co-founder of 3 business, Mel is also an author, speaker, expert on money and finance who regularly appears on TV and is on a mission to empower women and girls to find their voice and become both busin...

Hayley Talbot is the first person to kayak the length of the Clarence River in Australia - all 400km / 248 miles - which she also did solo, unassisted and surviving entirely off the land. In this conversation we talk about Hayley’s childhood in the town of Yamba at the mouth of the Clarence River and her journey down it as well as why she doesn’t subscribe to “mother’s guilt”, how she deals with s...

Alyssa Azar is the youngest Australian to climb Mt Everest which she did at the age of 19. But her journey hasn’t been easy; she only summited Everest on her 3rd attempt after the first two attempts ended in tragic circumstances and she (and her parents) have both been subject to heavy criticism including from internet trolls who didn’t hold back in expressing their opinions about how inappropriat...

Melissa Urie is only the second woman (and first Australian woman) to complete the Epic 5, an (appropriately named) event consisting of 5 Ironman distance triathlons on 5 Hawaiian Islands over 5 days. That’s 224km / 140 miles of swimming, riding and running every day for 5 days. In this conversation, we discuss how she fits her training into her life, why she wanted to do such a seemingly "impossi...

Hanny Allston is an insightful, soulful woman with a passion for running, the outdoors and sharing that passion with as many people as possible. Back in 2006, Hanny became the first non-European to win a World Orienteering title. And in fact, she won two - a Junior and Senior world title in the same year (and became the first person, male or female to do so). These days, Hanny is a running coach,...

Stef Hanson is a triathlete and the Founder of Witsup (Women in Triathlon) - an online and real life community for women in triathlon. Established in 2012, the mission for witsup.com is to break down the barriers of entry for women to the sport but also to give women in the sport the recognition they deserve (at a time when women’s sports is often relegated to a few sentences). Normally the interv...

Beth White is a mother of 3, remedial massage therapist and the 2016 ITU Paratriathlon World Champion in the PT1 category. Beth began losing her sight from the age of 5. Misdiagnosed most of her life, it has only been in recent years she has discovered she has a rare genetic condition (so rare, it does not yet have a name) with numerous symptoms including vision impairment and an inability to swea...

Laura Siddall is a professional triathlete with a difference. With her gap year spent as an Officer in the British Army and a degree in Mechanical Engineering, she only discovered triathlon in her late 20s.  Laura quickly made up for lost time by winning 4 x Age Group World Championships over various distances in just 4 years. In this interview we talk about the doubt she struggled with after maki...

Kirrily Dear is an ultra-marathon runner, a lover of trail running and the co-founder of the Run Against Violence; a volunteer association established to use running and other sporting activities as a conduit to educate and engage communities in family violence protection. The Run Against Violence in 2017 will take Kirrily 1,300km / 807 miles throughout remote and regional Australia over 19 days....

Natalie Cook is a 5-time Olympic and winner of two Olympic medals in Beach Volleyball; Bronze in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and Gold in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In this interview, we discuss her 4-year journey of personal development after the Atlanta Olympics when she realised she didn’t have the mental toughness or emotional stability needed to achieve her goal of winning the Olympic Gold medal...

Masha Gordon failed PE at school and admits that she “opted out” of sport from her pre-teen years until her mid-30s when she discovered hiking. Just 6 years later, the mother of 2 now holds the record for the fastest ascent by a woman of the Seven Summits as well as the women’s record for the Adventurer’s Grand Slam (the Seven Summits plus the North and South Pole). In this interview we discuss mo...

Tanya Geisler is a Leadership Coach based in Canada who specialises in the Imposter Complex. You may not have heard of it before but I can assure you that you’ve felt the sting of it. It is found in the stories - or lies - we tell ourselves about not being ready, good enough, that we don’t belong or that we are fooling everyone and that any moment everyone is going to find out we have NFI what we’...

Born and raised in Tehran, Shirin Gerami only became involved in sport when she settled in the UK at the age of 15. After discovering triathlons in University, Shirin became the first woman ever to represent Iran in triathlon (women had previously been banned from participating in the sport). She has since gone onto to become the first Iranian - male or female - to finish the Hawaii Ironman. She i...