This week's Cool Conversations guest is Jenny Tough, a writer and professional adventure athlete based in Scotland. Jenny has completed numerous cycling and running multi-day adventures all over the world, almost always solo and self-supported.

Jenny talks to Kenton about her constant desire to find what is around the next corner, and her belief that to grow as humans, we need to push outside our comfort zones. She spends a lot of her time in remote, mountainous environments and some of her past adventures include traversing Kyrgyzstan, Morocco and the Bolivian Andes.

This is a typical 'cool conversation' in that it jumps around lots of different topics but, at its heart, it centres on pushing beyond our limits and finding what lies beyond.

This week on the pod, Kenton is joined by high-altitude mountaineer David Goettler. This is his second time on the podcast, having previously chatted to Kenton back in 2022 after he successfully summited Everest without oxygen.

On this occasion, Kenton was keen to speak to David because he has recently returned from an expedition in Pakistan, where he finally achieved his dream of summiting 8,000m peak Nanga Parbat via the Rupal Face. David's perseverance shines through when we learn that this was his fifth attempt to climb the mountain, and climate conditions required lots of careful calculations to make safe progress up the steep slopes. His descent, however, was much quicker! David spent 35 glorious minutes paragliding from slightly below the summit all the way to Basecamp and as listeners, we share his joy in the journey.

Dreaming of big mountain adventures? This episode is for you!

On this week's episode of Cool Conversations, Kenton speaks to award winning journalist and champion Obstacle Course Racer, Gwendolyn Bounds.

Wendy, as she is known, took up Obstacle Course Racing at 45 years old and has built her fitness to such an extent that she now competes for podium places in Spartan races around the world. But this hasn't always been the case. Wendy discovered Spartan when she realised that she was sitting in contented inertia - in a high-pressure, yet successful career, with a busy personal life and no time for anything else. However, she decided to make time and she started building the physical foundation that now underpins everything she does. And she's never looked back.

Wendy is the author of two books: Little Chapel on the River and Not Too Late

Reading: The Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg

Listening to: Eric Church, a country music artist, and Peter Attia on a Bone Health Podcast