Kristina Palten - Swedish ultra-runner who ran alone through Iran to overcome fears and prejudice. A 1,144 mile journey of Trust. - a podcast by Sarah Williams

Kristina shares more about her journey into running and how she ended up becoming the World Record holder for  - 48 hour treadmill running! Kristina is an introvert by nature, but she asked herself the question; “What can I do with this ability to run?”.  

In 2015, Kristina took it upon herself to challenge her own  personal fears and prejudices. Kristina made the decision to run alone across Iran, a distance of 1,840 kilometres. 

In the process, Kristina, became the first women to have run across Iran. She was running an average of 37 kilometres per day. She started in Bazargan by the Turkish border and finished in Bajgiran on the north-eastern border, the run took her 59 days to complete. 

Kristina filmed the journey and created a film called:  Alone Through Iran - 1144 Miles of Trust.

During this podcast, we will learn more about Kristina, her life, the challenges she has faced, how she has overcome failure, how she set a world record for treadmill running, as well as life on the road while running across Iran. We also talk about kindness, learning how to say no and why you have to be yourself. 

Show notes 

• Some of the challenges Kristina has done
• Her early years growing up and being shy 
• Taking the first steps of adventure 
• Having her life turned upside down
• Losing everything that she thought was important at 32
• Being afraid of failure 
• Travelling around China and SE Asia
• Starting to run more and more 
• Deciding to set a world record for running on a treadmill
• “What can I do with this ability to run?”
• Deciding to run through Iran
• Planning the run
• Dealing with all of the What If’s
• Writing down her fears (22 in total)
• What can I do to prevent the fears?
• Creating a network in Iran 
• The kindness of strangers offering support
• The fear of never being left along
• Being introverted 
• What life was like on the road while running through Iran
• Miscommunication and cultural confusion 
• Being an introvert on the road 
• Needing to be alone
• Having to be careful about what she wrote in her blog
• Writing a book about her run, 2 years later
• Needing time to digest everything that happened 
• How the run impacted her life going forward
• Having a great belief in human kindness 
• Quitting her job to do the run and coming back unemployed 
• Making a documentary about the run
• Dealing with the huge amount of publicity after the run
• How the run has changed her life
• Contributing to reforms in Iran 
• Introducing a 10K run in Iran in 2018
• Courage and why it’s good to be a woman 
• Why feelings are just feelings 
• Why it’s ok to be scared 
• Why you have to focus on what you want to create
• How to handle fear 
• Staying focused on your goal 
• The motivation to carry on when things are tough 
• Focusing on the - ‘Right Now’  
• Let it go
• Not being able to say no 
• Needing her own space
• Why being kind to ourselves can be the hardest thing to do 
• Quick Fire Questions 
• Be Yourself 

 

Social Media 

Personal Website - https://palten.se/en/start-en/ 

Website Alone through Iran - https://www.alonethroughiran.com

Facebook @kristina.palten 

Instagram @kristina_palten 

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Website of Sarah Williams