In the 20th episode of Mountain Air on UKH/UKC we catch up with ultra runner Damian Hall, veteran of many hill running races and records, author, environmental campaigner, and almost certainly the most self-effacing man ever to finish fifth at the Ultra Tour de Mont Blanc. 

For those unfamiliar with his outdoor activities, "Wiltshire Alps" based Damian is an ultrarunner, UK Athletics Coach, journalist, author and climate activist with a passion for tea. He's competed - and achieved competitive finishes - in such celebrated events as the Spine Race (all the way along the Pennines), the Dragon's Back Race (down the length of Wales) and the Ultra Tour Monte Rosa (a 170km tour around the second highest mountain in the Alps). 

The cliche in our sport is that it's an eating competition with some light exercise thrown in 

But that, as with all the guests on Mountain Air, is only half the story. Damian is also a lifelong journalist whose passion for spinning the written word kicked off his career in sports journalism, took him to the editorship of a travel and adventure magazine in Sydney, led him to contribute to industry-leading hillwalking, hiking and fitness magazines in the UK, and finally (at the stage of early middle age when most people would consider hanging up their trainers) to running as a life-defining passion. 

I nearly did a PhD in the sociology of football fandom… I'm fully aware that nobody would have ever read that

Since discovering an unquenchable thirst (and, it must be said, a clear natural aptitude) for running, Damian has used his experiences and growing profile to train fellow athletes and expand the ambition of his writing. Consequently, not only does he oversee a roster of clients eager to take on epic global races such as the Tor des Geants - an eye-watering 330km event based around Courmayeur in the Italian Alps - and the Marathon des Sables, six marathons in seven days through the Moroccan Sahara; but he's also written guidebooks to Walking in the Cotswolds (Cicerone) and on the Pennine Way (Aurum), and the much celebrated climate-focused running book We Can't Run Away From This (Vertebrate). 

If you've enjoyed the outdoors, I think it's logical that you'd be a little concerned about what's happening to the world

Learn about all of the above, including why joining the Green Runners can help make a difference (even if you're not a runner), and why cheating death on an ice field in Mount Cook National Park can change your life, in the latest episode of Mountain Air:

00:00 - Introduction

03:08 - Welcome from the Wiltshire Alps 

07:40 - A late start in life with running, with a previous life as a football journalist ("at school I was only half good at two things and that was probably PE and English")

10:00 - FourFourTwo magazine: "I used to ghostwrite Rodney Marsh's column! This might be lost on some of your audience…" 

12:55 - "I nearly did a PhD in the sociology of football fandom… I'm fully aware that nobody would have ever read it" 

16:20 - Life as an outdoor journalist and editor of "TNT" in Sydney, the challenges of making a living with the written word

23:08 - In-depth chat about Damian's life in running ("I was sub-editing on a book, late at night, maybe January-ish in 2011 and I remember feeling unhealthy and thinking that Bath had a big half-marathon happening March…")

24:05 - "I always wanted to be a footballer really, which was an absolute pipe dream as I was usually a sub for the school team... and I realise now that I loved just covering the ground, running up and down and being the fittest on the team" 

24:55 - "I can see now it was the training as much as the event, it was having a mission, some discipline and routine, pushing myself a little more… and I loved it... And so the next year I was running my first marathon dressed as a toilet (yes I did look a bit flushed) raising money for Wateraid" 

26:30 - Being sent on a first ultramarathon as a magazine feature (with the accompanying pressure to finish), and soon running 100km and 100mile events and eventually representing Team GB Trail Running at the aged of 40, only four years after a first marathon

29:45 - "Ironically I used to look a lot like Teddy Sheringham when I had more hair" 

30:21 - Can anyone suitably enthused become an ultra runner? 

34:04 - "The cliche in our sport is that it's an eating competition with some light exercise thrown in" 

37:55 - The joy of being out running at sunrise and sunset 

40:18 - Being pestered into running coaching, it expanding during COVID lockdown, working with those looking to achieve their long-distance running ambitions ("mostly it's just telling people to go for a run") 

48:50 - What lies ahead in 2025? 

51:48 - Climate activism: "If you've enjoyed the outdoors, I think it's logical that you'd be a little concerned about what's happening to the world" 

54:30 - We Can't Run Away From This ("It's very serious and depressing so I wouldn't recommend anyone reads it")

58:28 - Greatest mountain memory: unplanned sliding on ice in New Zealand in Mount Cook National Park

62:22 - All the time, money, freedom… where do you go and what do you do? Antarctica: "I had a spell where I was pretty obsessed with the stories of Robert Falcon Scott… so I'd be fascinated to see some of those places and what they look like now"