One of the fantastic side effects of promoting this message to the world, and in turn seeking out others with aligned views, is that my feed is now filled with a re-frame of what it means to age, a new point of view of feeling ‘young’ and a shift to something that my dad always told me from a young age: ‘age is nothing but a number’.

Board sports reinforce this for me every day. Every time I step foot on a board, whether I’m paddling out, or dropping in, I feel like a big kid again. This anti-ageing perspective isn’t harking back to looking like I did in my 20’s, or wanting to re-live rose-tinted ‘glory days’. It’s focused on how I feel, how I see my next era, and what my body is capable of, now and for the rest of my life.

This week’s list is a celebration of some of what is showing up in my feed, and some fantastic voices leading this new story of our next era:

(1) 70+ women achieving physical feats that most 20 year olds can’t

There are so many posts on instagram showing older women completing physical feats that lots of 20 year olds I know aren’t capable of. Inspiring stuff.

Check out Esther Fischer, 75, who has broken the world record for the oldest person to hold a headstand. Celia Duff who became a double Hyrox champion in the 70-74 bracket, despite only having started functional fitness in her late 60’s.

Judi Oyama who continues to crush slalom skateboarding competitions age 66. Gwyn Haslock, Britain’s first competitive surfer and is still picking up her board in her 80’s (who I love even more for the fact that she isn’t on social media). These women give us all hope that we needn’t give up the things we love any time soon.

(2) A celebration of being a beginner again, no matter what your age

I love this take from Lemon Lane Club on reconnecting with our inner child. Ask yourself, what did you love doing when you were a kid, but somewhere along the line forgot to tap into that passion? Women are embracing being a beginner again, and I am here for it (especially when it’s skating, surfing or snowboarding), in which case, come join us!

(3) Big brands celebrating that cool has no age limit (and that real in the world of AI is alluring)

Whether it’s Vogue, CHANEL, Refy, Loewe - brands are putting older women into their campaigns and on the runway, recognising that consumers aged 50+ now drive almost half of spending growth. I love this reporting from The Female Economics on this topic.

There are voices coming through on an everyday level too, celebrating the iconic style of midlife women. Check out voices like @in_thenameofclothes a stylist who is inspired by older women, and who has recently shown off the style of her 69 year old mum. Or Sandy Bleakley (yes of the iconic Bleakley surfing family) who became a model aged 50 (below), or Evelyn Effrim-Botchey who restarted her modelling career at 58.

(4) Women embracing a next era work pivot at 50+

This one is a bitter-sweet pill. On one hand, women are being pushed out of the work place in their 50’s, necessitating the formation of groups like Encore, established by Stacey Duguid. Stacey worked in the fashion industry for 30 years, and was suddenly unable to get work due to her age. She started Encore for the many women in her position, in an attempt to end the age bias that is growing in so many industries.

At the same time, there is a groundswell of women showing that the midlife pivot can be everything: a movement of women finding purpose and careers that align with new life goals, and a pursuit of freedom. Check out voices like Alex Abrandt, Maison.1973,

(5) A reminder that these women have lived, and their lives have been epic

Loving the look of this new exhibition in North London celebrating punk’s pioneering women. It celebrates these ‘she punks’ of the movement through music, art, photography and film, including Debbie Harry and Patti Smith.

The laugh lines project really emphasises this point - encouraging women to go make up free, and reframing the whole idea of wrinkles and signs of ageing as being a negative. The founder is photographing 1,000 women without makeup on, and I love their carousels flipping the perceptions of ageing that we all have, particularly in relation to beauty standards.

I hope these have given you a little bit of inspiration about your next era - life is for living ladies!

Have a fabulous week all

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

P.S.

If you haven’t booked on yet, come and feel ageless with a group of us on our snowboarding & yoga event in December - link to book below:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2003121871440?aff=oddtdtcreator

I LOVE these events. Two hours of skating in a private skate park (we’ve started using The Skate Hub, which is perfect for beginners/improvers). We have a coach on hand to give people tips, so they walk away feeling like they have genuinely made progress. We hang out for lunch, head to an exhibition, grab a drink, and everyone leaves with full hearts. The last part sounds cheesy as hell I know, but there is nothing like meeting friends with shared passions, and as you reach mid-life, that can be rare.

Except I made the mistake of scheduling this one at the start of half term. I was so focused on getting the events schedule live pre Christmas, the gigantic balls-up that was scheduling it on this date hadn’t even occurred to me. Or it had, but originally we were also going to pair it with the excellent 90’s exhibition at The Tate - and I thought that would be enough of a draw, but then we couldn’t get tickets until our December event (book on here).

I’ve noticed a trend of people admitting when they screw up in business (particularly women). Moving away from the perfect instagram-worthy story of building things, to one that is more honest, more open about the things that go wrong. And I’m here for it.

Building a community is hard. Building a business is hard. Continuing when things go wrong (which they will) is actually what makes you successful. I’ve started many things before, and dropped them when life jenga gets in the way. But for some reason, Board Women sticks. It sticks alongside my main (mortgage-paying, thank god) business. It sticks alongside having two young kids, both at ages that are super parent dependent. It sticks alongside me still wanting to have free time, and down time, and time on the very boards that I am encouraging everyone else to leap on.

It sticks because I love it, and I believe in it. I believe that women need a new story for their next era. I believe that board sports are a metaphor for this stage in life, of embracing new experiences, falling and failing, and starting again. I believe we deserve joy, and we need to tell ourselves we do, and chase after it, relentlessly. And I believe we are making progress in that goal.

I’m learning what works, and what doesn’t. Getting people together is great, but it comes with complications, logistics, and financial outlay, whether tickets sell or not. I love the act of connecting people, but maybe it isn’t the thing that the business is supposed to focus on. Maybe the podcast, and the writing, and reaching many people to let them know there is a different way to think about their next, adventure seeking, exciting era - is actually what Board Women is supposed to be. I’m still unsure, so I continue to experiment with what feels right.

And in the meantime, I’ll be working it out live on here. Telling you when it goes well, when it gigantically flops, and all of the work in the middle. Because if board sports as an analogy for your next era in life isn’t about having as many falls as you do successes, then none of this makes sense.

And if you do love our events, make sure you book onto them people! We’ve got skate events in November & December, each partnered with a fantastic exhibition; and in December we’ve also got a Snowboarding & Yoga event in Hemel Hempstead. Get on down, we’d love to see you!

November’s event with Frida: The Making of an Icon - book here

December’s event with ‘The 90’s: Art and Fashion’ at Tate Britain - book here

December’s Snowboarding & Yoga event: book here

Have an amazing week all

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

This Week’s Board List

(1) Laura Crane re-enters the world of surfing

If you’ve had any extended period away from a sport that you love, this post will truly connect with you. I can’t even imagine what that must be like when it’s your entire life. Well done to Laura Crane for being back in the water, lovely post. We’re hoping to have Laura on the podcast soon, so watch this space.

(2) The sexual expose of the surf industry continues

And Lucy Small weighs in, brilliantly, here. Most telling is her final comment:

“But will this be a reckoning beyond a passing moment of outrage? Will it lead to actual reform of the structures that have maintained this culture?”

As with every industry that has had it’s ‘me too’ moment, we hope so.

Rhonda Shepherd is also speaking up on behalf of Black Girls Surf and questioning the ISA in its representation of the discussion. It’s worth checking out her feed, as she’s decided she no longer wants to be quiet. She did an interview with us recently, expect to see her on the podcast the week after next.

(3) Who told you to fade? My favourite insta discovery of the week - Keiko Harajuku

I could pore over this account for hours, there is nothing better than a woman reframing the narrative around ageing, and in such a beautiful way. You’re welcome.

(4) The Going Off! Podcast - Snowboarding History

A recent discovery for me, even though the podcast has been around for a year now - so a big thank you to of Looking Sideways to alerting me to it in his latest episode with Jen Sherowski and Tricia Byrnes, the hosts of the show. I’m heading right back to the first episodes & getting my full fix.

(5) Escapism at its finest: The Surf House

We have an interview coming up with Lucy Clarke, author of The Surf House and many more books (she’s on number 11 and has had 2 adapted for TV, and The Surf House is number 3). Destination Thrillers aren’t a genre I tend to read, but I started to read The Surf House ahead of our interview, and I am hooked. It captures everything I love about surfing, it’s super escapist, set in a small fishing village in Morocco; and it’s helping me imagine being anywhere but rainy, windy Britain right now.

I first found Danielle online because her content on her journey into surfing aged 52 was going viral (she’d been in a film about it and it had screened at the 2022 San Diego Surf Film Festival). A year ago, her content had a significant shift. She’d found out she had aggressive breast cancer, and her first reaction to her team of medical health professionals was a staunch one: I’m going to surf through my treatment.

If you meet Danielle you’ll realise that ‘no’ isn’t a word she would receive lightly. She’s feisty, determined, not least now to make the most of every second of her life. She was already an addicted surfer, having started her journey late. She re-organised much of her life to fit surfing into a busy schedule, even securing a rental property near the beach so that she could spend more time near the water. She’d also cultivated a group of women who would turn up to the water at a moments notice, accosting women in the line-up who looked a similar age or vibe.

Cancer threw in many more curveballs. She opted for a double mastectomy because the recovery would be faster, and she would be more likely to make it back into the water. She trained frequently pre her surgery to ensure that she would be as prepared as she could be physically, to heighten her chances of being able to surf often.

“I would say to myself, "This is how I get stronger. And it reminded me, "I'm gonna get through this. I can do really difficult things. I learned to surf at the age of fucking 52, while managing a busy career and life, I'm gonna get through cancer. It gave me the mental tenacity, the physical stamina, stamina and strength”

She surfed through 12 rounds of chemotherapy. She remembers her first surf after her surgery incisions had healed vividly.

“When I got up on that board and I rode it, it felt incredible. I think cancer can take away so much of your identity. I was so worried that it was going to rob me of everything: my breasts, my hair, my feeling of invincibility, and that first day surfing by myself was the affirmation that I still had everything I needed.”

It’s clear that whilst there were physical benefits of continuing to surf through her treatment, it gave Danielle so much more than that. Physical, mental, emotional benefits, but predominantly, a sense of agency over what is an uncertain process of treatment, a feeling of being in limbo, particularly at the start of the journey.

“When I think about the ways that surfing through chemotherapy helped me with the process, there's just a multitude of physical things that it did for me, and mental. And the mental one is it just reminded me to just accept things that are bigger than you that you have no control over. Because isn't that what surfing is? You can't control the waves. You learn how to work with them. Such a metaphor for cancer.”

Danielle’s journey isn’t over. She’s still waiting to understand her treatment plan from here. But she’s back in the water, and has built up the stamina to undertake three hour sessions. Her hair is growing back, and she has built a network of women across the world who have had similar journeys, and have found inspiration in her story.

It feels untenable, but she credits cancer for many of the good things that have happened in her life:

“As the hard part of the cancer treatment has ended, and I go back into my regular life, I'm really trying to cling to some of the things that I gained: moving slow, taking a deep breath before I respond, just trying to be mindful, and just trying to appreciate how beautiful everything is, and how grateful I am for my body, and all those things that having cancer made me realise were precious.”

This interview isn’t an easy listen (nor should it be). Danielle’s journey has been incredibly hard, and there is so much of it that feels deeply uncomfortable, because none of us like the idea that we can’t be in control. For those of us who have come to these sports later in life, we have found them just at the moment where life feels uncertain, and these sports gave us some measure of certainty, of identity. Having that removed (even temporarily) is frightening in itself.

There’s much to learn in this conversation, but Danielle’s parting message is the one that really stuck with me:

“Don't delay joy. If there's something you want to do, go do it. You can do it, and you never know what the future holds. So do it now. It could give you so much. So don't put off trying new things. You're stronger than you think.”

Enjoy, let me know what you think about the episode, links below. And finally, remember to get those boobs checked.

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Listen to the full episode on Spotify here and Apple here - or search Board Women on your favourite podcast platform of choice.

You may have seen our recent guest post by Danielle Cass (who writes on Substack), detailing her own story and the story of four other women around the world who have also chosen to prioritise the thing they love (surfing) in the face of the most unimaginable journey to navigate (cancer). If you haven’t - check out their post here - and look out for news on our live panel soon to be hosted with these amazing women.

Danielle’s journey is documented on her substack here

Show host: Caroline Keylock

Show producer: Selma Chalabi

Photo credit for the post: @a_greener_hue on Instagram

I’m the only surfer in my family. My kids have both tried it but it hasn’t officially stuck yet (they have spent much of their life travelling to warmer climes, and the cold British waters just aren’t quite as appealing). My husband had a go last summer and was annoyingly good in his first lesson, but when he fleetingly has access to free time (our kids are young and our life is jenga) he has his own interests he wants to pursue.

And so, here we are, I’m the only one chasing waves, and they all (sometimes reluctantly, sometimes willingly) come for the ride. And it presents a unique slew of challenges, of motherly guilt, of ridiculous scheduling, of never quite feeling totally free to pursue something I utterly adore.

I should say before I dive in, my small family are brilliant, and have sat on many a beach waiting while I pursue this love. I am only ever grateful for their support. But the moment any of them show a shred of enthusiasm to embrace surfing beyond a few one off lessons, I am jumping on it. A family that surfs together stays together, and that is my goal. I’m working on it.

Let’s talk about surfing mum guilt

I listened to a lovely podcast the other day from the Finisterre crew, hosted on International Women’s Day, and featuring a number of their female ambassadors, Easkey Britton, Sally McGee, Aline Carrier, Katie McConnell, and Lola Bleakley. The episode premise was ‘what makes women feel strong’.

Sally is one of my favourite voices in the surfing space (check out our episode with her here), not least because she talks so honestly about her journey of motherhood and how difficult she found entry into a world based on a premise that you give yourself entirely to the process of mothering. As she puts it ‘surfers are essentially selfish’ - they live their lives adapting their schedule and timelines to when the waves are good - and this isn’t a fantastic fit with being a mum.

She has worked tirelessly to educate her son about the sea, and has supported his surfing journey to the point that he is now out back shredding with her, and he’s only 8 years old. It’s clearly a joy now, but it also entails her own focus being diluted when she’s out there. She’s suddenly thinking of her son’s safety as well as her own. For so many mums I know that desire to share their passion with their kids is there, but it’s also an escape from motherhood. The one time they don’t necessarily feel like a mum. That’s important too.

In my conversation with author of The Surf house, Lucy Clarke (on the podcast in a month), we discussed this balance openly. She said that she tells her son that when they’re in the sea together, she’s not his mum. She’s just another surfer, trying to catch a wave. I respect that.

I feel all kinds of mum guilt when I’m dragging my family around looking for the right conditions to surf. Guilt for the fact that sometimes my kids are playing for hours and the weather sucks. Guilt for the fact it’s my husband looking after them rather than having fun himself. Guilt for the fact that maybe I should be spending more time teaching my kids to surf than surfing myself (although this has failed spectacularly when I’ve tried, lessons seem to work far better). Guilt for the fact that sometimes I’ve had the day of my life, and theirs has been ‘ok’.

I also think I’m showing them something essential.

The guilt does plague me, but I also think I’m teaching them an incredibly important lesson.

Mums have lives too. Mums have interests too. Mums know how to have fun.

We went to my kids mother's day assembly earlier this year, and each child had written a poem about their mum and what they mean to them.

I’ll forgive my son for the fact that he started his with ‘my mum, average fashion’ (this I wholeheartedly disagree with). He went on to say ‘skateboards, surfs, often at a laptop, great cake maker’. My daughter described me as a ‘skating mum’. The laptop comment, I have to admit, split my heart open a little. I went home deflated, worrying about the lasting memory my kids have of me being at my laptop, without enough time for them.

My husband helped me to see it entirely differently. He explained that most of the mums had been described through a series of chores they do. Making dinner. Tidying up. There when they get home from school. I was the only one who had any interests mentioned in the entire assembly. The only one whose career was mentioned, and he assured me that there was pride in their voices as they talked about it.

We are always going to be our hardest critics when it comes to our parenting, but if I teach my kids that they deserve to chase joy, to chase their passions, and to know that they are not a bad person for doing so, I’ve hopefully taught them something important.

I’m working on not being jealous of my child-free mates

I’ve met so many child free friends through starting the Board Women community. Women who have chosen to be child free. Women who have no choice. Women who just aren’t there yet. Or women whose kids are now older and they are coming back to their own interests with more time at their disposal. And that’s the common thread for all of them: time.

It’s the thing I have so little of, but I work incredibly hard to prioritise making time for the things I love, whether it’s skating, surfing, snowboarding (or one of the relentlessly long list of outdoor activities I enjoy). Time never feels like it’s on my side, spontaneity has all but disappeared, and making that time takes an incredible amount of planning and perserverence.

And yet, when my kids do come into my interests in some way, I realise I get so much from us having a shared passion, even if it is fleeting. My son and I started our skateboarding journey together, and whilst his has (I hope temporarily) paused, and mine has continued, our shared moments are still some of my favourite. We travelled across France one summer, and Spain the next, looking up every skatepark as we went, and excitedly trying new landscapes to test our skills on (I say skills, but that work is more accurately levied at his skateboarding than my own in reality).

One spring we went and stayed on the Isle of Wight at Camp Corve, where Canopy Skatepark is based. It’s a beautiful indoor skatepark (a must visit if you haven’t been), and it was 2 minutes from the front door of our cabin. My family and I had it to ourselves and had a lesson every day of our trip. My daughter had her first pushes on a skateboard, as did my husband (who again, was annoyingly good without even trying). I had a fleeting glimpse of what it would be like if we were all passionate about the same sport. We left that skatepark energised and giggling every day, heady with the euphoria that only beginners can have, that moment where your learning curve is so steep that everything is a win.

The holiday ended, life routines and other interest sept back in to our lives, and once again, I was the only one heading out skating or surfing.

And so it continues. I chase the waves. They come with me. And quietly, in the background, I plan my attack to bring them all to the dark side.

Wish me luck.

The Board List

This week’s run down of things we’re loving in the board sports world and beyond as a mid life woman.

(1) Let’s Celebrate Bella Rose Bunce

Bella recently announced she’s leaving her post as editor of Wavelength Magazine. She’s been editor for two years, and has done so much in that time. She established a 50/50 split of women and men inside the magazine. She got a woman on the cover, had the first illustration cover, and she made sure the magazine covered the real issues of the industry from climate to politics to inclusivity.

What a superstar, and what a shame she won’t be in the role anymore (for family reasons). We interviewed Bella previously and she was amazing, check that out here and best of luck to Bella for her next move, we’re sure it will be worth waiting for.

(2) Are you coming to our October Event?

We’ve got our next Culture Skate on Saturday 24th October. The culture skates are amazing fun: 2 hours private hire of Skate hub London, our coach Sarah from Yellowhat skateboarding on hand for tips. Lunch together at Vauxhall Market, and then off to see an exhibition. This month’s is the Es Devlin retrospective at the Design Museum, which is supposed to be absolutely epic. Come join us, beginner or experienced, all are welcome! Link to tickets here.

(3) Are you embracing the grey?

I keep meeting friends recently who are embracing their grey, and without exception they have looked phenomenal. And I mean, really beautiful. Grey continues to have a come back, on the catwalk, and firmly off, and I am here for it (as someone who has dyed their hair most of their adult life, the greys are firmly coming through and I actually quite like it). Check this out for some inspiration if you are taking some convincing on this front.

(4) The Altra Running Legacy Team: runners in their 70’s and 80’s

I could not love this more. A celebration of ageing in all of the right ways. Altra have recruited a running crew to represent the brand with a combined age of 321. They are four veteran runners from Britain aged 75-85. Pritpal Kaur is the only woman in the four, but impressively is 75 and running the London Marathon even though she has been diagnosed with Blood Cancer. The entire crew are impressive, and when you think about it, isn’t celebrating people running these distances at these ages far more alluring than when someone is a fit 20 something? Why aren’t more brands doing it?

(5) The launch of the stress sucks podcast with Kylie Griffiths

I’m looking forward to this one. It launches Wednesday 21st and will be honest conversations about stress, burnout and everything in between. Kylie is a surfer, creative, and was the founder of London Girls Surf Club. She hosted a beautiful retreat at Kudhva (we interviewed the founder Louise on the day it was happening weirdly). She’s worked in fashion, music, and she’s now the founder of Stress Sucks, whilst having qualified to help others navigate burnout in her role as a Nervous System Specialist. One to check out.

That’s it from me. Hope you all have a beautiful wave, filled with jumping on boards, sunshine and big smiles.

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

And then about a year ago, I saw that these posts had shifted. The story was now something altogether more serious. Danielle had been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, and was choosing (*felt she had no choice) to surf through her chemo and recovery from surgery. And documenting her journey, inspiring and connecting with other women around the world who have chosen the same path.

October is when the US recognises breast cancer awareness month. Statistics show that 2.4 million women around the world are diagnosed with breast cancer each year; and yet 8.2million women are living with or beyond a breast cancer diagnosis (World Health Organisation). A guest post from Danielle interviewing some of the women she’s met through this journey felt timely.

This is the first Board Women newsletter in a while, but this is us back into a Monday rhythm now, so if you want to hear about all things midlife & reinventing the narrative of ageing through skating, surfing and snowboarding, please do stick around and subscribe.

Danielle Cass is a surfer who lives with her husband in Northern California, where they raised their 25-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter. She works at Microsoft on Responsible Artificial Intelligence education. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2026, she partnered with surf photographer Matt Berridge (www.mattberridge.com / Instagram @a_greener_hue) to chronicle her surf through cancer journey on her Substack blog: Danielle Rides the Cancer Wave and Instagram page

Guest Post by Danielle Cass

This blog post is a snapshot of five women surfers with cancer – spanning from Cornwall, UK to Oahu, Hawaii – who found strength and healing in the ocean during cancer. I met them by sharing my story online, first when searching for a role model on how to surf through cancer, then later when hoping to inspire others.

My (Danielle’s) Story

One year ago, a routine mammogram revealed I had aggressive breast cancer and needed a double mastectomy and lymph node removal surgery.

My first question to my surgeon was: “How soon after surgery can I surf?”

When I was told that 12 rounds of chemotherapy would follow my surgery, my first question to my oncologist was: “Can I surf during chemotherapy?”

I was willing to lose my breasts and hair to cancer. I was not willing to give up surfing.

I came to surfing late, as a 52-year-old facing menopause. I had long dreamed of becoming a surfer, but instead prioritized chasing an intense career in technology while raising two children.

When our kids left home for college – and my husband took up golfing on Sundays with his college buddies – I seized my chance. I took a surf lesson an hour from my home in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, and was immediately hooked. On the drive home from the beach that day, I bought a 4-millimeter wetsuit and booties, and started surfing several mornings a week.

Because I didn’t want to surf alone, I started collecting friends: fellow women surfers I met in the parking lot and in the lineup. Over the next few years, these women became my tight-knit community of surf sisters. They range in age from 25 to 75.

We surfed at dawn, at sunset, had weekend surf retreats and slumber parties.

I traveled with them on surf trips to San Diego and Santa Cruz, California, Sayulita, Mexico, and El Viejo, Nicaragua.

After decades of giving everything I had to those around me – my kids, husband, dog, parents, sisters, work colleagues – surfing was the one thing I did just for me.

It made me feel strong and beautiful. (Two adjectives that typically fade away for women when they hit menopause.)

It was such a powerful experience that I made a short film about learning to surf at 52 and the power of community. The film was shown at the San Diego Surf Festival in 2022.

So when I got hit with a breast cancer diagnosis a year ago, I was determined to surf through the whole experience. I would not let cancer take from me the empowerment and community I got from surfing.

Seeking guidance on how to surf through chemotherapy after a double mastectomy, I posted a message on the “Women Who Surf” Facebook group of 40,000 women surfers. “I just got diagnosed with breast cancer and am looking for other women surfers who surfed through chemo, and surfed after a double mastectomy,” I wrote.

Within 24 hours, more than 100 women surfers from around the world weighed in with advice from personal experience, and nearly 700 women reacted positively to my message. The majority of those who had gone through cancer chose not to surf during the surgery recovery or chemotherapy due to infection risk from weakened immune systems, limited mobility, fatigue, and weakness.

But there was one woman who stood out: Melanie Ezell in Oahu, Hawaii had surfed through the whole thing. She became my role model, inspiring me to paddle out as soon as I could. (More on Melanie’s story below!)

At my post-surgery 7-week follow-up, my plastic surgeon announced that my 18 inches of chest incisions were healed enough for me to get back in the ocean. I drove straight to the beach and paddled out with my longboard.

And I kept on surfing through 11 more rounds of chemotherapy.

I see now that surfing through a raw Northern California winter surrounded by my community of women surfers kept me strong, healthy, and sane through my cancer journey.

Surfing didn’t replace medicine. Surfing didn’t cure anything.

What it did was return something cancer steals fast: agency.

Every surf session was a small declaration to the universe and to myself: I am still here.

I chronicled the journey with blog posts on Substack, magazine articles, and photos and videos on Instagram and Facebook of me surfing bald because I wanted to inspire other women going through breast cancer.

I wanted women to know that although breast cancer can take your breasts and hair, it doesn’t have to take away your identity.

But my surfing through cancer experience isn’t just a personal anecdote of resilience. It points to a growing body of medical research demonstrating the immense physical and mental benefits of maintaining — or even starting — physical activity during cancer treatment.

You don’t have to be a surfer to gain these benefits.

My oncologist Dr. Eva Thomas from Kaiser Permanente Northern California preaches that even a short walk around the block once a day can help accelerate surgery recovery and offset the side effects of chemotherapy.

Melanie Ezell’s story is also a testament to the power of physical activity and being in the ocean during cancer.

She’s the 42-year-old big wave surfer, writer, and mother from Oahu, Hawaii whose resilience and surfing through cancer was the role model for me during my diagnosis, recovery and treatment.

Melanie’s story

Melanie grew up in Michigan where she learned to surf on Lake Michigan in the era before you could easily order surf gear online. Without wetsuits or surfboard wax, she waxed her board with a candle.

Her serious relationship with surfing began at age 27 while living in San Diego for graduate school in mathematics at San Diego State University.

Surfing then became a pivotal outlet during a challenging chapter defined by divorce, an eating disorder, and a business failure.

“I was like screw it, I’m going surfing,” she said. “I packed my boards, drove to Mexico, and spent three years bouncing between Mexico, Indonesia, and Hawaii. I was spending all my money, but having the best time of my life, and improving my surfing.”

After years of traveling and honing her surf skills, she decided it was time to set down roots and landed in Oahu, Hawaii in 2019.

On Oahu’s infamous North Shore, Melanie became a “wanna-be big wave surfer,” paddling out on heavy days with double-overhead waves. She once caught a wave whose face measured 25 feet tall.

Carrying the BRCA1 gene mutation, Melanie was aware of her family history. Her grandmother died of breast cancer, her father’s sister had breast cancer, and her father tested positive for the mutation.

After she tested positive at age 30, Melanie began getting ovarian cancer screenings every six months, assuming she would eventually have a preventative double mastectomy in her late 40s or 50s. Ovarian cancer never crossed her mind, given the differing lifetime statistical risks.

At age 37, while traveling and surfing Central America across Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua with her partner and their two-year-old son, Melanie’s first symptoms surfaced.

Despite surfing constantly, she felt persistently unwell, experiencing a raspy cough and abdominal swelling. Initially suspecting long-term COVID-19 or a tropical parasite, her condition worsened until she experienced weight loss paired with a swollen stomach.

Curious about what ovarian cancer felt like, she searched the symptoms online and recognized that she matched all twelve listed. Upon returning from the trip, medical evaluations confirmed her diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer.

When Melanie reflects now back on her mindset prior to diagnosis, she says: “I just never thought it would be me. I had been living a super healthy lifestyle. I thought cancer happens to people who drink diet soda and eat chicken wings. I didn’t take it very seriously.”

Melanie’s frontline treatment regime included four cycles of chemotherapy, major surgery, and four additional cycles of chemotherapy. Determined not to give up her identity, she surfed throughout the entire regimen except for the immediate post-surgery weeks.

Surfing gave her physical stamina and mental fortitude.

“Surfing helped me get through cancer treatment because it makes you realize you can handle shit,” she said.

During low-energy periods, she modified her approach to stay connected to the ocean: “Sometimes I would just paddle out and sit in the channel just to get my hair wet, move my body and drain the lymph out.”

When her cancer metastasized to her lungs, breathing the salt air while paddling provided direct physiological relief: “When you are surfing with your face a few inches above the water, there’s the salt mist coming up that made it easier for me to breathe when I got out.”

Surfing also gave her a mental break from feeling like a cancer patient.

“Surfing is a respite during cancer recovery and treatment. It’s a place where cancer has no meaning. You can just go and just be playful and move your body. That’s the best kind of medicine,” she said. “For me not surfing would be the same as just giving up.”

To process her journey and offer insight into living with a complex diagnosis, Melanie published a memoir Inherited: A Life Without a Cure. The book explores inheritance – of genetics, faith, grief, and resilience – and how illness strips away nonessentials to reveal what matters most.

Last month, Melanie relocated with her 6-year-old son from Oahu to Michigan to receive family support while undergoing her latest cancer treatment, continuing to find joy in water sports like wing foiling on Lake Michigan.

Now that Melanie is back in the Midwest and far from the ocean, she asked me to yell her name when I drop into a wave. Not only did I do that when I surfed this past week, I was also inspired by her to paddle into the biggest waves, leaving my fears behind me on the shore.

Lottie’s story

Lottie Bakewell is one of the women who reached out to me after reading my blog. She’s a surfer from Cornwall, UK and also going through chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Except she is 32, and has a 1-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.

After reading my blogs on Substack, she sent me a message to say how much she enjoyed reading them because she too was surfing through breast cancer treatment.

“Finding your blog felt like a sign that I could keep paddling out,” she said.

Lottie is also chronicling her experience with a blog on Substack and videos and photos on Instagram. The photos, videos and blog posts capture a beautiful young mom with a beautiful family in a beautiful part of the world who is finding joy everyday amid the crushing, scary reality of cancer.

Lottie learned to surf in Cornwall at age 12 as part of a girls surf club through school. She and her girlfriends formed a “girls elite” surf crew, and then in her 20s lived in a house of surfer girlfriends. But now prefers to surf alone when she can sneak away. She loves the solitude and silence that surfing gives her.

“I love the peace when you paddle out. Those quiet moments on the water are where I catch my breath.”

She loves to be by herself, disconnected from her phone that’s always popping up with appointment reminders on her National Health Service app and calls from the doctor.

“No one can get hold of me. You don’t have to talk to anybody. I just love to be in the sea in silence,” she said. “Every time I have felt up to it (during chemotherapy), I’ve just gone surfing and I’ve not really considered the fact that I’m like a cancer patient.”

She discovered the lump in her breast while breastfeeding her then-10-month-old son. When she went in for the mammogram and they clamped her breast into the machine, breast milk squirted out and she and the technician laughed.

Lottie’s mother has been both a role model and a huge support because she went through breast cancer six years ago and remained very physically active throughout the experience too.

“She was always up and about when going through her breast cancer. She never stopped. Yeah, she didn’t succumb to it,” Lottie said of her mother’s rowing, hiking and cycling.

“And now I can say to her all of my stresses, worries and anxieties. And she’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ve been there. I understand this is really hard’,” Lottie said. “When I was first diagnosed, I would be up at three in the morning, freaking out on Google. And I could text my mum and she would text me back right away. Like she was just as awake and freaking out as I was.”

In following Lottie’s Substack blog and Instagram postings, I became fascinated with how she is living her life to the fullest without being cloistered away during months of chemotherapy. As Lottie puts it: “You have to keep living, even when the treatment feels like it’s taking over.”

She goes to yoga classes (directly after chemo!) in a yurt overlooking the ocean, attends women’s sauna sessions on the beach, takes her kids to the ocean, goes out with girlfriends, has playdates with other moms and kids, takes her kids to forest school and the library, and harvests fruits and vegetables from her overflowing backyard garden.

“I didn’t want cancer to become my identity,” Lottie says. “It doesn’t have to take everything away from you.”

While waiting for her biopsy results in March to confirm whether she had breast cancer, Lottie kept herself distracted by organising her DIY wedding at the beach to finally marry her longtime partner and father of her two adorable kids.

After months of trading WhatsApp messages and a few video calls, Lottie and I met in person last month and went to a yoga class together when I was on a Cornwall hiking / surfing trip. It was a few days before her final chemotherapy session and I can attest to her incredible resilience and positivity.

A few days later Lottie completed a 16-round course of chemotherapy. Her double mastectomy is next month – but Lottie is determined to keep savouring every day.

Ellen’s story

Ellen McLaughlin is another woman surfer I met through the Women Who Surf group on Facebook a year ago. We have had parallel journeys as she was going through chemotherapy a few months ahead of my treatment.

She’s a 54-year-old massage therapist in Humboldt County, California, where she has lived since 1989 and where she raised her daughter.

Surfing in Humboldt is not for the faint of heart. Ellen surfs year-round through punishing winter swells, stormy weather, and bitterly cold ocean temperatures that demand thick wetsuits and decades of ocean wisdom.

She learned to surf there at age 21 after finishing competitive university rowing, falling in love with the sport’s raw connection to nature as she and her girlfriends piled as many as eight surfboards onto the roof of her Volvo to chase waves together.

In May of last year, after experiencing symptoms for months and navigating an eight-month local healthcare delay to get a colonoscopy, Ellen was diagnosed with a four-centimetre rectal cancer tumour.

Determined to receive the best possible care, she switched insurance providers and traveled six hours away to Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her intensive treatment plan began with 30 days of radiation and daily chemotherapy pills, followed by four grueling months of bi-weekly intravenous chemotherapy. When it concluded, her Stanford oncology team announced her as having a complete clinical response, allowing her to avoid invasive surgery while continuing vigilant monitoring every three months.

Throughout her cancer journey, surfing remained Ellen’s essential physical, spiritual, and social lifeline. Her local surf community rallied around her, hosting gatherings of support through every milestone and setback. On the morning of her first intravenous chemotherapy infusion, overwhelmed by dread, Ellen chose to paddle out into the ocean first. The surf session transformed her mindset so completely that she didn’t need the anti-anxiety medication her doctor had prescribed for the appointment.

Maintaining that connection wasn’t easy. Chemotherapy side effects — particularly severe fatigue and cold-induced numbness in her hands triggered by Humboldt’s icy waters — forced her to step away from surfing during November and December. When she returned to the water in January, she adapted by shifting from a shortboard to a more mellow longboard. To escape the Northern California cold, she traveled on warm-water surf trips to Panama with her daughter and to Southern California, finding relief and joy in warm water and gentle surf conditions.

Ellen says she got immense comfort from reading during long treatment days — cancer memoirs and even discovering my writing on Substack and in Pacific Longboarder magazine. These pieces reminded her she wasn’t alone in her fight. For Ellen, surfing keeps her sane: offering a sacred space where the heavy weight of a cancer diagnosis temporarily vanishes, letting her feel whole, normal, and alive again inside her body.

When Ellen reflects back on how cancer has affected her, she says that her relationship with surfing has changed.

“I’m so grateful just to be able to go out. Even in non-optimal conditions that I might have passed on before my diagnosis, now I am just so happy to be able to get in the water”.

Caroline’s Story

The daisy chain of sharing inspiration to surf through cancer continues.

Two weeks ago, when I published a Facebook post about my Surfing Through Cancer photo exhibit and lecture in San Francisco, Caroline Wilhelm reached out to me.

She’s a 55-year-old Los Angeles surfer and mom with a high-powered career who was reeling from a new diagnosis of stage 2a breast cancer. She was looking for guidance on how to surf through her experience.

Like me, she learned to surf in midlife, and developed a tight community of women surfers with whom she travels to Central America on surf trips.

She has also competed in surf competitions alongside her 23-year-old daughter.

After Caroline and I had a long phone chat, she waded through all my Substacks and Instagram videos, and now is resolved to surf “her brains out” every day until her double mastectomy later this month, then go flat like me. (Going flat is aesthetic flat closure rather than getting breast reconstruction.)
Her goal is to be done with her recovery and in top surf strength for her annual surf trip to Central America with her girlfriends in 2027.

“Excited to move forward and get this over with. I hope that we can surf together one day,” she wrote me after reading all my posts.

Thank you so much to Danielle for our guest post this week, and to the inspirational women who agreed to be part of the piece. Danielle’s podcast episode will be live on Wednesday 21st October; and later this month we will be joined by Danielle, Melanie, Lottie, Ellen and Caroline in a live online panel to talk about their experiences.

We hope it’s a reminder to everyone out there to go and get checked; or that if they are going through treatment, these women have a hopeful message for them.

Thankyou so much for reading

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

P.S Normal service resumes next week on the newsletter - a healthy dose of all things midlife, some surf, skate and snowboarding inspiration, and things to read / listen / go to that will bring more adventure to your life. Hope to see you there x

“It is not selfish to want something for yourself. You have earned your happiness. Life is meant to be lived” - Lady Violet Bridgerton

Yes, I’m quoting from Bridgerton, it’s come to that, but this quote really stuck with me.

It’s been a weird week, one that included the funeral of a parent of my oldest friend from home. These moments always bring clarity as to what we want from life, how we will be remembered when it is our turn for everyone to come to a crematorium, and they also bring faces from the past; a stark mirror to our present.

Four of us stood at the edge of the chapel. Four friends who have known each other since we were small children. Some who still see each other regularly, some less so (the last time I saw one of them was sadly at the last funeral we all visited).

A boy who we went to school with saw us, lined up against the wall, and commented that ‘the Westcliff girls’ (our old school) were back together and ‘haven’t changed a bit’. Now, whilst I’ll take that compliment, I also know that isn’t true. We are all on the cusp of 50, and of course, we have changed. We are women versus girlish mates. We’ve all been through so much since we were first friends. There have been births and deaths. Marriages and separations. Adventures and mind numbing boredom in the routine of life, and parenting.

As one friend said on a newly created whatsapp group afterwards to ensure we stay in contact in happier circumstances: “everything changes and at once, it stays the same.”

—-------------

The whole affair got me thinking. These were women who I got drunk at parties with. Climbed into shopping trolleys and raced down hills with (replete with traffic cones on our heads, yes we might have had a few drinks again). Wore too short skirts with and lied about my age (the times when we wished we were older) with. And there was one common thread throughout it all.

We were visible.

Of course there were the normal nerves of growing up. Worrying if boys liked us. If we were wearing the right thing. Doing the right thing. If that spot would go by the weekend. And we didn’t have half the pressures that young girls today have.

But we were visible.

Striding out. Knowing that we were looked at and not caring. A confidence that comes with youth and not having been pushed back in your box enough yet to worry about it happening again. It’s fleeting, because these times will come later. Later there will be feedback that we are too confident, too vocal, too direct. And we will tone down our visibility. Succumb to pressures of fitting in. Become less than.

—---------------

But what I’m noticing that’s really interesting is that the narrative is shifting about this disappearing act, and seeing my old friends at this funeral brought so much of that to life.

One friend has fully embraced her grey and emerged from her car with resplendent silver curls. We unanimously agreed that she looks amazing. She’s been covering it up for years, and has now decided that she doesn’t give a f**k and she looks phenomenal. Another who is embracing the silver blonde that her mum used to have, and was told many times at the funeral that she looks the spitting image of her, something that might not have yielded a positive response before - but she is now leaning into (her mum was beautiful, I would too).

Another who has dedicated her life to her daughters, who has been by far and away the most present parent in their life, but in the midst of recent tumultuous change is starting to think, what comes after? What drives my life? Where is my enjoyment? My passion? Previously guilt would have kept her from exploring this, but she’s starting to realise she 100% needs to invest in herself to keep her tank full for the rest of her family, as well as it being what she needs.

Another who has lived a single life for some time, with an essential role as an aunty that feeds her maternal instinct. She too is starting to say, what does this next era look like? What will I look back on and feel I have achieved? (and when will this brain fog disappear? She’s off to get HRT this week).

The girlish chat resumed as normal as we gathered. Same topics, same laughter, so much the same. Inside we are still teenagers, working it all out, questioning, but suddenly with so much experience behind us.

—---------------

We are all struggling with challenges in our own way. Navigating this ageing lark as we come up to the milestone of 50. But the difference is clear:

WE REFUSE TO BE INVISIBLE.

This is not the end of an era for us. It’s the start of the next (exciting) one. We are not selfish for looking for what drives us, what we feel passionate about, what is singularly for the benefit of us, not in service of others. We are absolutely owed that right.

For me, some of that visibility is coming through skating, surfing and snowboarding. Moments where my teenage self feels in full effect. It’s not the answer to the challenges that come with this period, but it provides respite while I work it all out, and for now, that’s enough (in fact, it’s everything).

It feels so far from selfish to fill my own cup in this way, it feels essential.

I’ve earned it. So have you.

Have a good weekend all

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

P.S I’d love to know how you’re embracing your next era - drop it in the comments below x

Louise Middleton is one of those people who makes you question your life choices (and then some). There’s a handful of people in the world who can take a dream and make it reality, but she is one of them.

“I was a surfer and I wanted to acquire a bit of land by a surf break, that was the dream.It was the dream that totally powered me, I hold visions quite strongly. I knew that the lands shapes the design and the architectural intervention of the site, so the land needed to come first, and I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I looked for two years up and down the north coast from Deveon to Cornwall and then I found this 45 acre piece of land”

She’s the founder of Kudhva, an iconic escapist retreat offering glamping and off grid living for surfing and those who love nature. It’s created from a 45 acre disused quarry, and was a dream for Louise to bring her love of surfing to others.

Louise is no stranger to the surf, and the entire project was borne out of her love for the ocean, and the need to build and to bring people together creatively. The space has become a go to location for brands like Patagonia and Finisterre, and the iconic structures that she installed in the space have built her a following in the design world as much as in that of the outdoors.

Listen to the episode on Spotify here and Apple Podcasts here

We talk in the interview about how she got into surfing, although interestingly despite her clear passion for the sport, life is currently so busy that she’s getting very little time in the water.

"I just got on some really big waves, and I obviously felt scared, but I was just so passionate about it, loving paddling through the water, understanding waves and knowing where to go, just the sense of being so close to everything, ripples in water, sunshine making rainbows through your eyelashes”

Unbelievably this journey started with Louise as a single mum, and with kids in tow, living in a caravan on the land as they planted trees and brought the space to life, starting with a road in and out of the property to allow any of the building to happen.

Kudhva has grown far beyond its routes, and now new opportunities have arisen. An American company wants to take the iconic off ground cabin structures and sell movable glamping versions of them, capturing the retreat and serious glamping investors in the process. Some would shy away from the idea; she’s already established success after all, but not Louise.

“This opportunity has come along and you have to grab it. It’s like you make a decision: do I go for this or not? And where’s this going to take me? What gear do I need to be in to make this happen? This sort of eight years till I’m 60 I guess. For me on a personal level, it’s like - what energy do I need for this? Can I do this and do I go for it? And the answer is, yes.”

This interview is a big slap round the face to encourage you to live life in the moment and to chase down your dreams with the enthusiasm of a terrier, no matter what challenges come your way.

We cover:

• How she came to have the vision for Kudhva

• Her journey into surfing

• Bringing people together and making them feel safe

• Her history of building houses & being a designer

• The challenges of converting the land

• Being part of the ‘cabin porn’ book series

• Expanding the concept into the US

I hope you like this one, let me know what you think

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Presenter: Caroline Keylock

Producer: Selma Chalabi

I ran one of our events last weekend in Sussex: a fantastic day where we hit a skatepark, had lunch together, did a sauna, went to Saltdean lido (an idealistic art deco location that feels like it should be in a David Hockney painting) & hung by the pool. Pretty dreamy all round. And the one resounding thought that hit me during this set up that hits me every time I run an event?

WOMEN ARE AMAZING.

I of course know this already, but these events bring something out in the women who come. They are at this phenomenally interesting and rich point in their lives where they have chosen, selfishly (in the best way), to invest in themselves, to put themselves first (for once), to come along and do something that will bring them joy.

Maybe it doesn’t sound like much, but for these women it is. Putting this time aside is everything. They are of course all different. Some come as a time out from busy families, frenetic work places, and a life admin list that’s coming out of their ears. Some come as a way to meet new people, having moved and trying to forge new friendships without the normal trappings of work places or school gates with which to do so. Others are living wonderfully eclectic lives as independent, solo beings, travelling with work, loving what they do, but just wanting something new and fun and frivolous.

Their reasons are endless. But they are all seeking a new sense of connection to themselves (and maybe others in the process). And once again, the thought that always comes to mind.

WOMEN ARE AMAZING.

They’re amazing because they are so ripe for reinvention, and that is so wonderfully brave, at any age. They’re amazing because they are embarking on a journey with no clear end game, but a total willingness to hand themselves over to a new experience, feeling or community in the hope of finding what that end point might be. They’re amazing because they are saying ‘f**k you’ to the normal conventions of a society that says you should hush up, take up less space, try less, be less, simply because you are getting old.

Not these women. I watched as one of them (a fantastic woman who had come all the way from Wimbledon to our event, something that always astounds me when people commit to long term travel to come to something I’ve created) hovered around the pump track we were trying. She had come back to her skateboard very recently, and was getting the feel of things again. She spent time weaving around the (incredibly randomly laid out - Peacehaven, you have to try it) skatepark, finding her feet, and her confidence.

And then she’d head back to the pump track. Somewhat deterred by the larger roll in that the start entailed, she felt her way through starting at different points. We offered hands and she refused them, knowing that she had to build up to it in her own way. Importantly, she knew (and so did we) that she would absolutely find her way, that her confidence would come. If not today, another day. The underlying confidence of that always floors me.

These women know they will do scary things. They have done scary things. This woman had travelled the world. She had been a diver. She had changed careers and retrained as an Oceanographer. She had surfed big waves. She knew she could do hard things. And this would be one of them.

WOMEN ARE AMAZING.

Another woman had left her two kids at home, and doubled down on time for herself. One at school age, the other only 18 months, she’s still in the heady physical first days where kids are dependent on you in every way possible. Where the guilt pulls at you when you dare step out the door to do your own thing, even though logic tells you they are with an equally capable parent, one who should absolutely be doing 50% of the parenting. She came into the skatepark with glee, ripping round, joyful at every turn. Loving every bit of adult conversation she could get her hands on (and we loved her in turn).

WOMEN ARE AMAZING.

One woman has been to several of our events now. The same age as me, her husband is an avid surfer, and in their younger days they were avid skaters together. As mothering took hold, her interests took the hit, and his passion has, to some degree, led their family life and their scheduling. And now it’s her turn (his words, not just hers, which is lovely). And she is taking that opportunity and running with it. She’s one of the most active in our whatsapp group, always up for hitting the skatepark (and she’s a fab skater), always up for meeting new people. You can see she’s finding like minded women, a new tribe, a new lease of life as she chases down her passion.

WOMEN ARE AMAZING.

And every time I meet these women (who I hope won’t mind me giving just a tiny glimpse into their lives) I feel so privileged that they have let me, and Board Women into their world. That we are helping them in their journey to exploring new routes in lives, new ways to find joy, as cheesy as that may sound. I listen to their stories, and they are so different, they have forged such different paths in lives, paths I may never have come across were it not for this tremendous community of women. These women who are leaping on boards. These women who are pursuing the one thing that matters. These women who are finding their joy in life.

You’re amazing too, thanks for reading. Have a fab weekend all.

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Our next event at Saltdean Lido is on Sunday 19th July and will go live later today. Check out the Boardwomen Instagram to get your tickets, or DM us to go on the waitlist.

I’ve had this conversation with so many people this week, wondering why the rest of Europe can cope with extreme heat, and yet we are so ill equipped. I’m not decrying the nightmare that is trains not working, kids getting sent home from school and parents (mostly mums) having to juggle it all, hospitals struggling with increased demand. I’m not decrying the fact that this is clearly an environmental issue, and that once again, it will be ignored as to there being any urgency to it.

I am decrying our reaction to the day to day heat for the vast majority of us, which should surely be entirely manageable. It’s still cooler than most of the destinations we jet off to every year as brits, and yet when it’s on our own doorstep, we seem incapable to just deal. Parents in my kids school (one with big cool rooms, and outdoors spaces with shade, and they are taking all the necessary actions to keep kids school) are literally pulling their kids. When did we all get so very middle class about these things?

Anyway, I digress.

The point of this week’s article for me is simple. The sun is trying to tell us something. And it’s something that people in hot countries all implicitly know, but it’s something that British people like to ignore.

We need to slow the f**k down

The sun wants us to swim in the sea (multiple times a day if you’re near). The sun wants us to head outside to the skatepark, but to do it early, and at our own pace (I had my indoor lesson this week and I almost melted down a ramp). The sun wants us to actively say no to all of the things that don’t 100% need to get done, and just go with it.

Let’s be real - this hot weather is not going to last - it will be here for a few more days, and then by Sunday it will be back to normal temperatures. We need to take advantage while we can.

We need to wallow in it, and soak it in

I’ve been taking my kids down to the beach after school to head out on paddle boards. I often have to work in the evenings after they are in bed, and the temptation is to rush them off to bedtime, get my own free time in, and make sure the things that ‘need’ to get done, get done.

Well this week I’m saying no to that. I want them to have times like this where they can just lay idly in the water and stare up at the sky, with no agenda. Where we eat out of tupperware on the beach and try to prevent the seagulls from nicking our tea. Where we paddle out into the blue, with no desire to return.

There’s no to do list, no bedtime deadline, no work that matches up to those kinds of memories. The ones that bubble up to an overall feeling of summers together as a family. I want that for them, but importantly, I want that for me.

Put the to do lists down ladies, go star fish in the sea (or a field if you don’t have the sea).

We need to slow down with company

I’ve always noticed how people in European countries with better weather are just so much better at adhoc get togethers (even after they have families, when this capacity seems to break down entirely in the UK). A quick drink in the week is the absolute norm. Mid week dinners with other families. Multiple generations hanging out outside together, meeting their neighbours.

We are so bad at this in the UK. Until it seems, a week like this appears. Suddenly I can almost guarantee I’ll run into friends at the beach. That if I pop something in a group chat, others will turn up. That the mid week frenzie that parents here seem to have (school, clubs, homework, school, clubs, homework) suddenly gets thrown out, and we can just hang.

I’m not entirely sure whey this doesn’t play out across other weeks of the year, but I’m taking this particular heatwave to make sure our evenings are outside, with friends, enjoying every second.

Short and sweet this week, but I hope you manage to turn all of this negative news about the heat on its head, slow down, and just get out there and enjoy it. It’s going to be done in about two days anyway, and then we’ll wonder what on earth we were stressing about. Until next year.

Have a lovely weekend all, we have our Skate, Sauna and Swim event on Sunday at Saltdean Lido in Sussex - still a couple of tickets left if you want to join! Click here for more details.

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Her skateboarding challenge was initiated after the tragic loss of two friends to suicide, one of whom she had started her own skateboarding journey with only a few years before. She had actually had a bad skateboarding accident not long prior to the challenge, with concussion from dropping in that lasted six months and involved two burst ear drums.

And yet she still started. Her mum drove her down to the start, and off she went at 5am with a high vis jacket with ‘Wild Atlantic Skate’ scribbled on the back. No fanfare. No audience. Just a big dose of fear and a conviction that she wanted to do something to help her navigate the grief, and make sense of the loss.

“There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t do something, and so many what if’s and what if this goes wrong, and what if that goes wrong, but as soon as I actually got out and started, so much of that disappeared, because I was doing it for something that felt more important and felt greater than those fears. Once you start doing it, the what if’s go away, because they haven’t happened yet and you’re actually doing something about it. All those fears started to disappear and I started to feel ‘this is exactly what I am meant to be doing”

As she documented her journey she found people were coming out to support her, offering her places to stay, or to carry her gear. She spent a chunk of the trip being scared about where to stay and how to navigate the camping solo part, but actually positive experiences dominated her challenge and restored her faith in human nature.

Becky’s audience has now grown significantly, and she has since used this awareness to undertake new challenges, including a 1,000km SUP paddle in aid of an underfunded charity in Uganda; and a more bizarre 24 hr race in circles around a spire in Dublin which saw her accosted by some drunk passers by, as well as more positive interactions with runners who wanted to join her.

She has now turned her attention (alongside ongoing charitable challenges, she’s currently bike packing across Ireland, with 120km under her belt on the first day) to encouraging women to do more of the same. Her confidence in travelling solo is something she believes all women should have, and she wants to create a safe space for that to happen. An invitation for women to join her on a cross-African adventure was sold out in days, and she plans to offer many more experiences.

Her focus is going to be on Africa for much of the year ahead, as she fundraises for a mental health team in Uganda. The plans are still afoot, and she is keen to take her skateboard on the adventure, watch this space.

If you’re in need of some life inspiration, this is the interview for you. We cover:

• How the Wild Atlantic Way skateboarding challenge came about

• Overcoming fears in challenges & navigating anxiety

• Becky’s journey into board sports & what they mean to her

• Why she wants to get Women into the outdoors & adventure

• Her newest adventures and the charities she is supporting

Let me know what you think! Listen on your favourite podcast platform, whether that’s Spotify here, or Apple here.

Caroline

Board Women Founder

Producer: Selma Chalabi

Host: Caroline Keylock

It’s official. My head is IMPLODING this week. I know I’m not alone on this, as this time of year is insane if you have kids (I’m convinced the teachers sit down and work out how to torture parents), insane if you work for yourself (must get work booked in before everyone takes the summer off), insane with, well, life.

And yet, I have a weekly non-negotiable, and that is - no matter how busy my life is, no matter how stressed out I am, I will find a way to still have my skateboarding lesson.

My brain currently looks like this:

Must remember to book the kids holiday clubs because they break up in 2 weeks (2 f**king weeks, yes I know. And then they’re off for 9 in total).

Must remember to chase about 50 clients before the summer so I can still pay the mortgage in September after they all disappear.

Must actually deliver 3 months of work in the next month so that I can try and take some time off to actually see my kids this summer.

Must book my son on open days for senior schools, despite the fact that he doesn’t even go to one for 18 more months, but you have to apply in September of this year. Make it make sense.

Must buy my mum a birthday present.

Must sort a plan for fathers day. For my dad, and for Ben.

Must pack because we are camping with mates this weekend. Tonight in fact. F**k.

Must get kids tickets to their bloody school disco. Must reply about x number of school activities, contribute to that teacher leaving, reply to that email about their new teacher next year. Must remember to actually look at the muted parents whatsapp groups to see what I’ve missed.

Must send back the various bits of kids school clothing that were apparently urgent, don’t fit, and now term is almost over.

Must order paint, paint back walls, paint the decking, paint bloody everything in our back garden that was falling apart, because people are renting it this summer and we are permanently half way through these house jobs as our house crumbles around our ears. Must fix lights. Must fix gate. Must fix oven. Must fix blinds. ARRRGGGHHHH.

Must call my parents and check in.

Must call several mates who are having a s**t time lately and just check that they are ok.

Must pick up HRT to keep any level of sanity through all of this madness.

The list goes on and on. And that’s before anything on board women. Or the real detail behind work. And it doesn’t reflect the day to day of just keeping your kids alive, whilst keeping a business going, and the not so small act of looking after yourself amongst it all (which actually I’m pretty religious about).

IS ANYONE ELSE DYING AMONGST LIFE ADMIN INSANITY??

I recognise I write this all from a place of privilege. Of having any work at all in this climate. Of having a house (even though it’s falling apart). Of having the option to pay for kids clubs (although at the moment they are getting whacked on a credit card until my clients pay me). Of having a partner that actually does stuff, rather than leaving 100% to me.

But it is unbelievably overwhelming on your brain. And it feels like even when something falls away from the list, the replacement ‘to do’ swoops in at the speed of f**king light. The list will be with me until I die.

And yet somehow, every Tuesday afternoon I grab my board, drive 20 minutes to a little skate cafe, and I have an hour skateboarding lesson, no matter what.

I’m no stranger to scheduling things like exercise. They are a daily act for me, as I just can’t keep it all together otherwise. I crawl out of bed at six and get exercise in, I make sure I walk too, I’m pretty on it as I know my brain falls apart if I don’t.

But this is different. Because this is scheduling something that for many, is simply a whimsical act. Not essential by any means. Childish in nature.

Maybe if I was training for a marathon people would understand it being a non-negotiable. But I’m not. I’m simply going for a totally selfish, self-indulgent hour of doing something that I love (and hopefully getting a little better at it, although I do question that sometimes). Many would question whether it is ok to see this as essential. I wholly disagree with them.

I rock up. I find out what terrifying thing I’m being asked to try that week, and I get on with it. And without fail I emerge energised. I go in with the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I emerge and that weight has totally lifted.

I am utterly convinced that these moments are not optional. They are essential. We need to let our brain slow down, to escape these to do lists. To hold our focus on simply having fun. No other agenda.

When else does your brain get to escape? When else do you just get to have that playful joy that makes you giggle with happiness? When else do you just get to feel totally and utterly silly? To have no choice but to focus?

I genuinely think it should be prescribed. It’s the same when I get in the sea. It’s the same when I strap on a snowboard.

We weren’t meant to have 50 whatsapp groups flashing at once, each with its own set of requirements, pressures and instructions in life. We weren’t meant to be at our desks all day. We weren’t meant to have this many to do lists running concurrently in our head. Mentally holding it all, mentally trying to keep the plates spinning, mentally convincing ourselves we have it ‘together’. (we don’t)

My Tuesday skateboarding session gives me that breathing room. It’s brief, but my god I need it. And I’ve never once regretted going. And somehow, everything has still got done, despite me scurrying off (and when I say scurrying, its a mental scurry - I work for myself so I’m not escaping from a workplace or a boss, but the mental pressure to just get your head down and get your work done is very real).

Someone assumed the other day that I have ADHD. Every women I know is getting diagnosed. Maybe that is 100% real for everyone, or maybe we’ve just bought into the idea that our lives should be manic all the time, and our brains should follow. Maybe the system has made us feel like it’s all on us, that our brains were made for this.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have ADHD. I wouldn’t care if I did (and I’m pretty sure my son has, hence the conversation), but despite my frenzied lifestyle I don’t fit lots of the normal indicators. I’m highly organised. I have insane levels of focus.

In reality it doesn’t matter, but I’m losing count now of the women my age, in similar life situations, who seem to have a fresh diagnosis. I’m not deriding the people who have any kind of neurodivergence (as I say, it’s pretty present in my family, with my friends, and I believe our brains all work fantastically differently, just as it should be).

But surely, just surely not 90% of my peers brains can fall under this particular diagnosis? Is there a chance that we’ve been sold a system that just doesn’t work for us here? We’ve been sold that our brains should have the mental capacity for it all? That it’s ok to feel so overloaded? That this is how it is now?

I’m questioning it. Wanting to simplify. Looking at what I can offload (ideally not the things I love and that creatively fuel me).

And in the meantime you’ll find me on my board or in the sea. Chasing down that mental freedom again. It’s pretty elusive stuff.

I’d love to hear how you’re feeling, are you drowning from the mental load too? Is your board giving you respite? Let me know below.

And if you’re in need of meeting some other women to find that respite with, don’t forget to DM me on on instagram to join our Whatsapp group, or check out our next even on Sunday 28th where we join forces with Saltdean Lido for a day of skate x sauna x swim, just a few places left here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1991920478773?aff=oddtdtcreator

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“Dear 15 year old me..who can’t afford the hobbies you want, or know girls to go do them with, struggling to come out, living for the one week a year when I got out of London and got to go to Croyde in Devon and get in the sea..one day your life will contain sentences like this from other people. Amazing”

It was in response to me sharing that Queer Surf Club were hosting a day out at The Wave, and had invited women from our community to join.

The rest of the whatsapp group were quick to cheer this woman on, and it brought an unbelievable smile to my face.

Because, controversial as it may be, I’m starting to think that some of the best mates you’ll make in life come from surprise ones you create through following your passions later in life.

Hear me out on this one (and no offence at all to the fantastic friends I have, some of whom I’ve known since I was 4. That’s a pretty long stint to put up with me).

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The first friends you make are when you literally don’t know anything. You bumble into each other at the age of four and it must purely be pheromones. That or they had some lego you wanted.

I have a few childhood friends still in my life, and they are truly excellent. I can pick up the phone to them if something is wrong, and they would 100% do their best to help. And we can be apart for years and come back together and life is exactly the same.

However. In reality we’ve lived about 20 lives since we first knew each other, and whilst our stupid, juvenile sense of humour might still be in tact, nearly everything else about us has changed. For most of us, we haven’t lived in proximity to each other for a lifetime, but there is a perennial tie that keeps us coming back for more.

But for me, most of these friends don’t really share any of my hobbies (and maybe they never did, or I just hadn’t really discovered what my hobbies were yet). And that means there is a connection focused on passion and joy that just isn’t there. I love catching up with these people, they will always (I hope) be in my life, but I think we’d all say that our lives have gone down different tracks. And that’s ok. But it brings me on to the next stages of friendship creation.

University and work mates. Forged within structures that mean you see each other repeatedly. Baptism of fire friendships, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the vodka redbulls. Or snake bite and blacks. Yes, I was classy (don’t get me started on MD 20/20).

I look back on this period, and whilst it was bloody fun, in reality I’m not even sure I’d grown into who I was supposed to be yet. Life was for living, working hard, playing hard, and whilst I always knew I loved the outdoors, and I spent a fair bit of time chasing down my hobbies, I just didn’t know anyone else who did them. Surfing was always me going off solo on a retreat somewhere. Or the occasional trip out to Kent from London, only to find flat waves.

Snowboarding was visiting my brother (who lived in switzerland at the time, and had mates who would teach me via chucking me down red runs, one coccyx injury at a time); or later with boyfriends who snowboarded (and were always better than I was, which made for some frustrating mountain trips). I didn’t skate at the time, but if I couldn’t get my mates to surf or snowboard, imagine me trying to get them to throw themselves down ramps.

My new mates were lovely, and I still know many of them, but they were friendships forged in circumstantial ways. We hadn’t sought each other out, we’d accidentally found each other (and yes, I’m the better for it).

And now I’m in the era of friendships based on things I love. Friends also seeking freedom. Friends who are prioritising joy. And it is bloody lovely.

This era of friendship feels entirely different. I’m just coming out of the end of the friends you make via your kids at school, kids at playgroup (an era I found hard, but I did manage to find a few keepers amongst the women who just wanted to talk about their kids. All the time.) These friendships are choiceful. If I make room for them in my busy life, it really matters.

Now I’m ready for a different kind of friend. A friend who prioritises their own joy and knows it makes them a better mum, friend, colleague. A friend who is just up for the simple act of getting outside. A friend who wants adventure. A friend who doesn’t care about looking silly. A friend who might be drowning from perimenopause & family responsibility, but has decided to fight through. A friend who has chosen to throw their pride out the window and jump on a board and fall on their ass. A friend who is likely to then see that bruise as a badge of honour and show everyone their ass with renewed sense of pride about their body. A friend who has decided what their body looks like is suddenly far less important than what it can do. A friend who joins a whatsapp group and chooses to meet up with a bunch of strangers just to roll around on concrete and chat shit.

These friends I am so here for. They are a wonderful addition to the friends I already have (who I do appreciate!), and I didn’t even know I needed them.

And when I get messages from other women who are clearly feeling the same way I am, for whom Board Women has given them access to that kind of friendship, well. This all feels kind of worth it.

Thanks for reading, have a fab weekend all

Caroline

Board Women Founder

One thing was incredibly calm in this whole experience, and that was Gilly McCarthur: climber, snowboarder, now author, but most importantly, cold water swimming expert. She led the swim, encouraging everyone to slowly dip into the lake, step by step until our shoulders were under, deep breaths all round. I’m a regular cold water swimmer, but this particular swim was so cold it took my breath away.

Gilly’s calmness emanates from her when in conversation. Her soft, lilting scottish accent helps you slow down, and be in the moment, and I can imagine this has put her in good stead in many of the sports she is passionate about, as well as the cold water courses she runs with the NHS. You get the sense that she runs at life at a different pace to the rest of us.

Her route into swimming bears this out. She experienced burn out in a corporate job in America, left her job, and moved to the mountains in Chamonix. Her crossroads moment led her to learning to snowboard in her early 30’s, alongside some of the best snowboarders of the time; and learning to climb.

When she moved back to the UK, she found the climbing industry lacking in female focus and wanted to address this gap, launching ‘Trad Festival’ in the Lake District. The festival had majority female instructors at a time when the industry average was 10%, and embraced women of all ages. Tickets used to sell out within minutes, there was such demand for an environment that showed women that they belonged in this world.

Years later she suffered a series of set backs. Her daughter was still born at 40 weeks. Six months later she had a climbing accident in Utah, breaking her back and several ribs. She had moved to Cumbria to be closer to climbing, but was unable to be part of her beloved sport. Her recovery did however lead her back to wild swimming, something she grew up with as a child.

“It was barely double digits, and I stood there, and I was like, okay, I'll just give this cold water stuff a go again as an adult. And dipped my toe, and it was like, my god, this is just so hard. And there were some women on the shore beside me that sidled up to me, and they were a little bit older, and they were all wearing these really tiny swimming costumes.

And I honestly thought they were going to put goose fat on. They were they were off, and they were swimming, and they were having this amazing time. And afterwards, I went over and I chatted to them, and they explained that in these temperatures they're just going for this connection with the water, and that your body does adapt, and it gets you get used to it.

That night, I googled ‘death by hypothermia’ and ‘do pike bite?’. The next day, buoyed with this new information, I shelved the wetsuit.”

Our conversation on this week’s podcast comes at at timely moment of Gilly’s book launch, ‘The Beauty of Cold’. A photographic guide for anyone that wants to experience the joy of cold water, it is based on the belief that being out in nature and near water more broadly will bring you back to yourself. That we all need a way to block out the noise and feel more human.

Interestingly, the book almost didn’t happen. Despite having contributed to most of the top 10 swimming books for sale in recent years, when Gilly received an email from her publisher enquiring as to her interest in writing a book, she thought it was a prank, or mistake. Lucky for us, they followed up, and now we have this beautiful tome in our midst.

My favourite passage in the book perfectly expresses how I feel about the experience of cold water swimming:

“I’m swimming, surrendering, the edges of myself and the water merge. I’m at one with the water. In this moment life falls away.”

Cold water swimming is clearly a very different experience from surfing, snowboarding or skating, but there are parallels and this paragraph, for me, conveys them perfectly.

The need to simply escape and switch your brain off. The need to not do something for attainment or performance, but simply, to be. I truly believe it is why so many female surfers or skaters I know in their 40’s also seem to have a love of cold water. Feeling the power to overcome your fears is intoxicating.

Our interview covers:

• Gilly’s route into snowboarding, climbing, and cold water swimming

• Why cold water provides the ultimate reset

• The process & story behind her new book, ‘The Beauty of Cold’

• Her climbing accident and the role of cold water in her recovery

• Finding ways to be in the moment (and off screens)

• The shift from corporate America to working in board sports

• Bringing women into extreme sports

Catch it on spotify or apple podcasts, or search Board Women on your favourite podcast platform

I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think.

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Host: Caroline Keylock

Producer: Selma Chalabi

In reality, I was never even intending to start a podcast. I had discovered skateboarding at the age of 45 (amidst some serious peri-menopausal, ‘blow up your life’ kind of turmoil), and realised quickly none of my friends wanted to join me on this new journey. Most of my mates don’t surf or snowboard either, and it felt like time to rectify that.

And so the idea for Board Women was born. Not a podcast. A way to bring together women who wanted to try these sports, and to have a crew to support them as they fell, and got back up again. A pretty selfish pursuit in reality, I needed skate mates.

I run my own business day to day (a business and marketing consultancy called LOOK UP), I have two small kids, and very little time. And yet, this idea of Board Women kept niggling at me, and to bring it to life I thought I needed some help, and I explored someone coming on board to help me with the social media side of things. In reality that never worked out (turns out talking to the community you are building first hand is actually the secret sauce, and social media is the way to do that at scale), but in the process of finding a social media ‘do-er’, someone mentioned the idea of starting a podcast.

I knew, literally, nothing. I didn’t even really listen to podcasts. This was three years ago, and they’ve blown up completely since then, but they were still something that were the preserve of certain people I knew, but by no means utterly mainstream. I spoke to some people. Did some research. Got a brand done with a creative I knew. Found my fantastic producer, Selma Chalabi, who was ex BBC radio, and actually was kind of a podcast newbie too, but we learned together, and the sound has always been awesome.

It’s been a steep learning curve, to say the very least. At times (mostly when I sit down again in the evening, like I am now, realising that I have what could be a full-time jobs worth of stuff to crack after my kids are in bed) I’ve felt like throwing in the towel, wondering if it will ever become something that pays, or that is influential in any way.

And yet, it keeps growing. I go to new skateparks or surf spots, and people have heard of it. Guests quickly agree to come on. It’s gaining traction, and at meet ups there are genuine fan girls (and sometimes guys, which I didn’t expect).

Who knew?

So, as I come up to launching the 51st episode, I thought I’d delve deep and give you my top 5 learnings after 50 episodes. There’s actually probably 100’s of learnings I could give you, so if this post is popular, maybe I’ll follow it up with a 50 after 50. Let me know. If you’re starting out in this arena, or you’re just curious, maybe you’ll find it helpful. Enjoy.

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(1) You will hate your voice, get over it

The first episode I listened to was one of the most cringe-inducing experiences I’ve ever had. You can’t escape this inherent feeling of ‘I sound like a news reading wanker’, particularly for the intro sections where you’re talking to yourself. The first sentence of every episode is the hardest at the start, and even now I feel like my voice during the interview is how I actually sound, but the start is slightly higher pitched, slightly more ‘I’m on the radio, look at me’, and I find it hard to listen to.

I have managed to get over this a bit, and I try to listen back to my episodes now. I’m normally pretty happy with them, but most of that is due to the fact that I’ve worked hard for them to be led by the interviewee, for it to be about their story. I am no Stephen Bartlett (and that’s a good thing).

(2) Chase the big guests, and the interesting stories

I’ve been so lucky in getting some fantastic guests on the podcast. Lucy Adams. Kimmy Fasani. Jenny Jones. And they were just as good as I’d hoped they would be, generous with their time, down to earth, phenomenally articulate women.

At times people have come on and I won’t lie that part of their appeal has been the size of their audience that they bring with them. I’m trying not to fall into that trap again, as without fail, those drivers have led to less interesting interviews, and less growth for the podcast. More fool me.

I chase the interesting stories where I can now, and don’t stress too much about whether the women are known or not, it’s the blend of both that works (and I constantly have a list of bigger names that straddle the fame/interesting story divide, it takes time).

Which leads me to..

(3) Lead with curiosity

You can get super analytical with your podcast (and I probably need to do this more). Understand whether you’re in the right categories. Understand what your name and description convey to people (my description 100% needs an update as we’ve evolved over time). Understand if your cover art brings people in. Are they staying beyond the first few minutes. Do they stay to the end of the episode. Are they coming from where you’re marketing the podcast and what’s working?

Get curious about all of it (especially if you then want to make money out of it, as you’ll need to be super familiar with the value you bring the brands you partner with).

However, the main curiosity I feel you need is curiosity in your own subject. Are you super interested in the person you’re interviewing? What is it in particular about their story that draws you in? What works specifically for your podcast and your audience? Rabbit holes of curiosity can only make the creative output more interesting, and most importantly, keep you interested too (see the top of this article about how to keep going..)

(4) Relationships are everything

I like my podcast to sound like I’m chatting with a friend. And I’m always aiming for a sub 1 hour (ideally 35-45 minutes) interview, because I’m targeting people like me, busy women who are listening on the fly, and much as they would love to have 2 hours to delve deep, their lives don’t really allow for it.

That means preparation is your best friend. I always have a decent pre interview chat with my guests to find out more about them, ensure they are at ease when it comes to the interview itself, but most importantly so that I can think of the angle about their story that works for this specific podcast.

And then I go and research. Yes I could probably outsource this part, but for me it’s the bit that makes the interviews work. I go deep on their background, what they’ve talked about in their social posts, the causes they believe in, the quotes they’ve given. You name it, I find it, and I work super hard to make sure we can deep on specific angles to make for an interesting interview.

All of this goes to show why it is SO frustrating if a guest then just doesn’t show up, which I had recently. So much of the work has been done at that point, as that work also guides the edit later, so the frustration is real. It’s only happened once, hopefully not again.

(5) Get ahead, get a plan

At the beginning I was most definitely winging it, learning on the fly, making mistake after mistake, but most importantly, I started. 50 episodes in, and there is finally some kind of rhythm to what I do.

It’s a fortnightly output, so I have a constant schedule of contacting new guests, setting up first chats, researching those guests, recording the interview, setting up the social quotes & creating reels, setting up the marketing of the episode etc. It’s a rhythm on social that I stick to pretty rigidly, and the processes are finally getting to the point where someone can take over part of them, and AI is starting to do its work when it comes to the admin part, leaving me to focus on the creative part.

There’s so much still to do to optimise the way I do it all, it’s a constant learning process, but my most important out-take is GET AHEAD. Record episodes ahead of time, have at least a few in your back pocket, get a cycle going so that you’re not waiting at the end for assets from someone that screws up your release cycle (yes, this happened multiple times. No, it won’t happen again).

It also means that when the rest of your life goes to pot (I’m a business owner and a mother of young kids, that’s what you sign up for), your passion business doesn’t too.

50 episodes, and 5 big learnings feel like it’s barely touching the sides

Just writing this has made me realise the learnings I’ve made over this period are rife, so if you do fancy a read of the top 50 things, let me know in the comments.

Maybe my biggest learning is taking a moment to celebrate the wins and how far I’ve come in that time. When you’re reading this I’ll hopefully have been for a (potentially rainy) surf, and be tee-ing up for our next London event, so I’ll be doing just that.

And to finish, a massive thank you to all of you who have taken the time to listen. And if you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for? Get yourself to spotify or apple or your favourite podcast platform, and wrap your ears around our last episode with the epic Hannah Bailey - writer, producer, photographer and all round inspiring creative who surfs, skates and snowboards. What’s not to like?

I had my own experience of this recently in Nicaragua. I’d travelled there with my family, and we rocked up to a beach at a small town near San Juan del Sur, and I tried to hire a board. I was with my family, and my son was ribbing his dad. The guy chastised him saying “you don’t know this yet, but your dad is important. Mums are soft, Dads will teach you to be strong and tough”.

Woah.

My son luckily knows better. He explained that both parents can be tough, and supported the argument with “my mum skates and surfs and snowboards”. I’ve taught him well.

The underestimation continued on my first lesson. Before the guy had seen me surf, swim, or paddle he set off into the sea saying “this is cardio, paddling is tough, you’ll have to work really hard”. Now my surfing isn’t fantastic, but I am fit. I’ve worked out daily for as long as I can remember, and I’m probably fitter at almost 49 than I was in my 20’s (especially as I don’t really drink now). The patronisation levels were high.

I had to almost force myself back to go for a lesson, because annoyingly, some of the tips the guy gave me were really good, but the delivery of most of his chat just got my back up. I decided to take the high road, and just go about proving him wrong, and somehow over the days that followed, we managed to come to some kind of understanding that worked. But it felt like exactly that, work.

Let’s be clear, on seeing his and the other instructors with the younger girls who came for their lessons, the dynamic clearly wasn’t in effect with them.

I had a similar conversation with the woman who runs the weekly surf fit class I go to in Brighton. Marianne (ex lawyer with the BBC for 30 years, turned endurance athlete trainer) is known to be a bad ass by all of us in the class. She’s in her 60’s, is supremely fit, and she surfs and snowboards, both of which she started later in life. She is wiry, strong, and you would never look at her and see anything but someone who is incredibly physically capable.

And yet, she recently had a surf lesson in San Sebastien and her young male instructor had clearly mentally written her off. Despite her assurances that she could surf, he was trying to push her onto waves; and when a decent set finally came in, he spent half the time chatting to his mates. It made her feel like she wasn’t worth the effort, not a great vibe from the person who is supposed to be inspiring you to do more in the sea.

She has similar stories of male snowboard instructors, one of whom announced to her “you’re brave at your age” at the start of the lesson. Perfect conditions for feeling your most confident and not self-conscious. Not.

These instructors clearly don’t recognise the influence this kind of behaviour has. One lesson from someone who makes you feel small, makes you feel incapable, makes you feel like you actually are too old to do this (a voice many of us have lurking in our heads) can be enough to put someone off trying at all.

The counter is also true. One fantastic instructor can be the make or break for your relationship with a sport, particularly in the more risk based world of board sports. Marianne was lucky to have a fantastic instructor in Devon, one who got her to venture out in bigger waves than she had surfed before, gave her great technical skills in assessing the waves, and built her confidence, rather than decimate it.

Interestingly I’ve never had this experience in the skateboarding world. I’ve had a mix of instructors, many of them male, and each and every one of them has managed to Mr Miyagi me in building my confidence. They have a knack of finding the positive in the mistakes I make, of getting me to try things I never thought myself capable of, and somehow embracing scarier tricks to revisit the ones I was previously scared of; only to find myself capable of making them. Wax on, wax off.

Maybe it’s because the world of skateboarding is simply more accepting of beginners. Maybe it’s because it’s a world that embraces the misfit in us all and welcomes us in, but surfing and snowboarding could learn a thing or two, that’s for sure. And in the meantime, instructors please temper your prejudices when you’re taking someone out in the sea or slopes. That one lesson could be the difference between the next twenty years of them loving the sport, or it could be them ditching it and deciding, incorrectly, that they are indeed, too old.

I’d love to hear what you think. Have you been made to feel too old in your lessons or more widely as you’ve begun your journey into boardsports? drop me a note below.

Have a good weekend all,

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Hannah Bailey is one of those people, and when I first started this business, her name came up again and again as someone I should interview for the podcast, initially from a mutual contact in the agency world (it turns out we both spent time at this same agency, narrowly missing each other, small world).

“I wanted to be part of working in the industry, because if I could work in that space, I could push it to other people who’d not tried [these sports], and they would get the same benefits that I found. Because I really quickly found this connection to people, to community, to nature, to outdoors, to sport. It was just so fulfilling.”

Hannah has independently carved out a pretty enviable niche in the industry, chasing down female led stories across different mediums and sports, and highlighting the people and issues that rarely get coverage. It’s led her to create films like Thrawn (featuring Lesley Mckenna) for Patagonia, Wandering with Huck, Land of Skate with Skatistan, and more recently showing at Kendal Mountain Festival, ‘A Land for Everyone’ with Lyndsey, of Neighbourhood Skate Club. The latter involved a tour of the highlands in Scotland on boards and with hiking boots.

Outside her pretty illustrious film, writing and photography career, Hannah works with Lesley to provide access to the mountains and make it feel like an accessible space for all, through the guise of ‘Wandering Workshops’.

“People feel like they don’t belong. My job is to tell them I’m a kook too. On the last one I went a bit far - we were going to hike into a glen and we were packing our packs - peopel weren’t sure if they were doing their bag right - so I said “no-one knows how to use their pack properly” and half an hour later my helmet went flying off my pack down the glen”

Hannah clearly loves mountain life in Scotland. Whether it’s trail running, snowboarding, or split boarding, she’s out there, but things have been more challenging since having kids, and like any of us who are mums, it’s a battle between doing the things that make you happy (and arguably a better mum); and feeling guilty about taking time away, from work or from family:

“I’m quite an all over the place creative. I like to dip my toe into lots of different projects all at once, and I love that. But since becoming a mum I’ve learned to compartmentalise a little bit and that’s helped me a lot. Today I need to work on this project in the time I have. Today I need to be mum and I want to have fun with her, not looking at my phone. I try to find that balance where I’m working and can be financially ok, creatively fuelled, and then I’m not working.”

I love this interview for its honesty on what it takes to be a creative in a competitive industry; for the frank discussion on feeling like an imposter, and the general upbeat nature of talking to Hannah as someone who has so much enthusiasm for her work, and life.

We cover:

• Why falling should still be fun as an adult, and we should do more of it

• Giving up a job to work in Cambodia with Tony Hawk (and him not turning up) - and how it all worked out later

• First experiences of a snowboard season in the Alps

• Opening up the industry to others, particularly women

• Documenting the women’s skate scene

• Finding your priorities as a mum (and always getting outside)

This one’s a good one! Let me know what you think & please do share if you enjoyed it.

A few bits of news before we go:

• We have our next Culture Skate event in London on Saturday June 6th - 2 hours in a private skatepark, lunch and then visiting the Southbank 50 exhibition - come join us!

• It’s episode 50 (how did that happen?) We’d love to hear from you about the podcast. Who would you love to hear from in future? What would you love us to discuss? Feel free to DM on here, or on instagram - and remember to subscribe to the podcast on your favourite platforms - Spotify here and Apple here - so you don’t miss an episode

• If you want to join our whatsapp groups for meet us - DM me on instagram. We’ve got lots going on in the south east, but we have tons of people joining from other areas of the UK, and from many different countries - so we are looking at a model with chapter leaders in different markets and locations. DM me if this is something you want to be part of.

See you next time for an interview with Gilly McArthur - cold water swimming coach and expert, snowboarder, and author of soon to be released Beauty of Cold - see you then!

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

That’s all set to change with the launch of the latest Do Lectures book, co-written by Abby and Nick, ‘Do Blue’, an uplifting guide to the power of blue, arguing (as many of us in this community would agree) that being in or near water has tremendously positive effects on our lives in a myriad of ways.

Abby isn’t a surfer, a skater or a snowboarder, and traditionally may not have found her way onto the Board Women podcast. However, she’s been instrumental in bringing women’s communities to the wave, starting the now iconic Sister Sessions, and ensuring that diversity continues to be a focus for the business with their impact strategy.

She’s also, like so many of us, a midlife woman who sought something to keep her sanity during covid, and for her dipping in cold water was the solution. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: cold water swimming is the gateway drug for so many women coming to board sports. It’s an activity that helps you realise you have the control to make your body do hard things. More on this with our interview with Gilly McCarthur in the next couple of weeks.

Abby is incredibly articulate, and just good fun, and this episode is warm, self deprecating and honest.

We cover:

• Her journey of becoming involved in The Wave, and her long-time friendship with Nick Hounsfield, The Wave’s founder

• The fractious closing of The Wave last year and how they bounced back

• Do Water and how the book came to life

• Abby’s journey into wild swimming & how it supports her day to day

• Her own connection with water & how it has helped her through grief

It’s a good one! I hope you enjoy it x

___________

Presenter: Caroline Keylock
Producer: Selma Chalabi

I met Zoe at Kendal Mountain Festival, listening to a Yeti hosted panel that she featured on, she spoke about the balance of being someone who has always chased adventure and risk, and then has to find a way to make that work as a parent. Zoe’s take on it? ‘Disaster Style Parenting’ as evidenced by the intriguing documentary series she produced on behalf of Patagonia about her own family and how they are navigating living in the outdoors lifestyle that their base in Chamonix affords them.

I listened to her talk with great interest, not least because some of her experience marries with my own - as someone who has always loved to travel and be outdoors, and then spent 3 years travelling round the world with our first child, we are continually trying to find a way to balance our own needs with those of our kids. It’s not easy.

“I think it was just like a visceral, emotional thing, where this idea of managing risk and controlling fear felt like such an awesome process before I had kids, and then when I had kids, I was just scared all the time. I would get into these situations and be like “wow, I don’t want to be here”. It was not longer enjoyable in the way it was before”

But what really intrigued me was hearing about Zoe’s journey into skateboarding in her mid 40’s, and more recently starting snowboarding. Her comfort zone is the mountains, but it doesn’t make starting something new any easier.

Her new foray into skateboarding started from her kids skateboarding, but now her husband is in on the act, and she’s found a crew locally to share her journey with. It was so refreshing for a world-acclaimed climber and guide like Zoe to echo the same fears I hear regularly from the board women community:

“There were ups and downs for the first couple of years where you’d be able to drop in, and then the next week you couldn’t. There are proper slams in the bowl in front of like teenage boys, where you just gotta suck it up and walk away and pretend you’re totally fine. But I feel like I’ve hit a groove where I”m improving and I come back at a certain level. I don’t take a ton of risk, but I have learned some stuff and feel proud of myself.

We cover:

• Zoe’s journey into living and working in the mountains

• How she became a Patagonia ambassador

• Balancing parenting & adventure

• Women’s community and beginner skateboarding

• Learning to be kind to yourself

• Navigating ageing and feeling good about yourself

Let me know what you think! See you in a couple of weeks when we have Abby Richardson, Head of Impact and Communications for The Wave; and co-author with of the latest in the Do book series, Do Blue, talking about the power of water. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on your favourite platform so you don’t miss out x

Have a great week all

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

A working life of creativity can feel out of reach for so many of us, the type of thing that the lucky few get to do, whilst the rest of us have ‘normal jobs’. But there is another way too, and that’s to just go out and create, and see if that can somehow become your job over time. Clare Ventham is one of those people.

I went to the premiere of ‘Hotpipe Hillbillies’ in Brighton, UK, the other week - a film about a motley crew of surfers in my local surf spot, The Hotpipes, so named because it’s next to a big industrial pipe in the sea (The Shitpipes are its second most used name). Sounds idyllic? Not so much, but it has an extremely loyal community and people come to love it. Even the conditions are often pretty poor, but the community are so grateful for a good day it somehow makes it even more magical.

The premiere really brought this sentiment to light. Filled with locals I’ve only previously glimpsed in wetsuits, the laughter and warmth in the room was very real, because the film captured these emotions about our local waves so brilliantly.

The film was followed by a panel hosted by Matt Barr, of interviewing the producer, Clare, director Stephanie Hubbard and Director of Photography Alex Boundry. The discussion quickly brought to light that this was infact Clare’s first film experience, and her traditional ‘day job’ is as a SEN teacher. I thought this was incredibly inspiring, and here we are, one podcast interview later.

Clare has clearly had a fire lit inside her since the experience (despite it being a harrowing 2 years that coincided with the team balancing their day jobs, Clare being pregnant for the second time and much more); and is keen to now translate this experience to new films and storytelling (one of which we are partnering on which is incredibly exciting).

We talk about:

• The origination for the film & how it connected her to the surf community when she couldn’t surf (she was pregnant when the plans began)

• The importance of inclusivity in the sea

• The transition from teacher to producer

• Her first surf experience (and why it was a shocker)

• Motherhood & surfing and the supportive mates who make it happen

• Hobbies like sea fishing & why surfing & fishing both provide a reset

• Having a kick ass mum as a role model

It’s a lovely interview, showing that you can pursue any creative goal you choose, as long as you’re willing to work hard at it.

I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think,

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

P.S Listen on Spotify here and Apple here

Events News:

In other news, we are hosting our next Culture Skate event on March 21st in London. We’ve run a few of these now, and they are always epic, think:

• 2 hours private hire of Hop Kingdom (no more than 15 of us)

• Tips from the amazing Sarah at YellowHat Skateboard School

• Lunch at Vinegar Yard (food cost not included)

• Exhibition tickets (we are heading to MOCO to see their contemporary exhibition)

• An amazing crew of women / non binary individuals to cheer you on for the day!

Come join us! Tickets are here, but they will go fast:

Bella epitomises that lifestyle. She is a surf photographer, producer, editor, a multi-lane creative who is now most well known for being the first female editor of Wavelength magazine. Her first issue was in February 2025, putting in six months of hard graft, an uphill learning curve for someone who hadn’t done the role of editor before. She didn’t let her lack of experience deter her from going in hard on the first issue, and she’s continued in the same vein since.

“It needs to have really strong representation of women and nature and issues. I was like, I’m not fussed about just having a magazine about people riding cool waves, that’s not interesting to me. And so I thought I was like, fudge it, I’m just going to go as deep into controversial stuff as I can. And if it doesn’t go well, and I don’t get to do the next magazine, at least I’ve got the creative license of this one.”

Supporting women in the surfing space isn’t new to Bella, she saw the issue of a lack of visibility of women at all levels of surfing early on, and she’s sought to re-address the balance through her photography and beyond (and if you take a listen to the interview, there’s a reveal about a big leap she’s made at the magazine which will become public shortly).

We talk about this inequality and much more in the interview:

• Bella’s journey into surfing & finding her people

• Getting her break into publishing

• Burning out & talking openly about mental health

• Developing boundaries as a freelance creative

• Living an unconventional life and her future plans

Bella is truly inspirational, but one of the things I like most about this interview is that she shows the counter side of the perfection that we so often see on Instagram:

“Every time someone said to me, you’re living the dream, it was like someone punched me in the stomach. Obviously that’s what it looks like on Instagram. When you’re not feeling like that, you’re just like ‘why? why does someone think I’m living the dream?’ And then you feel guilty, because you feel like you should be grateful that everyone’s allowed to be having a great life and a bad one at the same time. And so I said, you know, I’m just going to be really honest on Instagram. And every time I am honest, I get messages from other people saying ‘thanks so much for putting this up, I’m also feeling really shit about myself, and this really helped”

It’s the kind of honesty and transparency that’s pretty rare in this space, so I respect that. She also talks about the financial compromise working in creative roles in this industry involves (aren’t the most aspirational creative roles often this way?).

I hope you enjoy this one!

Caroline x

Board Women Founder

Presenter: Caroline Keylock

Producer: Selma Chalabi