Hetty Key combined her industry experience of the Outdoor / Adventure world with her academic background to investigate issues surrounding women in adventure. Hetty is passionate about using data to increase diversity and improve accessibility within the outdoors.
Women in Adventure offers a collective voice for women, empowering others through the sharing of information, inspiration and advice.

We took refuge from the torrential rain in a cafe to chat. I asked Hetty what she believes limits women getting more involved with the outdoor community. She is an adventurer, an endurance athlete, and a massive data geek. It's a good combination!

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SHOW NOTES

• If you enjoy listening to this episode over a cup of coffee and think it might be worth the price, you can buy me a coffee here: www. ko-fi.com/al_humphreys
• Keep up to date with future episodes (and my other adventures, projects and books) with my free monthly newsletter: alastairhumphreys.com/more/subscribe
• Say hello on Twitter and Instagram: @al_humphreys
• Women in Adventure is an independent research-based organisation focused on empowering women through the sharing of information, inspiration and advice
• Hetty Key is on Instagram as @mudchalkandgears
• Making a pact with a friend to do a weekly 7am swim - began only going in up to her knees
• Adventure of moving from a proper job to pursue her research
• When curiosity and a hobby grows organically into something bigger
• Eventually she was doing so much with her passions that it reached a tipping point to quit her job and go it alone.
• Women in Adventure survey around the inspirations and limitations of women getting into the outdoors
• Mental wellbeing is unanimously improved by being in the outdoors doing sports
• Life satisfaction, happiness, anxiety, worthwhile - different sports help different aspects of these better than others.
• Women worry about looking out of place, about being beginners and looking fools
• A lack of knowledge and information is a common barrier for women wanting to get into adventure
• The importance of relatable role models

TRANSCRIPT

Below is the transcription of our conversation. It’s done by AI so is perhaps a wee bit ropey here and there. If these transcripts prove sufficiently useful then I will make the effort to clean then up and make them better. Do let me know if you think it’s worth my time to do that. (Or, better still, do it for me…!). If you’d like to listen as you read along you can do that here:

https://otter.ai/s/vaVwYEmITsekx_MWHnU2Lw

Alastair Humphreys 
what does living adventurously mean to you?

Hetty Key 
That's, that's a big question. I mean, I think that it is being out of your comfort zone. And so living adventuroulsy for me is... it's not, you know, the types of fun. So type one, type two, it's not always being sort of uncomfortable. But it's consistently trying to push yourself just out of the comfort zone into that. I think it's quite an exciting, I think the definitely challenging moments, really enjoyable moments, but it's just being out of your comfort zone and kind of going and doing the things that when you first think of them, you think, I don't know if I can do that. Okay, so give me an example of your life of adventure you had that does not include being in the mountains, etc. I think so. About two years ago, I was quite short on time, I was doing a lot of work and my kind of work life balance have gone down the drain pipe, so to speak. And friend and I made a pact the 7am once a week, we're going to try and slowly get into a river near because both of us are actually quite nervous about the concept. I like water fascinates me, don't get me wrong. But I would not have jumped in a river like open water was terrifying. It was like, you know, all the monsters on the bottom, like, the feeling of the ground with your feet, like the whole thing, like completely. It was it was very out of my comfort zone. But actually, every every week we went through at seven in the morning. And just gradually the first time I think I went like up to my knees and I was like I'm good enough. And actually we kept going and starting in started in October. And actually we by February, we were we went through the whole winter and it totally changed my outlook and perception on on water and actually something I still do a lot and really, really enjoy. But that was definitely adventure.

Alastair Humphreys 
Okay, I agree. What about 
moving from having a proper job to not have a job? Tell me what you've done

Hetty Key 
So recently, I took the decision to leave my full time joband actually pursue my research through a company called Women and adventure.

Alastair Humphreys 
Okay, so we're going to talk about adventure a lot but to pick you up here on the leaving your full time job to go into the freelance ...