The Team

Ruth Pickvance

Founder & Director of Element
International mountain runner, former British Fell Champion,  GB and England representation and a few fast marathons. Now retired from racing and based in the Black Mountains, there’s nothing Ruth likes more than exploring wilder nature and mountain landscapes and enthusing people, particularly women, and appreciating the natural world.   Formerly head of literature at UWC Atlantic College, now Race Director, working with Leadership Development and  founder of Element which offers quality events based on nature, adventure, curiosity and creativity.

Mike Carter

Mike is a multi award-winning author and Guardian and Financial Times travel journalist, whose assignments in almost 100 countries have included diving with killer whales, tracking down snow leopards in the Himalayas, living with Africa’s last hunter-gatherers and camping on Siberia’s frozen Lake Baikal in February. Mike created and taught travel-writing weekends as part of the Guardian’s Master-Class programme and also for the University of East Anglia and the London School of Journalism.

Passionate about nature and cycling and hiking – his last two books described his 5,000-mile bike ride around the entire UK coastline and a 340-mile walk from Liverpool to London – he is excited about the challenge of helping Element to grow.

Faye Johnson:

Faye runs at County level across both Trail and Fell running and was selected to run for Wales in 2017 at the European Trail Championships. Running shorter distances in cross country competitions to Ultra distances of up to 50 miles on the trails and mountains of the UK. She is currently a fitness manager and personal trainer for Nuffield Health and is well-versed in all aspects of fitness and training.

Mikaela Toczec

Mikaela is passionate about the outdoors and visual communication.  A highly qualified outdoor instructor en-route to the ultimate accolade the IML (International Mountain Leader Award) she is no stranger to exploration.  As a photographer and writer Mikaela has been featured in a range of publications and has exhibited in a number of venues; she also has an MA with distinction in Photography. Well travelled having adventured in India, Nicaragua and South Korea she also cycled from Derby to Poland with her father – not without its trial and tribulations she concludes “I have learnt that cycling brings out the best in people.”

Emma Bayliss

Fell Running

Emma is an international level fell runner. She has competed in some of the world’s most extreme ultra runs and she has a passion for the outdoors.  She lives at the base of some of Wales’ highest mountains and is never happier than running up and down them with her two faithful dogs. She feels strongly about motivating women to run. Emma is currently taking a break from running to have her second child – she’s climbing a new mountain!

Helen Brown

Helen is an international level fell runner having won both the British and English Fell Championships. She has ten international ‘vests’ and has also competed in the World Long Distance championships.   Helen is a very experienced fell runner and she feels strongly about motivating women to run. In her ‘other life’ she is a full time vet and has a collection of characterful infamous rescue dogs.

Natalie Bedford

Artist
A key member of the team, Natalie is a Bath based artist who works on our creative weekends. With a string of successful exhibitions and having been a teacher, she enjoys the whole process of creative exploration.

Kirk Painting

Outdoor Instructor
Kirk is an extremely well qualified, knowledgeable outdoor instructor who is currently working towards his International Mountain Leader qualification.  He is a very popular member of our team when he works with groups and is super company in the outdoors. We feel very lucky to have him working with some Element groups.