#824 - Ross Edgley - 317 Miles: Breaking The Longest Non-Stop Swim Record

24:57They're just chopping down trees. They seem happy enough. I went, cool. He goes, what about you? I went, oh, yeah, let the show begin. and that's what my goggles are. And started swimming. And that's what it was. You just again, rather than being like, no, get out of my hair, I just put my goggles on and just went, oh, it's gonna be a fun night. The original Apple VR Pro. Exactly. Well, you had, I remember on the Loch Ness swim, you were dogs, weren't you asking like, who's are those dogs over there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought dogs, to this day, I swear, dogs were swimming with me. One of the main ones as well.

25:32Well, I can't actually how it's sort of encouraging it could be though. Like for those who have seen Loch Ness, it's just a long sort of stretch of water in this surrounded by trees. And at night, you just see the silhouette of these trees, these branches, huge trees. And I remember looking up at a banana break, I'm just needing a banana, everyone's checking on me, I'm like, you know, 45 hours in. And to this day I swear, it looked like a cruise ship. Because you can imagine the tree line looking like a cruise ship. I remember thinking, that's so weird. Like, why is there a cruise ship? Like the Titanic?

26:04I was like, why is there a cruise ship? I'm not, I'm not, yes. As it regardless, I'd hugely appreciate them just stopping off and showing us before. So why start talking to the trees? Thinking it's a cruise ship. And then all of a sudden, the branches start waving as well. And it looks like people have come to the side of the cruise ship to wave. And my girlfriend and my brother and my mama watch him as I'm there going, thank you so much for your stuff. I'm getting choked up. I'm going, thank you for your support. Don't forget, we've protected marine ecosystems. And they're like, oh yeah, he's talking to the trees.

26:37But it was also on that note. I think what's really interesting is they know it's going to happen. Like my girlfriend's amazing. I've been with her 12 years. She knows it's going to happen. Very good friends of mine like Chris Morgan, like my brother. They're like, oh, he's going to go a bit crazy. Let him. That's fine. But we know when to pull the plug. They've learned to not deny the delusion. Exactly. Yeah. They know when to pull the plug, which is, you know, hyperthermia, cellulitis and various other things. But if I'm talking to trees or seeing dogs, they're like, he's fine. Goldilocks, though.

27:07This is the exact, we've got him right where we want him. He's good. What's the longest you've been without sleep, by the way? I mean, I think I've, there's certainly been a bunch of days I've done 24 hours, you know, back in the day when I was running nightclubs. There was one particular day I remember I flew. I got to put 4am, flew to London, ran a tough mother for a personal or aerial for like, I didn't go in the scene that. Yeah, I could've been in the picture of influences back in the day. So I did that and then got back on a plane, flew back to Newcastle and then ran one of our events and got in up for it in the morning.

27:43So that was a full 24 hours, so that was busy. I didn't know, man. I mean, I've been my energy, my capacity to be able to deal with sleep deprivation now as I get into my 30s is just so or I do feel like I kind of tap the tank driving back from Manchester at 2 .30 in the morning after having run a club night. So I feel like all of my late nights, I just front loaded them into my 20s. I've gotten on left. You know, like I think Donald Trump believes that there's a number of heartbeats that you've got in your entire lifetime. And if you do too much exercise, they happen more quickly. So it's kind of the same as that.

28:16But yeah, I don't know, man, thinking about you being in, just being in water, just treading water because while you're eating, talk to me about that. I was talking to a friend about this yesterday. The digestive discomfort that I have, even if I just lie down too quickly after I've had a meal, because vertically being upright allows gravity to help the digestive tract to get things from mouth to softwares down all the way through. What are some of the unique challenges and how do you get around that? That, it's strange that of all of the tests that have been done on me at Liverpool John Mall's University and love pre -niversity.

28:52That was one of the biggest things that they came away with that they would just like, when you look at Michael Phelps, a Cam McAvoy, one of the fastest sprints at the moment, and they've been proud, they all have amazing superpowers. Going back to that swimming superpower, whether that is hyper extension, Michael Phelps ability to tolerate lactic, Cam McAvoy crazy strong. It just feels that when they were handing out superpowers, they just went, Ross can eat. That was it. Genuinely. So when people say, you know, how do you eat and how do you say, I'm like, that's literally all I do. I've never.

29:25And when you say, I can eat, that means I can consume a good amount of food with minimal digestive discomfort and also absorb it and use it. Exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. And then not only that, actually, I think what became really interesting on this particular swim is eating became a way of making sure we sort of stave off hypothermia at the same time as well, because you're just that thermic effect of feeding, just making sure just warm porridge oats, just so you were being warm from the inside out. What were you eating? At that point, we just hammered the warm porridge oats. And what was really interesting actually about this is, and I hope no one ever finds himself in this dilemma, we were so cold on the second morning, the sun wasn't coming up for ages, it was behind the mountains, water was so cold, like I said, it was eight, nine degrees, and the team started to increase my feeding as well.

30:11So it was rather than every 30, 35, 40 minutes, it was every 15 to 20 minutes, just regularly. And it was piping hot porridge oats. And what was so interesting is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that sort of pyramid. At that point, all I wanted was warmth, that was it. You know, so as you got Maslow's hierarchy at the base, you've got sleep warmth, you know, food, shelter, as you move up friends, family, as you move up job security, as you move up feelings of prestige, accomplishment. Until you get to the very top for land for peace, self -actualization, I was so low down on that pyramid. You could in that moment you could have offered me a brand new car a million pounds.

30:50Just what? I can't walk the bottle. Yeah, do not I'd want the sun to come up over that mountain. That is all I wanted. And I think what was so interesting is in that point, I knew I wasn't going to give up. I didn't want to end up in hospital and I didn't want to give up. So faced with that, the only option was basically just to swim like crazy to eat the body up. And during feeding strategies, they were basically saying, how hot do you want it? and I was like, it needs to be as hot as tolerable. So sat there in the middle of the Yukon, I am just there basically just drinking scolding hot for a joke, as I can feel it burning the tissue as it goes down, but I would rather that than the hypothermia.

31:30And it was a weird position to be in, now sitting here in the comfort of the studio, I hadn't me something like a burning hot cup of coffee, I was like, how crazy is this too warm? But in that moment, I think it shows like humans are really capable of amazing things. I mean, that was very small. I'm talking, you know, when you hear stories of Everest and, you know, these incredible stories, that was very small, but it gave me a glimpse into what humans, you know, could potentially do. What you can endure with a greater goal. Hot porridge. Bananas is one of your favorites. What is? So what else are you doing in order to hit?

32:05And have you got any idea of macro nutrient intake across the whole time or color again take? Not really. I'm sure that some dude that was throwing the bananas on as I can probably reverse engineering. Yeah, yeah, we've got a long list. And then also as well, just shout out to my sponsors as well, PhD Nutrition, because just gels, electrodes, I have something called beta fuel where it's this really nice blend of sucrose and fructose. So you're basically not trying to throw one form of carbohydrate through the digestive tract. They have different digestive sort of speeds. So that again, we made up a lot of that as well.

32:34And then things got a little bit more creative. When the sun came up and I could actually enjoy it a little bit more, a lot of the guys were having bison burgers, mousse soup, things got a little bit more creative and also I could then enjoy it a little bit more but there were certain periods and especially as well in in Canada and the UConn the sun never really goes down so even like your circadian rhythm is all over the place is that good given that you're not supposed to sleep? I felt it was and then also as well what's interesting is a lot of the team didn't sleep at all as well and my medic dot to tom was amazing Chris Morgan, Kayak, Joe Kennedy, as well expedition leader, amazing.

33:13But in some ways, I'd say it was harder for them to not sleep because my face was constantly in water and it was eight degrees. Like it hurt. Every time I put my face in, it was just pins and needles to the face. So what was really interesting is I actually found it easier to combat sleep deprivation. Do you being woken up with a splash of water in the face? Exactly. Yeah. Which is really weird. Like I said, yeah, sure, it was harder swimming, but I would say it was harder for them in the really nice warm sun on a boat That's kind of like rocket was harder for them to stay awake than it was me the sleep deprivation I didn't actually find that bad until immediately afterwards There's video footage as well.

33:51We're gonna release a whole YouTube series on it. It's amazing But the doctors talking to me just how me and you were talking now Chris and literally I'll just Like I'm in between sentences. There was how do you feel? I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty It's so bad. What about other supplementation, caffeine, any new tropics, beta -aligning, any other spicy stuff? What do you use? There's so much. Yeah, caffeine, we were just literally talking about this as well, because we got into the grams. People are dealing milligrams. I think the upper limit is 400 milligrams, you know, right? Yeah, so that's a really strong pre -workout.

34:27We were getting into the grams, yeah, so over, well over a thousand milligrams. And then what was interesting, and I'm glad you picked up on that because at a certain point, the body kind of goes, what more do you want from us? Like, you know, there's no neurotransmitters left. You've completely depleted them. AlphaGPC, I found really works quite well. Yeah, we've got an activated version of that in the eutonic. Cognizant is activated alphaGPC. Exactly. And I love that because, and I don't know if anyone else has used it when swimming. But I found like, it just makes you who are happier staring at the bottom of a river or a sea.

35:03And instead of swimming, I don't know if this is true of running, but certainly for swimming, I found I'm happy for 10 hours. And as I'm pulling through the water, I'm like, how's my high elbow catch? Oh, that's a good feel for the water. As I'm swimming, I'm just more content with the process. Caffeine has always done that. I've always responded really well to caffeine, but alpha -G -C -C specifically. And I hammered it for these three days, usually, as put the teachings of Huberman, and I'll sort of go on and off and sort of cycle it. But for this, we just went all out for those three days. And then immediately afterwards, like, yeah, I mean, the calm down.

35:36There's an awful lot of substances going through you. Okay, so you're using alpha GPC, you're using caffeine. What else was in the mix? And that was pretty much it to be fair. Just because you didn't want to spike anything too much, you didn't want to, it was trying to make sure that the entire event was kept like this. You didn't need any adaptogens, You didn't think that that would be useful or interesting? No, I'm not having trial to train. We always say no debuts come race day. We didn't have time to trial in the name. I think we're stating is this is just kind of ignited a curiosity to me.

36:10For other stuff, I know also as well, even Liverpool John Wars University, they were making some fantastic suggestions as well. They were talking about like even on swims where the sun does go down, just punching light into your retina. As I'm, oh, how fascinating. Yeah, yeah, maybe a couple of little red light things on the back of the knee attached to the wetsuit. You know what I mean? Like, that's so interesting. Yeah. It's cool that you've done the whole thing from a supplementation, pharmacological standpoint on caffeine and basically citricolines. Like, it just get a colonergic into you, make sure that you feel good in the brain, but you're not spiking anything too much.

36:45I do think, you know, I think the most I've had of a new tonic is maybe five in a day when I've been doing just back to back back to back to back to back episodes somewhere. And the come down off the back of that is relatively gentle, but there are certain compounds that you could throw in that were just fucking destroy it. And I guess you're thinking as well about digestive discomfort, how is this mixing with the other things that I'm eating? That's a really good point. Yeah, that's why it was just trying to keep it like this the entire time. And also I think as well, as it went on, I found I was just metabolizing it so quickly.

37:17So initially, half life caffeine eight hours, I would certainly feel the effects if I had 200 milligrams in the early stages of the swim. I could probably feel that for four hours, you know, feel pretty good, powerfully pulling through the water, improving the eye on the environment within the working muscles, neuro -transmitted chemicals in the brain. Fat all of that. Going as the second day, two hours towards the end, you know, over that 40 -hour period, just it was just in the end. and this amount. Yeah, it was just it like, yeah. So it was just I suppose if we were to draw a graph, it was like initially we, and then it just went like this.

37:53Doesn't matter how much more you put in the front. Did not matter. You haven't mentioned much about protein. What is the role of protein intra -workout in an endurance event like this? I'm glad you asked, because we didn't I, trying to force so much for the digestive system. It was fats and carbs, you know? So it was really just trying to look at anything that would give you an energy substrate. It's a protein at that particular point. Less important, like it, but on the GB swim, when it was a stage swim, so much more important, you had to have your protein in there. You're gonna break everything down over.

38:23Exactly, exactly. Whereas I think for this, it was almost like controlled, catabolic breakdown of the body. You were just asking so much of the body, it was gonna be a mess. You know, and immediately afterwards, shout out to the guys at Dawson Hospital, you know, I rocked up. Kidneys were good, actually, surprisingly. you know, we thought they were to take in a battering, what from? Um, just from, uh, well dehydration essentially from not trying to get much in, because it was weird, I touched upon that a little bit now. I got some burn with hypothermia, which you mentioned. Rare blend. Yeah, they were excited.

38:58Well, this is fantastic. We've never seen this before, but it was amazing how much I was sweating and my skin was taking a toll when they got me out. I was red. I was burning up despite being in eight degree water for what was 55. if I fit four hours. So it was weird how that was all kind of going on. Rabdo, again, they couldn't test for that because they couldn't test for creating kinase. I reckon it was through the roof. Were you taking creating throughout this actually? No, never used that. It was just again, for what was gonna be a 60 hour swim, it's not quite the same as a 50, 100 meter sprint.

39:34You know, I sort of sat there and was like, it's not gonna be that useful. I think that was the thing. And that was the thing, stripping back all of my supplementation as well to know that when you're on the boat, whatever you're using is there. So you have a very sort of narrow band. Yeah. Okay, so you get to the hospital, a little bit of Rado or a lot of Rado. I think there's probably a lot of Rado. Yeah. A lot of Rado.

40:00Hyperthermia with sunburn, sunburn, anything else? I think that was, oh, and then cuts to the back of the leg. Oh, yeah. Explain that. Yeah, so that was really weird. It was, we put like Vaseline, and I think it's called Lannolin, I think. Yes. Yeah, we put that - Rest feeding them in, use that to fix their skin. Which was amazing. I put that all around my neck, and that actually was pretty good. Even, I'm so sorry, guys. Even put it down my bum crack to make sure that was all okay as well as I was going to show you. Brilliant, like completely, apart from the toilet mishap was perfect. But the one place was the back of the legs, because when treading water, so sort of like a breaststroke leg kick or egg -beater leg kick for those who play water polo, it was sort of riding up and in the crease of the back of the leg.

40:46So that was the weirdest injury that I thought I just never thought. It looks deep. The image on Instagram is not, how is it now? It's pretty good. I mean, I'll take down my trousers if you want me to, but let them down. Let's have a look. Come on. Show me. Show me. This is what the people are here for. That does not look good. No, that's healed. Can we bring up a picture of before? Yeah, that's true. That's good. Oh, dude. Wow, that's fucking nolly. Oh my god. That's actually healed. I showed Rich, Rich Roll. He was like, yeah, that's pretty good. Okay, well, I'm still. What was that photo of your hand?

41:23Oh, yeah. Well, I think it was like one of the things that Doctor's was most concerned with is the compression for so long. Like, if you saw a picture on my face, my cheeks, I look like a hamster. Yes. Because that was the only thing that was kind of like protruding out of the wetsuit. So that just kind of went like this. And then I think my hands were just damp and cold for what was eight, well, eight degree water, 55 hours. So that their hands are just turned like sponge -like. And yeah, that was, that was that, but they've recovered, look, absolutely fine. Normal hands, yeah, it looks like a weird prosthetic rubber glove.

41:58It was in the image that you put through. It was. We'll get back to talking to Ross in one minute, but first I need to tell you about magic spoon. Magic spoon. You probably already know magic spoon for their super popular high protein cereal that has got 75 ,000 five star reviews. Well now they've turned their cereal into treats that taste just like those classic crunchy cereal bars that you had growing up but with way more protein and far less sugar. It is a tasty guilt free time machine back to your childhood. Hitting a protein goals is never easy, but magic spoons treats have a crispy and airy texture that tastes phenomenal, and every treat has 11 grams of protein, 1 gram of sugar and 4 net carbs, so you can actually feel good about what you're eating.

42:40They're great if you're on the road, if you don't have time to get enough food into yourself throughout the day, or if you're just looking for a midnight snack. They've got 6 delicious nostalgic flavors, including marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter, blueberry, double chocolate, birthday cake, and strawberry milkshake. So if you want to make hitting a protein goals, a treat rather than a chore, heads to Tunisers Grocery Store right now to pick up Magic Spoon's brand new protein packed treats. What have you learned across all of the swims? You mentioned that sort of interesting perspective you have on resilience.

43:11You wrote a great book, Heart of Resilience. Give me your overview of resilience and how you've come to think about it from a human standpoint. Yeah, I say in the book that resilience is suffering strategically managed. And what I mean by that is, you know, so often I think people think in terms of gritting your teeth, manning up, you know, and for me, it just wasn't quite right to sort of say that. That's not an approach that I found works. It's like me and you go for a run right now. If we're 5K into the run and we're gonna run a marathon, you turn to me and say, Ross, I've got a Pebble in my shoe.

43:50I won't go, mah, resilience, man up, run with it and wear it down. No, I'm gonna just stop and take the pebble out, Chris. You know, it's suffering strategically managed. And I think, especially with the latest swim as well with the Yukon, it is really nice if people say, oh, Ross is really tough, he's really resilient. I'm like, no, no, it's just suffering strategically managed. You know, neurochancemethis chemicals in brain, caffeine, depleted of muscle glycogen, carbs. I need more than that MCTs. I'm getting cold, make sure that the porridge oats are turned up. Do you know what I mean? It's anything that's going on limiting limitations.

44:28And I think to go off on a little bit of a tangent, it's kind of what I love the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, you know, with Adminstone, Robert Falcon Scott, Shackleton. And when Robert Falcon Scott and Adminstone, the Norwegian, Falcon Scott being the British guy, when they were racing to the South Pole, it was so interesting that Adminstone with Norwegian efficiency and he turned up. His guys were trained Olympic skiers as Olympic skier in his team as well, who led from the front. Everybody was made to practice in skis. Not only that as well, they turned up with dogs. This is something that you learn when going to the Arctic Circle as well from the indigenous people there.

45:03So he knew that if he got to the South Pole with this number of dogs, that on the way back, he could eat a certain number of dogs for sustenance. And the British at the time were like, oh, that's ungentlemoney like eating dogs, that's terrible. And then equally, when you look at the British expedition, they brought ponies that ended up falling through the ice and they had to feed them to the to the orcas. They brought mechanical skis that just broke down tins of food that were just completely useless and poisonous as soon as they arrived. And I think it was so interesting that learning from that, I was very much Scotty of the Antarctic when it came to Loch Ness and Tressimino.

45:40I turned up and it was like, right, let's give this a good go. Whereas for the Yukon, I was very much trying to be Adminson, you know, this Norwegian efficiency. And that's one of the biggest things to come back. If I was to add a chapter to the art of resilience, it would probably be that story. I read it. I think I messaged you about this by snub, I ruptured my killies playing cricket, the most British way to do it. Four years ago at the end of COVID, and I put together, and this is the same, If anybody is going through good for physical stuff, probably also all right for emotional stuff, Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday, art of resilience by yourself, on audible, I think.

46:20I go audible because that's cool. And then resurfaced, the documentary about Andy Murray is a hip replacement where he gets a ball and socket, hit, it's like a steel ball and a ceramic socket, hip replacement. And those three, that's my stack. You know, yours was like caffeine, MCTs and Cytocoleans. Mine was those three. And that was the thing that really kind of set the tone for the rest of my recovery. But it is, it's such a unique perspective on resilience. And I think that we are definitely in an age of glorification of the tough heroic man and the main reason being that it feels like something that's very absent.

47:09It feels revolutionary. It feels counterculture in a world which is very convenient and you go from air conditioned house to cooled office. It feels traditional in a sort of wholesome way to talk about just gritting your teeth anything getting through it. But given the choice, I mean, what did you do for the swim? You didn't swim upstream. When it came to what you were doing mentally, you didn't try and swim upstream. And it feels like that's kind of the philosophy that you've taken here. Yeah, I love what you said there. Yeah, I never actually, never thought about it like that. But this is why I wanted to appreciate coming on here, because I'm still deconstructing the U -con.

47:49So this is almost just like therapy. It's not podcast at all. at least tell me about your answer, that's for former. But that is exactly it. I didn't really think about it, but yeah, I figured it metaphorically. Yeah, it was very much trying to work with the river. This is gonna sound so strange as well, but it really is like quite spiritual when you do, and that's the only way I can describe it for one of a better term. But with the Yukon, it almost provided everything that we needed. So this is the glacial lakes, they're melting, which made sure that we had like a stronger current. We had a brief window of those two days where the sun actually came out.

48:29It just felt like the Yukon was like, you know what, like if you're crazy enough to come and try this, we'll guide you. Well, after the first two attempts that you've done for this, you would, oh, something, Mother Nature was like, all right, I've kicked you in the dick twice. Here we go, I'll give you a nice little helping hand. Explain to me where your mind is, you know, So you're doing six hours on, six hours off, if it was great. British swim, you're doing 15 minutes or half an hour or 45s. What are you doing with your mind for that long? The biggest thing that I've taken away is solely focusing on the process.

49:06And this is something I actually learned from the Royal Marines, because anyone listening will be able to understand. When you're focusing on the outcome, you're not actually focusing on the process. So if you are rowing, you're on a treadmill, whatever it is, if you're looking at the gym clock can be like, how much longer have I got? Oh my God, what have I done? 15 minutes. No, no, no, no, you're focusing on the outcome. You're not focusing on the process. If you're running on a treadmill, focus at my full footstriking, my heel striking. How's my cadence? That's what you should be focusing on.

49:31When I'm swimming, how's my high elbow catch? Am I catching up? Am I finishing my stroke? What's my leg kick doing? That's the process. The moment I immediately turn to the boat and start saying, how much further have we got? How far have we gone? Though, those metrics are important, but if you keep on asking that, you're not focusing on the process. If you're not focusing on the process, you're not focusing on the outcome, but the weird thing is by just solely focusing on the process, the outcome becomes inevitable. How do you avoid tapping into, don't mean to hell of a drug, and where am I, where was I, how far have I gone?

50:06Oh, this is exciting. That's something that fuels motivation, and for a lot of people, that's a temptation now. Is there a mantra that when that voice comes into your head, why don't we just ask, I'll just, and you know that it's going to rip you out of this process driven mentality that you say is optimal. Is there something that you do to bring yourself back to that? Not necessarily. I think it's just really blindly and stubbornly thinking of the process. It was actually, I love Hoobermann. He talked about, there was a study, and I hope I don't butcher this, but he was talking about how, there was a study where they had people on a treadmill and they had them runnings kind of this kind of like corridor.

50:39And in this corridor they said, you run as fast as you want. So they did. And as they're running in this corridor, the sort of pillars going past them, where I've a sped up or slowed down. And what it was showing. The AVR of some kind. Exactly that, exactly that. And it was sort of saying how they were manipulating the columns moving faster. If the columns are going faster, they think they're running faster. They go slow, they're like, oh my god, is that as fast as I'm running? And that's one of the biggest things that I took away, one from the GB swim and this. Certainly on the GB swim, because when you're swimming across like the Moray Firth, for instance, there's no land, there's no landmarks, you can't see anything.

51:11Also, not only that, it was kind of like completely overcast. You've not even got the move. So it is pitch, but you're swimming in a black hole. And you're like, am I even moving? Like what is going on? And I've even seen that. I remember in St. Lucia once I did a swim and got caught in a bad counter current and I swam as hard as I could for four hours. This was after an 18 hour swim and I did not move for those four hours. I was swimming as hard as I could to stay on the same spot. So that's like running a marathon, well, an ultra marathon for 18 hours and somebody just putting a treadmill in the middle of the road and going, I'll just run on that for four hours.

51:50It was not, and then I remember stopping turning to the captain and I said, how are we doing? He said, Ross, I'm so sorry, we've not made any progress for four hours. I remember turning, I won't repeat quite what I said. My language was quite colourful. How did you think we've not moved? I was complaining for about 20 seconds and he just said, sorry, Ross, can I just interrupt up you there. I'm like, what? And he goes the whole time you've been complaining, you've gone back 200 meters. I like, and that in that moment really taught me the ocean does not care. But sorry, going back to that, the experiment that I heard from Hooberman, I thought that was so interesting as well because I'm just literally like those columns going past.

52:28Sometimes I'm like, don't, don't tell me because you might turn around and go, oh, Ross, you're going really slow. And that day, that day. Exactly, that'll crush me. Or you're doing really well. And it's a roller coaster. I'm almost like, I don't to know because I'm solely focused on the process. I don't want an outcome. How do you stop yourself from giving up? Oh, that is a really good question. One thing that I found going back to Maslow's hierarchy is sometimes you're at the base of that pyramid. So how you stop yourself from giving up is by looking after your primitive needs. Water, hydration, food, warmth, that's it.

53:07So if you're running an an ultra marathon in the Arctic or swimming down the Yukon River. It doesn't matter. Look after those needs. But then one thing that I found, it gets really interesting, is sometimes you almost flip Maslow's hierarchy, because sometimes you almost forgo the base of the pyramid for a higher purpose. And I think that happened a few times in the Yukon where I just had to flip it. I was looking going, okay, hypothermia is now setting in. I wasn't just shivering from my sort of extremities. it was in your core, anyone who has ever experienced that, you are shaking from your side.

53:40I was like, all right, that's not good news. So I knew at that point that my base needs, those primitive needs weren't being catered for. So I just had to basically just flip and remind myself of the higher goal, which is that, which was the higher purpose, which was the record, which was contributing to sport science. It was all of those things that we all set out to do in the first place. And I think that's what gets really interesting, that if you have that higher purpose, a bigger cause, then you can flip Maslow's hierarchy, but it takes a really big cause it's got to be important to you. If it's not, you can't flip Maslow's hierarchy.

54:15Have you thought or have you designed a framework where you maximize your intrinsic motivation, you're not thinking about the extrinsic stuff? Is this something you did in advance? Is there a mindfulness technique? Practically, how do you do this? That's a really good question. I think I've become far more intrinsically motivated. I don't mind admitting that with the GB swim, I was very much inspired by Captain Webb, 1875, first guy to cross the English channel. And he did it for records and accolades. That's what he did it for. He became a celebrity of his time. He was on matchboxes and everything.

54:49It was amazing. And I still love the story. Did it with his brother and his cousin feeding him beef broth and brandy and he swam breaststroke all the way across because Frontcraw was unjentimally like at the time. Love that. But he did it for records because people said he couldn't, you know, and he made good money from it as well. You know, that was why he essentially did it. And I think I've always said the G .B. Swim was my captain web moment. But after that, again, looking at Maslow's hierarchy, that was, I suppose, feelings of accomplishment and prestige and things. I found like, I don't need another one of those.

55:23And actually it would be a little bit weird. It would actually make me feel weird to just constantly go if they were solely for records and personal achievement because you'd be like, what are you doing? And so that's why I've become, a joke, I've always become like a mercenary for charities. If there's a good cause, then I'm like wicked, I'll put my goggles on. So whether that is the lock nest when the ocean conservation or more recently with the shark documentary for Disney, which I know will come on to, it's just knowing that there's a higher purpose and also being intrinsically motivated for that as well.

55:55I think with Loch Ness and Tressamino, it was really interesting how back in my youth, I like to think I've matured a little bit, back in the youth, it was very black and white. Did I get a record? Did I not success and failure? Whereas after Loch Ness and Tressamino, I was really proud of those swims. So when a lot of people came over to me and they would sort of go, Ross, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, oh, sorry, I'm like, don't be sorry. As a team, we had a great time. Got some great data, contributed that back to universities. And I was person really happy with what we achieved. I couldn't have said that previously.

56:31And I think that's maybe that's maturing. There's a degree of completion and sort of validation that you got from the GB swim. Once that's done, it sort of opened you up to transcend that a little bit. I think exactly that. Yeah, swims now are very much, did I enjoy it? Did it mean a lot to me? Did I push myself? Did I get something from it? And whether that was in Tressomino, swimming through a heat wave or a lot of mess and surviving 53 hours, they were all achievements that I was like, oh, that's pretty good. And alone in and of itself, that was impressive. Yeah, yeah, didn't get any records, no achievements or anything like that.

57:08But personally, there are, there's stories that I talk about quite fondly, I think for intrinsic reasons. There's a question I've always wanted to ask you And I've been thinking about how to put it across for a long time, like yours, how I can ask this without trying to create too much pressure. So I'm quite fascinated by your demeanor, your very positive even in the face of suffering, it seems, laughing and smiling and so on and so forth. I've never seen, and it may just not make the edit or whatever, but I've never seen a darkness side of you. I've never seen agitation, I've never seen rage, I've never seen bitterness or resentment.

57:54I've never seen a lot of the things that typically drive very high performers and endurance athletes. And there's a degree of suspicion that I have around anybody who I don't see that dark side too. Do you have a dark side? Yeah, you're not the first person to say that, actually, a fair few people have said that as well. I definitely think it's a sliding scale. So to sit here and say, oh, no, I'm smiling all the time. No, no, no, no, no. And I can show you pictures actually of the Yukon when my face is swollen. And I'm not having a great time. With that said, I think one of the nicest things that the team in Canada said was, it was a great swim, Ross, but what we were most impressed with is you were still saying thank you when we were throwing you bananas 50 hours in.

58:42And like, I like, I can talk about it now and not get so choked up. But that would have made my dad so proud. And I think the thing is, if anyone had met my dad, they would probably understand why. And it's, those who don't know, I talk about it in the art of resistance. And I can talk about it now and not cry. I hope, touch wood. When I was swimming around Cape Britain, it was going around Cape Ruff and my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. And I was like, that's it, I'm done. I'm just gonna go on land. I just wanna give him a hug, I wanna be there family. And he said to me, no, no, Ross, you can come home and you can give me a hug, but it's gotta be via Marga.

59:20You have to finish the swim. So that's why at the end of the GB swim, when people see, you see my dad in a wheelchair as well, because the cancer was pretty bad at that time. The tumors were so bad that they couldn't walk. And doctors said there's no way you can be around crowds. You have no immune system, Richard. You can't be there. And he's looked at all the doctors, and he was always so polite, always handled himself. Like so well, he just said, I appreciate the medical advice. I really do. I don't want to go against it, but I will be there on the beach when my son swims around Great Britain.

59:53And that's why he was there. and I think it was his, just, I don't know what it's called, humility, grassy, whatever, but even when he was diagnosed with cancer and they got really bad, I remember we went to go and visit him in hospital and he cut up all of his face because he's a tennis coach and he cut up all his face because he fell on the tennis court and he went for a point and we all went in me and my brother's my mum and he's there and his face is like, oh bloody and I was like, What happened? And the tumors had got so bad he couldn't run basically and then he just goes, oh, I just had a bit of a fall.

1:00:26I was like, oh, dad. And he goes, no, no, I'm fine. Everyone's making too much of a fuss. And then there was a silence. And then I went, did you win the point? Dad went, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone bursts out laughing. That was very quickly followed by the doctors saying, Richard, you know this is terminal. You're not going to be able to walk again. And he said, that's absolutely fine. And the very next day took to the tennis court in a wheelchair and just started teaching wheelchair tennis. You know, he just growing up with that, that's one of the reasons I'll always say thank you if you give me a banana and I've got cellulitis and hypothermia and I'm 50 hours into a swim because ultimately my dad went face with stage 4 cancer, did not bat an eyelid and just went that's absolutely fine.

1:01:07I'll just coach from a wheelchair and just went straight back out there and it's that if you understand that that's the first time I've really told that story and and that's the biggest thing that I think, oh, this is going off on a complete tangent, I'm sorry. But you know, they talk about, you just inherit certain genes and stuff. And whether it's spiritual, psychological, genetic, whatever, sometimes I just hear my dad as well. Yeah, I'm 50 hours in and I'm like, if you do not say thank you for that banana, like I can just see my dad's face just being like, mm, you know, and that's what he'd be most proud of.

1:01:39So yeah, after that swim, it was on Father's Day as well, the Yukon thing. So it was, yeah, I've done pretty well there, not to cry. It's impressive. It's a very, very meaningful story. No, it's for asking that. Yeah, because I couldn't talk about it now without, like, two years ago, we lost him. So I can talk about it now. And yeah, it's someone said something lovely because it was like, he was my guiding North Star when he was here. And every single swim I would speak to him, Like I said, he was a tennis coach, taught wheelchair tennis, visually impaired tennis. You know, even when he was fine, he would just blindfold himself, go out there and just start playing tennis.

1:02:18So he would just play visually impaired tennis just to make tennis available to wall. And as a coach, I would be like, I'm going to swim around Great Britain. And he's just sat there at the dinner table, Sunday roast dinner, and he just started doing the calculations. I was like, you need to swim this. So he was my north star. And then what's interesting is now, he's not physically here, but he's still sort of that North Star because I always think what would he say? You know, you can actually, if anyone who's lost to parent or anyone closer than they'll know probably what I'm saying, you literally hear their voice, you know, that yeah, it's just, I'm just going to swim the Yukon.

1:02:50I can hear my dad, I can hear what he's saying, like, now, you know, it's just, yeah, thanks for listening to that monologue, Chris. What a fantastic imprint, man. What a hero. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. I think when people go, it's not because I'm completely smiley and stuff, it's because my dad was the most stoically strong person I've ever met. So polite. And yeah, even in the latter stages, we're still coaches, it's carried on coaching. And even when he was completely bedridden, he was just doing paperwork and everything. I remember he rang up because he needed to sort his accounts. I never forget this conversation is where he rang up the accounts.

1:03:27And he was like, I'm gonna file my account sir early because he just didn't want to bother my mum with it. You know, so he wanted to make sure the paper it was sorted and they went, oh Richard, you don't have to sort it for another six months and he just went, no, no, I'm aware of that, but I will probably be dead. And they were like, oh my god. Yeah, just so, you know, never effect. And then he said, I'm so glad I'm talking about it because I can talk about it fondly now, but even when we were sorting out his funeral and they said, you can be buried in anything you want. And he was like, anything.

1:03:56and they went, yeah, pretty much anything. And he had a natural burial where they create a sort of coffin and it goes in the ground and it bide grades and you become one with the earth and stuff. And that was my daddy was so sort of thoughtful like that. And then they said, yeah, you can pretty much have anything you want. And he looked at the designs and then eventually, again, we're all on the phone. It just gets, can I be buried in a tardis? Because he loved Doctor Who. And he's just having these conversations. So I think that's it. you know I love stoicism and you know the last thing that he can choose is your attitude to things and watching Dad in that particular scenario and his attitude towards death and how he just completely agreed.

1:04:35I say my dad taught me how to live but he also taught me how to die and I don't want that to sound morbid because I think sometimes in the West we have a bit of a you know yeah don't talk about that it's a bit of a weird relationship with death whereas Dad just taught me just to um... yeah just... you know I was, yeah thanks for listening to that Chris. So that was a long one, not at all. Not at all. I'm glad that I got to see that insight. In other news this episode is brought to you by Momentus. You might have heard me say that I took my testosterone from 495 to a 2006 last year and one of the supplements I used throughout that was Toncat Ali.

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1:05:50Right now you can get a 20 % discount by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to livemomentus .com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom. A checkout that's L -I -V -E M -O -M -E -N -T -O -U -S .com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. That's one of the best bits of British culture at its best. I think, you know, the kind of stiff upper lip, Britishism that, you know, keep calm and carry on. Like, that's what it feels like in embodies. And I've been, since moving to America, I've been quite critical of British culture because I don't think that we fully embrace the best bits as well or as frequently as perhaps we should anymore.

1:06:36And yet you look back and Antarctic adventures, crossings of the channel, exploration, Ralph finds. You know, we have such an illustrious history of people who were able to withstand suffering, take risks, be adventurous. And yeah, it feels like your dad is individual from a bygone era, like a personality from a past time. Yeah, that's, yeah, that is exactly it. That all those, what are now considered old -fashioned ideals. You know, he just had an abundance. And then that's what me and my brothers and my mom, yes, still have. I love what you said there is what with, you know, Robert Falcon Scott as well, obviously, perishing in the Antarctic.

1:07:18And I forget, it's going to annoy me now, but that particular part of his crew and those one guy who had gangrene on his foot and, you know, turned to the team, he knew that he was slowing them down. And so one night in a tent as a blizzard was just coming in, he just turned to his team. And he just said, gentlemen, I will be going for a walk. I may be some time and he just walked to his death knowing that he was holding up the team You know there was I I get completely get what you mean There was an element of that that's quite proudly British, you know that sort of yeah. What's your favorite?

1:07:48Retelling or what's your favorite book of of those crossings? I think Shackleton's hard to be yeah You're inspired for Atlansing. Oh, yeah, what my favorite. Oh, but what he did as well what the entire team did, it's certainly from that navigation from the Antarctic Peninsula through to the islands. It was just crazy how they talk about how they had like five seconds of coverage where the clouds cleared and they just looked and went, oh, it's the navigator went, I think it's that way. And it's like, you miss? Oh, my God, yeah. I get, honestly, I get chills and all of Shackleton's stories as well and how he just instilled in his but equally to that point, Tom Kreme, as well the unsung hero, the of Arctic and polar exploration, Tom Kreme and Irish, explore what's really interesting, it's only until recently that historians have kind of looked and gone, hang on.

1:08:36This name just keeps on appearing on loads of expeditions. And it was just this guy who was just like bulletproof, like hard as nails, but it was always interesting that coming back from expeditions, obviously, Adminson and Shackleton were like, no, no one says anything until I've published my book. you know, they could write, they could read, but there were people within that team, like Tom Kreme, who was not very good at writing read. I believe he might have been illiterate. And there's still, I think there's a pub called the South Pole that he took all of his earnings, came back and started a pub, you know, in Ireland, you just get stories like that, which are amazing.

1:09:08And then Shackleton just keeping, you know, Christmas pudding in his sock and then just pulling it out of the opportune moment to rise spirits in the team. There's just like, yeah, there's stories like that that, as is a team going down the UConn, we were very much like, what would Shakwatin' do? What would happen to you right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned your love for stoicism, Ryan Holiday was sat in that seat not long ago. I'm always interested with people who have immersed themselves in a philosophy and a worldview for a little while, and then matured to see what they've retained and what it is that they still rely on.

1:09:48Because when something is new to you, everything's exciting, everything's sexy. You've got the dichotomy of control and you have a detention. Thoughts are not there, but you're believing, make some sort of... You've got this huge big buffet of new insights. What have you held on to from stoicism that even six years, five years after beginning to write a book on it? You still use? I think it's the stories more than anything. I think so often people say it's, you remember not what people say, but what they do. And I think Marcus Aralius is probably one of the biggest inspirations by all written accounts, not a very well man, you know, survived wars, assassinations, never complained.

1:10:30You know, and so this idea of like everything that he endured, I just so often just find myself being like, what would Marcus Aralius be doing right now? Again, it's just that idea of admitting adversity with a smile, you know, just being like my dad, I think it's that idea. So yeah, it's stories, it's people, it's what they embodied. And I also just love that Marcus Aurelius never wrote it to be a best -selling book. It's just his musings. It was his diary and it's crazy that years and years later, people are going, oh my god, that's so applicable now. It was an operating system for the brain.

1:11:02And that sounds so strange, like, because so often we don't know how to run our own brains. And that sounds really weird, because it's not taught in school. But Marcus Aurelius did a pretty good job, and it's essentially timeless what he produced. Yeah, I really do find myself going back to the lessons that I learned when I first started personal development and self growth that You keep on reinventing the wheel around things that you already know and then you find something and you realize That's very interesting. It's a re -wording of an insight that I learned in 2018 and I'm just sort of bringing this same thing up over and over and And yeah, I think that there's a really big argument for embedding what you already know after you've done a good bit of self -work.

1:11:51Yeah. embedding what you already know is supposed to try to acquire more. The dope mean from trying to acquire more is exciting in some ways. But I think a lot of the time you've, you already have the answers after you've done it for long enough. Agreed. And do you find that as well that you think this time's where you go, I got it. Sort it. Life feels great. You go, I know how it all works. I am infallible, nothing can touch me. Something then happens, you go, oh God. No, I have permanent imposter syndrome. So I'm on a perpetual treadmill, if not knowing what I'm doing. It's all the way up, but I'll hire a climb.

1:12:28But yeah, I do know what you mean that you've... Josh weight skin from the art of learning calls it titrant -titre circles. And this is the guy that seeking Bobby Fisher was written about. So he's a chess prodigy and then let's that go and becomes a Chinese push -hands world champion, let's that go and then takes up a combination of Brazilians, Jiu Jitsu and E -Foyling and tries to become a world champion at that too. And I love the idea of titan titan circles. He basically refers to the increasing resolution with which you look at the dexterity of anything, anything, any pursuit that you do as your capacity increases, as you become better at what you're doing.

1:13:10The way that you look at it and the grace and the bar that you try and get yourself over becomes ever higher, it becomes ever more deft. And the way that you try and do this thing, it's that the stroke is even more beautiful, there's even fewer ripples in the water. And that's an infinite game. It's a way that allows you to perpetually be improving. But I often think about titan -titers circles when you believe that you've reached mastery, but then you just look at the same pursuit with a sharper set of eyes, more close, better magnified. And you actually realize, oh, there's games within games here.

1:13:51Yeah. Yeah. Do you know what? I'm so glad you asked that just because, well, going off on a slight take, can I talk about short documentaries? Absolutely. Oh, amazing. Okay. But it's so, So for those who don't know, well this will probably be out when it is. I was probably on TV now. How exciting. So for two years, I've been working on this documentary, a shot versus Rosseggely. So it appears on National Geographic and Disney Plus. And oh my God, it was the best thing I've done. Like the best project to be involved in, just essentially because I love what you said there. The realm of conventional sports science, I've been studying it for over two decades.

1:14:25You know, from Love for University, right up until now, started sports and nutrition brands at everything. And I felt I fully understood a lot of things. You know, I feel pretty good in this. The whole concept of shark versus rosèjoli is me trying to take four sharks and compete against them. So, Nastro Geographic came to me and they were like, Russ, you love a challenge. I was like, do you love a challenge? They said, cool. We went to Polaris out the water, so jump out the water like a white shark. The ones at Hunt, South Africa, and Jumper and Grab Seals. We want you to eat as much as a tiger shark.

1:14:53We want you to withstand as many G -forces as you can, that agility as a hammerhead shark and want you to swim as fast as a meco shark. In my head I was like, I reckon I would do all right, especially the eating for instance. I was like, oh, you know, so let's take eating for example. I was like, right, good. So tiger sharks can just basically migrate over like thousands of miles across oceans, just completely famine and they're just able to just go for miles and miles with no food. But then when they do find something because of the unique shape of their mouths, they can chow down on a whale carcassist just like thousands of calories.

1:15:22So I had to do the same. So I basically went to love for university under medical supervision, lost as much weight as I could, and then in 24 hours managed to put on 22 pounds, it was amazing Chris. So I ate 40 ,000 calories, it was amazing. And I felt pretty good about that. I was like, that's good, right? 40 ,000 calories. Against the tiger shark, I reckon I'm competing. We went out to the Bahamas, Mike Highthouse, World Leading Expert in Tiger Sharks, amazing. We took a giant lollipop, the size of kind of this seat here, went down, fed it to a tiger shark. It bit the lollipop and then we were able to measure its mouth and how many if that was whale blubber how many calories It could eat in a single bite did 20 ,000 calories two bites and it's been you Win again It's exactly it so I became fascinated this went down a rabbit hole all of a sudden I'm polarising out the water It's using a monofin as well.

1:16:19So again, I've got to learn how to do that Alison Towner, world leading expert in white sharks. She's amazing. And I never forget, feeling pretty good. I've been training hard for this as well. That was why I caught all that weight. My power to weight ratio last year was amazing. I felt amazing. I was like, this is gonna be brilliant. I'm gonna impress Alison so much. She's watched white sharks jump out of South Africa. Down, five meters, Polaris as high as I can get. I look at her, her reaction, underwhelmed. She said, Ross, that's really good for a naked shaven ape. you know, but you have this clumsy skeletal system, your 40, 45 % muscle, a white shark is up to 65 % muscle.

1:16:56The cartilage is so flexible, these propulsive forces just go all through this tail. So again, I was like, all right, fair one, not very good. Then I thought, right, hammerheads, fine, I'll take on a hammerhead, when hammerheads, because the unique shape of their heads are able to just withstand so many G -forces they spin. So they went, Ross, we're gonna send you up in an RF fighter pilot plane. Greeners Greenfield, one of the, you're at greatest RFF fighter pilots, sends me up, goes, Ross, this is one G, one, this is two Gs, one, three Gs, I'm just decorating the inside of the really with my breakfast.

1:17:29Oh, no, oh. Yeah, again, and he was just like, yeah, hammerheads, you know, up to 10 Gs, just casually as they're hunting, just on the sea. What did you get up to in terms of Gs? Honestly, I say two to three and I was tapping out. Green is green for the, I hope I get this right. He says he's done up to nine to ten more, I think. And what was amazing is I was like, am I just a massive wimp? Do people have a genetic sort of propensity or predetermined to be good about it? And he says, yeah, an element. And he was like, you're pretty bad. Yeah, all of the capacity went to your stomach. Exactly, exactly.

1:18:08And then Mako Sharks as well. This one was amazing, the fastest sharks in the world. what was really interesting training at Lovefield University, the English Institute of Sport, hammering training as a sprinter, just trying to get faster and faster, faster over 25 meters. And then eventually we'll like, look, we've got to think like a shark. And over long migrations, they'll use watercolons, tidal currents, everything to just move faster. So we found this amazing current, basically just off the coast of Wales and jumped in and just absolutely gunned it. Felt amazing. Still was woefully bad compared to a thing.

1:18:41How fast did you go? Uh, off the top of my head, I think it was over 10 miles per hour, but I believe a Mako's like 45. So I think I've got those metrics right. I was, I was like a quarter. So you were defeated at each different stage by a shark? Badly. 90 % of Americans are not getting all of the nutrients that they need every day to be healthy. And we all know that food is always first, but no one has the perfect diet and signs keep showing us that our bodies need more nutrients and they need this support consistently every single day to build a truly healthy body. You do not need a handful of Pilser potions, one scoop of AG1 once per day in a glass of cold water is all that you need.

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1:19:59Take me through you eating 40 ,000 calories in a single day. Explain what you did before, explain what you did during the day. It was so good. So basically to deplete myself, this idea of a tiger shark going across an entire ocean, this famine period. I just basically had to exercise for 24 hours nonstop. But to accelerate that, obviously my physiology is very different to that of a shark. But it was the same idea of just depleting energy reserves. So there's this idea of exercising to complete muscle glycogen, but at the same time as well in his humans I had to dehydrate myself as well. So Loughborough University have this This heat chamber and altitude chamber.

1:20:38They just crank that up to basically Conor, you know the the famous triathlon you know up to those temperatures and they just locked me in there for like 12 hours Yeah, and I was just Sweating depleted a muscle glycogen. I started cramping void of electrolytes There's a clip as well, like, oh, my entire stomach just went into cramp. Like, my sort of, you know, stomach around that just bleaks everything just went into contract. What are you feeling like at the time? Oh, horrendous. And I think that was it. I was trying to get into the psychology of a tiger shark. And I think it's interesting because we humans are kind of lost that.

1:21:17I think I've posted some clips on social media and people were like, That's not, that's crazy. I'm like, is it because our ancestors would have just said that with Monday. Do you know what I mean? That's not a big deal. They would have just done that, you know, disability to suffer. Like, we humans are actually really, really good at that. So it felt disgusting. And then I think what was really interesting and what surprised me is afterwards, I thought, oh my God, like, soon as I have to put on weight, I am going pizza, burgers, ice cream. I'm going cheesecake. cake. The first thing I wanted was just to curl up in a corner with the biggest ice bottle of water, all I wanted.

1:21:58And again, going back to that primitive need. I think what was also really interesting is having depleted myself so much. And for anyone sort of listening, they might experience this as well when you're dieting and you're not having crazy, hyper -palatable foods, anything tastes amazing. You know, you can give me a raw stick of broccoli and I'd and I'm like, oh my God, that's unbelievable. So in that moment, not even flavored water, I just wanted water, ice cold water. And I saw liters of that off. But there's no calories in water. Exactly, yeah. But you did 40 ,000 calories, plus all of the fluids that you needed to replace.

1:22:34It's exactly that, yeah. Yeah, so first off, it was just water, because that was just so easy. You've done 24 hours, around about 12 of it, was in the hot altitude sauna. Yep. What else do you do for the 12 hours? swimming a lot and then running around the track, a lovebara in a sweat suit as well. Okay, okay. So this was kind of a little bit mimicking a MMA fighters weight cut a little bit, but it's way more aggressive. It's exactly it actually. Yeah, certainly with anyone who's doing mixed martial arts, they're trying to basically look after their body because they've got to fight the next day, whereas mine was just very much just like, yeah, ruin your body as much as possible.

1:23:07Do you deplete it? Okay. And then did you sleep or did you immediately begin and eating badly. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I'm talking, like I probably got two hours. My body was, it was incapable of sleep. I was so hungry, so dehydrated. The body just wouldn't go to sleep. The body was at fight or flight, quarters or was probably through biochemically. I'd love to have seen what was happening then. Like they would have just gone, this is disgusting. And then we come up in the morning, like I said, the very first thing, it was just water. But then once your body had basically gone, okay, we've had enough of that, then the hunger kicked in and it just went crazy.

1:23:42But initially it was really interesting because the nutritionists at Lafayette University were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you got a hold, your stomach is like this right now, it's just gone into a ball. Like we need to basically replenish muscle, muscle, muscle glycine but very slowly electrolytes. And then once we've done that, that was probably four hours, a very carefully controlled in terms of like the micronutrients, the macronutrients, and the volume, it just got silly. And then it's like that primitive instinct just kicked in, where what did you eat? everything. Oh my, we, honestly, we just had like deliveries on speed dial.

1:24:15So I started with pizza, sort of like two burgers, fish and chips. And then it just started to get really weird as well. You know the, the share and test cinnamon loads. Yes, I got like five of those and then eight liters of custard. And I was just basically just taking a dipping and putting that in ice cream, then also became my best friend because it got to the point where I wanted calories, but I wanted to continue the hydration or something soft on my palate. And then that night when I slept, again, I had six cinnamon loaves just stacked next to the bed with what was 8 liters of custard, but in a bucket.

1:24:51So I basically just had the cinnamon loaves and I can nick a card or have a card or video. It was amazing. And I just, yeah, scooped, bang, put that away. And then it's like, because you're able to put away anywhere between, I hope I get these right, but you know, 600, 800 to a liter of water liquids every hour on the hour through the digested. You can't have much more than that. So that's why my body was almost waking me up all the way through the night to just get there. It was an hour woke up and it was like, oh, I just have a little bit more. So we were just forcing as much as we could through the digestive system into the muscle glycogen.

1:25:23And you ended up consuming 40 ,000 calories in a day. Do you know what the world record is? I don't, do you know what? I don't actually know what it is. That'll be worth investigating. Imagine if you've broken a record accidentally. Yeah, it's really interesting when you just have to make up calories as though because it just gets to the point like similarly when I've been bulking for the Yukon, you start off with cereal in the one like chocolate cereal and then you have full fat milk and then you have full, you might add biscoff and Nutella, chocolate spread and then you just go from full fat milk to just double cream and custard.

1:25:57It just gets silly, which is, it was necessary with the amount of time we had for the Yukon, where you just can't make up those calories cleanly. It's not sustainable. I absolutely don't recommend it for anyone listening. Right now, I'm in the phase where I'm being very kind to my body, but yeah, the Tiger Shark bulk. It was amazing. It's so good. That's wild. Just explain how it feels from an inflammation standpoint on the muscles, on the joints, to consume that many calories in a day. Yeah, it was strange how I think, was so much was probably in pain at that point, because my stomach was so, I've gotta show you pictures after, I've got a video as well.

1:26:37You can literally see the muscle glycogen being replenished. I'm so vascular as well, because at that time it's sort of also, it's exactly it, yeah. So it was really weird. The sports scientist in me was fascinated by this almost physiological puppetry. To see a video, I posted a picture of it on my Instagram, but you would struggle to explain to someone that that's 48 hours apart. You're like, that's not the same person. And it just shows how crazy malleable the human body is. I love the UFC and Alex Pereira. I love, went from middleweight, now like heavyweight, talks of him eventually maybe going up to heavyweight, but Robert Whitaker and he was like, who let this guy in?

1:27:20What is going on? I'm just fat. I think he puts on 24 pounds. I hope I'm not wrong there, but he puts on hold. The Beebe was to put on an insane amount of weight as well, I heard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, have you seen him now? Have you seen what his face looks like now? That was a fat man inside of a fighter's body. Just that was the biggest fight of his life. It wasn't McGregor. It wasn't winning the title. It wasn't going undefeated. It was keeping that fat lad in such a himself for an entire UFC career. But what I love, there was a clip of him rolling with Luke Rockhold. I think it was DC, Daniel Cormier, who was talking to you.

1:27:54He's just like, now to your point, he's not cutting weight. And they said it's just like wrestling a bear. Because now he's just put on, he's not weight restricted. And there's that clip with Luke Rockhold. And he's just holding him, just chilling. It's, yeah. He must be, he must be 200 pounds plus now, I think, at least maybe a little bit more. And I'm fascinated by the physiology of fighters like that. and how a certain point, a lot of them will move up weight because they can't quite cut the weight when they were younger. So it's sort of conno -migreger. Training age. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I guess you just accumulate it.

1:28:27That's interesting. Just a byproduct of training a lot. You just pick up little hypertrophy coins as you go. And you're like, it's going to be so hard. I'm going to have to suffer so much in other areas to get rid of this muscle. I kind of just need to take it on the chin that maybe at 33, I'm just gonna have to go up a white class. Yeah, I think that's what it is. And because you do see with younger, again, it was actually James Morton at Liverpool John Morton who I've been talking about. And there's a study I believe it's published. I think I can say his name, because I'm pretty sure he is in the study, but it was Paddy Pymler, and it was just talking about the insane weight cut of him, and his blood work was fascinating, because it literally from the weight cut down, His testosterone just went nope.

1:29:12And then he just refeeds and it goes, okay, and just goes back, it was crazy. So I think that's a whole area in sports science, especially with fighters, because they are so tough. Going back to resilience, you know, suffering strategically managed, something just locked themselves in saunas, and just go, I'm just gonna be here for four hours. And he's like, you're gonna lose the weight, but you're frying your central nervous system, you know, come fight day. So I find that interesting as well. So although it was tiger sharks, it certainly gave me an insight because if you just said the next day Ross gone fight.

1:29:44I was full of custard. Sorry. Sorry. It's too many cinnamon rolls. I'm a I want to try and dig back into what we were talking about before that.

1:29:58The degrees removed that you are from the way that your mind feels by saying I understand what's going on, there's an amount of norepinephrine, there's some cortisol, there's some adrenaline going through me. I'm depleted. My colonergic system, my like cytokoline is down. I've tried to sort of ramp my adenosine up as much as possible, but all of those receptor. What that is to you as a secret nerd sports scientist is a bunch of knobs and levers and parameters. And that's actually what's happening, right? What's happening underneath any mental state, physiological process, feeling good today, feeling bad today, feeling well rested, not feeling well rested, got lots of power in the muscles.

1:30:42Oh, I'm feeling a little bit weak. All of those things are nobs and levers and dials that have been turned in one form or another by your physiology. The story that a normal person tells themselves about what that means, about who they are, about their capacities as a person about their resilience, their willpower, their worth, their validation in the world. I'm fascinated by the your capacity to split apart those two things and to not get dragged into the personification, the narrative that that side wants to convince you of and to see it with more perspective and equanimity. For the people who don't maybe understand physiology in the same way as you, how would you advise people that want a little bit more resilience to see what signals their body gives them during mental or physical tough times?

1:31:40Yeah, I didn't, I'm so glad you asked this, just because there's two things there, one, there was a meta study, so a study of lots of studies that looked at successful ultra marathon athletes. I think it was running and cycling, it might have been swimming as well, But what was really fascinating is the age at which they were competing at a level. So winning these people are winning who were the victors, what were their ages? Was 35 to sort of 45 maybe upwards? I found that so interesting because it's one of very few sports where when you look at sprinting, weightlifting, there's all these arguments that are elasticity of tendence, fast twitch fibers, reactions to be all of these things, testosterone growth hormone, all of these things are better when you're younger.

1:32:22Whereas with ultra marathon running, it just feels like as you get older that you're getting as a better athlete. Now whether that is a compilary density, much of a congeal efficiency, eye person thing, it's just experience. You just bank so many ideas of how to suffer. You've been here before, a million times. Now, if I competed against a 21 -year -old, Rossedgely, and we both went down the Yukon, I'd back the 38 -year -old. even though the third, a 21 year old would be so much fitter, I'll back the 38 year old, because I know we're gonna be 36, 40 hours in, and the 21 year old will be like, whoa, God, I'm tired.

1:33:00You know, the 38 year old, like, oh, I've been here before. And I think that's really interesting, and then also to that point, I think sometimes knowing too much can be bad, knowing too much can actually hurt you. I think going back to those voices in your head, if you're really educated, that voice call of a sudden is, Ross, you know, how we doing there? Well, are you cramping in your left leg a little bit? Ah, you don't have sodium. Oh God, your electrolytes must be so out of balance. But the fact that you've educated yourself, that voice is then saying that. And I find it really interesting, friends of mine at the Royal Marines down in Limston, they talk about the benefit of being a 18 year old, turning up, saying to mum and dad, I'm gonna go and get my green beret, turning up your turn up at Limston with nothing, you just told all your family and friends that you're gonna become a Royal Marine.

1:33:45You've got 32 weeks to do it. If you turn around and you say, oh, I didn't do it, you're going to look kind of foolish. So these people, they turn up, these kids and they are so naive, it's such a superpower. They don't know enough to know that they should struggle and they just crush it. I've seen it. It's just like unbelievable times. When I go down to Lymphston on bottomfield, there's an obstacle course and I never forget to put a full kit on me and I was just running through it. And I ran the bottomfield. I felt it was pretty good. To this day, I looked back and go, I couldn't have done much more.

1:34:15I didn't stumble, didn't hesitate, I was fairly quick." And they were like, yeah, yeah, Ross, you'd have passed fair play. But I was well rested, I'd turned up, I hadn't done 32 weeks training. But I never forget, they then turned around and out of curiosity, I said, what's the record? Because I felt pretty good about myself. I'm not exaggerating, the record I swear was, it might have been a minute, it might have been two minutes faster than me. And I'm like, how do you make up a minute on what I just did? It was crazy. So there's some absolute specimens down at Limston, but one of the things that friends of mine who were the PTI said, Oh yeah, but there's some young kids who just throw themselves over that wall.

1:34:49Whereas I was maybe tiptoeing. A little bit of hesitation. Exactly. And I've heard pro cyclists talk about it a lot as well. They're like, I hate going up against younger guys who haven't got a family and things. I'm like, why? And they're like, they do not touch the break downhill. They're us. They are. Yeah, it's almost like a cultivated naivety or educated stupidity. I love that. This is exactly what it is. But that's the problem, I guess, you know, as you begin to learn more things, as you get a little bit older, you accumulate this, you can't not know what you know. So you actually have to somehow educate yourself back into stupidity or cultivate this naivety.

1:35:25Have you been watching Tour de France Unchained on Netflix? No, I need to. You're the second person who said that in any way. In the good. Yeah, I'm fucking addicted to that thing. The first season came out last year and I loved it. And then I just saw it just appeared on my feed season two and I thought this is bruh. It's so great and what I particularly love about Tour de France, the suffering is so protracted. You know, my housemate, Zach, is a weightlifter. He's competed at the top flight of weightlifting. And weightlifting's great, but it's over and done with within five seconds. Even a really long, clean and jerk with someone re -racking a failed jerk is maybe 10, 12 seconds.

1:36:07This to a difference rides some of them are three, four hours and it's over multiple days, it's over multiple weeks. And that's what I really love. I love being able to see the machinations of these different athletes and where they're putting themselves. And there was a time trial. I won't spoil it too much, but there's a time trial. And it's the kind of golf that you're talking about where this guy fucking nails it and he's top time and all the rest of it and there's one guy left to go. And he comes in with a time that immediately gets in PD accusations. There's no way that he can take this much time off a guy that is world, world, world class.

1:36:46And he does. And yeah, I mean, for you to just sit and chill out, a well -deserved chill after the last couple of download it for the flight home. Bro, it's phenomenal and there's two seasons of it and it's really well done. And now I care what's happening into it, a France. I genuinely care what's happening. It's the same thing that we've seen with the golf as it topspin or full swing, the base point, whatever the tennis one was where Nick Kirios was the first episode, drive to survive, that man city thing for football, getting to see behind the scenes and creating these narratives has just really, I think, revitalized sport in a different way.

1:37:26The UFC does it with their embedded series in the buildup. you know, they understand this. You need to get some buy -in. You need to be invested in these fighters. Beyond just, I like him, cause he's got a cool style, or he fights South Poro, or he's from my country. It's more than that, you know, they're family, and they're dog, and where they live, and the car that they drive. And that kind of investment to me is awesome. And yeah, the Tour de France Unchained series is just out of this world. On that note, last dance, Michael Jordan. I don't know or didn't know too much about basketball. I still don't, but oh my God.

1:37:59I blitzed that series. And what I loved about that as well is that whole idea of motivation. Michael Jordan, oh my god, like the way one of my favorite bits is when a reporter just sort of said to him, oh, I forget the name of the guy now. He said, he's seen the new young kid. He's the new Michael Jordan. He went, no one is the new me. And he marks this poor kid. Just don't sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And then equally, what I also found fascinating was Dennis Rodman. And I love how was it Peter Jackson the head coach and was sort of like look that's what works for him We need to let him go to Vegas. We need to let him like a mug of water.

1:38:34You do not let him go He will never come back No, no, you need to and I've known athletes like that as well that I find so interesting I was talking about this recently that if aliens came down to this world There are certain sports that you'd have a really hard job explaining that you have two athletes who are world class but their approaches are so different. So one of the best examples is Kabib and McGregor, you know, that you're sitting there going devout Muslim, you know, it says, I only need a bed, water and bread for training camp. That's all I need. I don't need anything else. And then the whole time you got McGregor, smashing whiskey, as a, but it's like, that's what got him to the dance.

1:39:12You know, McGregor famously was like, oh, I'd never see a morning, you know, I'm such a night person. Oh, you'd never catch me, you know, early in the morning, a training session. And then others being like, I'm up at 5 a .m. in the morning. But how, so I think with regards to the McGregor point, I think that what got him here is not currently what he's doing to try and get him there. I think that he's leading a very different life to the one that he had on the come up. I completely agree with you that having a one -size -fits -all best practice just does not seem to work. And this is something I really need to spend a little bit more time thinking about it, but I'm becoming more disillusioned with advice giving, which is blanket coverage.

1:39:53And what's easier is to basically say, this is what worked for me. And a little sort of brief overview, 30 ,000 foot of my particular constitution, and saying, if you are constructed mentally or physically in a similar way to me, you may find some success with this particular type of approach. If you were to say to David Goggins, stop using the chip on your shoulder, stop using the fire that's been lit under you from your childhood and from the people that didn't like you and from the doubters and all the rest of it. He is going to say, that's not my fuel. I'm going to try it putting diesel into a petrol car, right?

1:40:28It's not going to work. It's a good analogy. Whereas for other people, the Goggins approach is precisely what they need. And I'm becoming, I think, a little bit more gentle with my proclamations about this is the right way to do something. I've never been too much of an evangelist about any one point of view, but even more so sort of caveating and realizing that there's sort of delicate areas here. But yeah, when it comes to the, the, the, the, the, the McGregor approach thing, I found it so, so interesting to watch that, that come up. And I do think that that was the point where McGregor really kind of turned from fake heel to actual heel when he threw that trolley through the window and you know, I don't know.

1:41:14I really do hope that he is able to come back and do something sort of special. But him and his best for me was when he was working with Eda Potel. And you know, he was, he'd almost become this, he'd transcended the sport. He was this subvant of movement and he was using capawara and sort of free movement style things. he's walking along hand railings in like the parks in LA and it's so cool. That to me was him at his best. You're so right. And I'm glad he's like, because Dan Hardy is a good friend of mine and Dan, I remember when he knocked out Al though and then went on to become double champ with Adi Averes, Dan is incredible.

1:41:55He's IQ, not just, I mean, I love MMA, but people who really know MMA go Dan's another level and he was just explaining exactly what you said. You're like, he's on another level. His movement, his understanding of spatial awareness and he was explaining what he was doing. And I was like, I had no idea who's even doing that. And so you're so right. I think that version of it was special. It was it was advancing our own. He then started to believe his own hype, which was dangerous. You know, what it is that gets you there is sleeping in the attic of your parents house and rolling the same sequences and fighting and punching the same combinations and doing it.

1:42:34You know, there's a really great, my two favorite videos, three favorite videos from McGregor, which I'm a massive fan of, and it's a shame that I find him so cringe now, because I find it hard. I almost look back on old McGregor as a different person. I don't see him as the same guy now, the Lambo, the Roadhouse movie, the Your Wife's in Me DMs. Like all that stuff just makes me think, oh God, it's all the bad bits of Irish culture. Do you know what I mean? I mean, he's, Konome Gregor is all of the good bits of Irish culture and all of the bad bits of Irish culture. And my three favorite, first one is when he said, I went crazy for this game.

1:43:09He's basically talking about how he lost his mind. Doing that thing. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a really nice analogy and actually maybe is a bit, it's prophetic for where he ends up going in future. The second one is when he has beaten Aldo and the journalist is so good for doing this. He brings up the quote that he was going to talk about. I will create vacuums. He will think I'm there. I'm not going to be there. I noticed the subtle tail of him. He's going to unload that hand and blah, blah, blah. And then you cut that to the shot of him backstage in the warm up room throwing that left.

1:43:41That's the end of knock him out with phenomenal. And then my favorite one, which I rely on a lot for myself, is when he first won the interim title against Chad Mendes, and then someone asks him, well, you've kind of fought for this title twice. what are you going to do the second time that you didn't do the first time and he says I'm actually going to remember it because he was so focused and so scared and Obsessed about the victory that at no point was he basically present and I've heard this story from high performers before Olympic athletes and world champions and stuff that basically when they try and Think back to the performance that they did that got them the achievement that is their crowning glory They can't actually really remember being there.

1:44:22They were in this odd sort of mental fever dream where everything was just performance and I don't know. It's such an it's such a strange duality to think maybe the price that you need to pay to succeed at the thing that you want to do is being so un -present in it that you basically weren't there to win your own title. Very interesting. That's a reach. Do you know? I don't know, that was so insightful. I don't want to talk about myself and root my team at all. But I don't. You're here. I'm under weight six years fucking talking about yourself. It was the same with the Yukon. So with the Yukon, we didn't go out on social media with that.

1:45:01It was the first swim that I didn't. Mainly because we didn't have any signal when we were going down. So if I had announced that I was doing it, there would have been just been a period of 60 hours of people going, well, what's going on? Because we had no signal. But, and I don't, I wouldn't change it for the world, but when we finished the GB swim, I'm not comparing myself with talk, because what kind of a Gregor deal was amazing, but I came back onto the beach and was immediately speaking to media and everything like that. And it was amazing, all I wanted to do was hug my dad. And I wanted to be there with the people who had made this one possible.

1:45:35Whereas I ended up getting whisked away, and then I went to America on a US tour, and it was a whirlwind. I would have still done the same. It was amazing. I just wanted a different To Conor McGregor's point. I just wanted a different experience this time and being out in the Yukon in the complete wilderness we finished and I got that moment I'm not saying it was better or worse I still the Gb swim needed to have that and it was amazing because we ended up swimming in with 200 people It was incredible people still come up to me with the Gb swim hat and I see them And I'm like you were part of the T100 and we hug and we're like oh my god I got to do it and it was amazing.

1:46:10I just wanted something different with the Yukon and at the finish, you know, I sort of, perhaps I'm sitting there and then you see me in the bow, ow, I was just like, this is amazing. How did they decide when you finished? Did you just say I've had enough? Did you get pulled medically? What happened? It got pretty ropey towards the end actually because the river really picked up. We broke the record. So we were like, right, at any point now, you can just head to a beach. So the rules dictate you have to leave from a beach and then you have to walk unassisted onto a beach as well. So they're the rules.

1:46:40So it was like, right, at any point, any logical place, now you need to get on. But it got really ropey because the river, we went down this particular part and there's sort of trees that are diagonal. So you can't see them, they're called them sleepers because they're just under the water. If you get caught on one of those and you're being pushed by the water, you will essentially just be jammed under a tree underwater. So at that point, I think everyone was like, look, everyone's sleep deprived, we've got the record. but I think what was really interesting as well is, again, 38 years old, I'm maturing.

1:47:11That I was like, this has been amazing. It's enough. I think that's what's so interesting. Like at 21, nothing was enough. I would have just gone, no, no, no, no, I want more, I want more. Let's go. Whereas the swim was perfect. Everyone was safe. It was, the sun had come up. It was a nice end. And I could enjoy it without being in hospital, certainly from Tressamino, whereas out for a few weeks afterwards with Rado, same with Loch Ness as well. I was like, I don't want that. I want to be able to go and sit with Chris. But we're not here. Exactly, exactly. Genuinely, that was all going through my head.

1:47:46I was like, this is enough. And you know what, I've already thought, I've forgotten who said it now, but when they said, no man who steps in the river, he's ever the same man, it's never the same river, but should that quote, but I think is something like that. People know it. Thank you, thank you. But I'm like, look, I could revisit this in a few years. I was to say in your 10, 20 years, you know, when I'm 70 years old, I'll put my wetsuit on hopefully with the toilet flat work in this time. And I'll go again. But at that particular moment, it felt so right. And I was coherent. I was conscious that I could go guys we are done.

1:48:18And sorry, going back to what you said about Conor Grigory, it was just so nice. And we all had bison burgers and moose burgers. And we all sat down afterwards. And we all just reminisced because what they had on the boat was a very different experience of what I had. Because I was just literally staring under the water. What happened that you didn't see? No, there's a whole other story. And I can't wait, like I said, we're putting a YouTube series together, but it's amazing. There, so we had four boats essentially. And there was one that went up ahead to make sure that there was no moose, bear, log jams, and also finding the path of most assistance, least resistance.

1:48:52And then there was one that was constantly feeding me, so it was constantly by my side. And then there was another one which was the mothership which kind of had, it was a slightly larger that had a bed on it so people could sleep. and then there was one behind that was making all of the hot water, basically. And that just worked in like this perfect unison of just coming around. And then there was sometimes when I was swimming, I was like, hang on, there's only one boat. And it was because they basically just like hit rocks, come to a log jam. And there's just stories and the guys have got it on camera of like my girlfriend and my older brother just deadlifting a boat off the rocks.

1:49:27My brother talks about it as well. There was a time where it went onto the rocks and they are like Ross is heading to some rapids We need to get there. This is this is really bad And my older brother Scott just quickly like looked around as like this five others I can sled drag 250 deadlift 220 what can Hesterys girlfriend and he did the maths and was like we've got this And they did they managed to deadlift it off the rocks He's gonna be yeah the whole series on YouTube is gonna be nuts That's very exciting Yeah, mission critical roles like that. I find so fucking funny. Yeah, yeah. What have you learned from training Chris Hemsworth?

1:50:09The hard time with him and the guys in Australia. Not a lot. His genetics take care of most things. He's honestly, I said it before, his genetics, that family genetics need to be studied. It was crazy. Limitless was amazing, but I was, like I said, I was basically born with my niche skill set, which was ice swimming and climbing ropes. It was unbelievable. I still maintain that I don't think anyone's done what he did, which was to go from the Australian summer, take him and then just drop him in the Arctic. I go, no one does that. I think, like, limit was amazing. It was brilliant to be part of it.

1:50:47But one thing that, for obvious reasons, because they only had a certain amount of time, But what he did made no sense in terms of like an athlete periodized calendar. So he was Thor size. So Marvel were going, get massive. And he was like, okay, done. And then extraction, they were like, right, we need you extraction size. And then also as well, we had limitless going, we need you to climb a rope dangling from the blue mountains and then also going to ice swim. It was not what he did. But equally, like I said, I think the family has a whole Liam, who is the new Witcher as well. I think he was 110 kilos.

1:51:25I've still never seen anyone do 20 bar muscle ups at his size, his back's ridiculous, and then equally sled drags with Luke, like his legs are just like. You know those people just have silly, yeah, he's one of them. And then you only have to look at Leonian craigs, their parents. Craig, I don't know how old he is now, he's just coming out the water with a beer and one out, surfboard and I'm just chiseled. So it's a family of genetic free. Oh, it really is. And then yeah, and then Elsa as well, Chris's wife, and then you look at the kids as well. So they're, um, Sashron Tristan twins. They're doing jiu -jitsu at the moment.

1:52:00And they are like tearing through kids, like literally just like pulling limbs off. And then India as well, the daughter, oh, I tried to sort of coach her, reminding me so much of Chris, because I tried to coach her in swimming, she had a swimming gala sort of coming up, gave her a few pointers and she just went, yeah, yeah, cheers Ross, just gunned it and just smoked everyone with no technique and then Elsa as well, like she's an absolute specimen. Like the entire family, it just needs to be studied. It's, yeah, they're ridiculous. What's Chris's mindset like? Do you know what? But I think he doesn't quite, I think, get enough credit that he probably deserves because I think it's going to sound so strange because he's such a good actor.

1:52:48You sort of forget that he's an amazing athlete. If you look at what he did in limitless alone, any other athlete, and you said they did that, it would be great. If you took someone who was, I think he was, I hope I'm getting this right, I think he was about 112 kilos. Olympic gymnasts are maybe 55 -60. So it's like taking a rope dangling a hundred foot from the blue mountains, and I believe it was, I can't remember the distance, it might have been 50 meters, I'm not sure now, but it was a long rope and taking two Olympic gymnasts, fusing them together and telling them to climb up a rope. Like when you actually break down the metrics, it was obscene what you did, and then with ice swimming as well, ice swimming, you need body fat.

1:53:29Body fat is insulating. He had none of it because he needed to look like Thor. So the only way you're really gonna get through that is just pure resilience. Like there's, because physiologically, like the rope climb, you're completely handicapped. So I think that was one of the biggest things that I saw. That, yeah, he just, he has a mindset of an elite athlete, but that's kind of not really talked about because he's Chris Hemsworth the actor. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah, and it's the same as Liam and Luke as well. And all of it, they're just like, when I train with them, they don't, they're proper Australians.

1:54:05Like when they turn up, I go, right, what we training? And they're like, oh, I don't know, we'll throw up, do a powerlifting, centric workout. I'll be like, have you trained today? They're like, no, no, no, no, we're fresh. But then I'll find out they've surfed for six hours, but they don't count that as training. I'm like, what is going on? Yeah, they're absolutely specimens. Yeah, all of them. What's next for you? Hmm. Well, we've got a few ideas. but ultimately, Shark vs. Ross edgely heirs, I love doing that, it was amazing. There's so many different species of sharks, so should it go well, I'm already speaking to National Geographic, I'm like, look, I've got to run it back.

1:54:40I've got two, three and four in my head already, so there's loads of those. But then also as well, like I said about the longest swims, the river swim was amazing, but I said at the start of the year that it's kind of this infinite goal. You know, that was a river swim. I want to get back into lakes. I want to get back into the ocean. Just to sort of like touch upon that, I was sort of speaking to friends of mine about this and I know you'll be aware of the myth of Sisyphus. You know, Sisyphus in Greek mythology, one of the cleverest humans ever to exist and he outsmarted the gods numerous times, including death and the gods were really pissed at him and was just like, oh, you know, we can't have a human just outsmarters.

1:55:19So when he eventually came to the underworld, they were like, right, we're gonna punish you when the Greek gods were renowned for their punishment, I said, we are gonna make you roll a bowl or up a hill for eternity. And just when it gets to the top of the hill, it's gonna roll back down. You gotta do that for eternity. Cicifus was, ugh fine, I'll do it. So he started doing it. But then it was Albert Camille, the French philosopher, who just said, you know what? Cicifus was able to outsmart the gods one more time if you imagine that he was smiling. And what I love about this is Albert Camille said, the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart.

1:55:50And I love that, that really stuck with me. and I think the river swim was amazing, but when people say what's next, just like another long swim, because ultimately, you know, that's my boulder. You know, the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart. And I know, you know, good friend of yours, Jordan Peterson, I love his work when he starts talking about, you know, the purpose of life is to pick up the heaviest load and carry it simple. You know, Victor Frankel as well, the meaning of life is to give life meaning. This whole idea of just purpose, you know, I think for me, when people say what's next, it's like, I'm probably gonna pick up that proverbial bolder and go for another long swim time.

1:56:23Well, yeah, for us, actually, ladies and gentlemen, for us, I really appreciate it. Where should people go? Do you want to keep up to date with all of the bits and pieces? Oh, bless you. Yeah, social media space. We've got Instagram, all of the user channels, the YouTube series for the longest swim will be on there, posted more pictures of pooflaps and chafing skin. It's been six years, well, wait, they appreciate you.