He Swam the Channel, Cycled 18 Countries & Climbed Everest | Mitch Hutchcraft | Ep #79

0:00Mitch Hutchcraft, welcome to the podcast. Cheers for having me mate, we're looking forward to it. Thank you for bringing me a little present. You got your book? You're welcome mate, you're welcome. I nearly forgot so I really hope you like it. So this came out earlier this year? Yeah, in May. And it's yet to release in the US, is that correct? It's staggered for some reason but yeah, that was hard and nervous that book so I really do hope you enjoy it. I'll obviously read that after that, I'm actually buzzing about that. for the people that may not know who you are would you just be able to kind of like sum yourself up and then I'm going to go over everything that you've done no worries yeah so so my name's Mitch I'm just a I'm from Cambridgeshire so from the flattest part of the UK grew up on a farm and I spent six years in the Royal Marines and most recently best known for completing the longest climb of Mount Everest in history so last year we did a 13 ,000k triathlon from England to the top with Mount Everest, which was kind of just a big combination of bringing all my childhood dreams together and to prove to people that anything's possible and to make my dad proud.

1:01So yeah, in a nutshell, that's kind of what the book's about and what the last few years have been about. That's some feat, but that's not all you've done. And I'm going to go through them all and then we'll go right back to the start. No worries. Kind of like explain the reasoning behind. Yeah, of course. Well, just to kind of like list them off. So at age 16, back in 2012, you climbed Kilimanjaro solo. Yes. Yeah. So for a 16-year-old to do that, it's fucking crazy. Yeah. After that, trekked to Everest Base Camp at age 18. Yeah. You did six years in the Royal Marines. Yeah. You rode the Atlantic Ocean.

1:36Yeah. You cycled across the USA, completely like self-support. You swam across the English Channel. Yeah, that was horrible. It's insane. Worst day of my life. You cycled from France to India. Yeah. crossing Europe and Asia. Yeah. You ran 900K from India to Nepal. Yep. You did, you trekked approximately 365K from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp. Yep. And then after that, you talked about, you summited Mount Everest. Yeah. Complete. The last phase of that mission was to get to the top of that bad boy. Yeah. So you've summited it as well. You didn't only just kind of like cycle, swim, run. Yeah. Yeah, so the dream for me was to, it kind of progressed, a long story, but yeah, from when I was six, the dream was Everest and then it turned into climbing it from England, which obviously finished, we had to finish with being at the very top.

2:32So let's take it right back to the beginning. Obviously, you've got this kind of adventurous thing within you. Where did it even start? I'm pretty lucky. It's been ingrained in my soul since I was a kid. I've got ADHD and when I was about six, I think I was lucky when I was a kid. very quickly I found you know like a lot of people do I'm sure a lot of people are able to relate you find exercise nature movement you know is medicine and I was lucky enough to find that out so when I got to like six I was just outdoors all day every day building dens playing with bugs you know and that just calmed me that was the thing which which I just wanted to that's what I wanted to do I wanted to just be in in the outdoors um and when I was six years old grew up on a farm when I was six years old my nan gave me a book uh called the turquoise mountain by Brian Blessed absolute legend if we remember Brian Blessed and it's just the story of this big bushy-haired man climbing Everest and the struggles and the adventure and I remember being sat there nothing could grab my attention as a six-year-old you know and suddenly boom there was me fixed on this book and I'd sit there sneak up sneak up at night and read it um I couldn't really read much because I was six and it was a big book but I'd look at the pictures and I'd be obsessed and my nan read it all to me and I remember coming down and having dinner and roasting like and a few weeks later and saying at like six or seven years old, I'm going to climb Mount Everest.

3:50And I still remember my dad and my nan looking to be funny, but I think they knew I was being serious. And that was it literally from that day. As long as I can remember, that's always been kind of the dream. Not for out of anything. I say the reasons people say, why did you climb Everest is infinite. But for me at that age, it was just reading this book of this man and I wanted to know how it would feel to be the highest human being on planet Earth. And I remember just thinking what that view would be like and dreaming and just thinking that would be incredible and it just things progressed so yeah when I was 16 so long story short I moved we ended up living in Cyprus for a few years lots of highs and lows happened out there and with my father and my and my family um but I was reading a little blog on Explorer's Web one day and it said about how Kilimanjaro is the great a great step towards Everest because it's your first um introduction to altitude it's your first kind of big hike you know and all this so that was it again like 13 years old I was like I'm gonna climb Kilimanjaro so next three years I just I was laboring working in the 40 degrees with my dad and doing odd jobs here and there I managed to raise the money and find a company it took me a year to find a company that would take me because I was under 16 under 18 on my own so when I was 15 I finally found the company and then just after I turned 16 flew to Africa completely on my own for my first adventure which was to climb Kilimanjaro all my friends thought I was being silly like what are you doing that for but that's why chapter one of the book is called redefining possible because for me it's all about tiny incremental steps you don't get from here to there in one second it's about a process that might take 10 20 30 years and that was the first step into like me redefining what possible was for me the first time that I stood I remember stood there looking over the sunrise having had the hardest day of my life you know up till that point thinking like how incredible this is and I remember crying and thinking this is incredible and suddenly this kind of you know this false illusion that society gives us you know your friends your family your loved ones telling you you shouldn't do that it's dangerous it's not normal normal is normal and crazy is just a perception and i realized the first time i really realized at that point that i'm the only one who defines what possible means the only person who knows what it means is the one looking in the mirror and that was like a wake up big wake up for me like that like i might not be the fittest i might not be the smartest but you know if i've got a dream it's incredible and i'm going to do everything I can so I come down from there and then um Everest was I say was always a dream so I signed up for Everest Base Camp next um this time in a group not on my own because obviously as you can tell I love to talk so um it's part of the ADHD so it was great to be in a group this time I knew that if I could set my eyes on Everest you know if I looked at it in person you know nothing that would that would solidify it that would be it and I'd never want to I'd never I'd never back down so I remember I still remember coming around the corner and seeing it for the first time and crying I still remember the tears coming down my face it was lit up red like golden red in the evening sun and that was it it's quite annoying I remember getting to base camp and then having to turn around you know it's like oh god I have to turn around now knowing it might be another 20 years until I come back but that was like oh for the people who haven't experienced that I know a lot of people maybe experienced or heard about like base camp and then obviously Everest like what is the biggest difference like is it quite tough up to base camp or is it nothing compared to that final bit?

7:09It's a tough trek. Yeah, it's like an eight-day trek through the Himalayas. It's long days, altitudes. You do go up quite slowly. When you climb Kilimanjaro, for example, you go up a lot more. Your human body is not really meant to go up more than 500 metres per day, which you do at base camp. So it's tough on the body, altitude. Your cells are working in overtime. There's about half the oxygen that you, even at base camp, there's about half the oxygen that you're breathing now. at base camp which is over 5 ,000 metres so it is really tough but yeah it's a different ball game from base camp to the top from there from base camp you have to cross a giant glacier that can be wise for which is an incredible incredibly beautiful but dangerous the most dangerous part of Everest by far So would you say getting up to base camp is pretty safe?

7:56I mean safe yeah safe I'm not going to say easy of course Is that why the majority of people do get camp? Yeah because I recommend it to anyone I mean I take a trip every year there you can join me one day if you like mate it's stunning you're surrounded by the most beautiful mountains in the world the people the culture the sherpas it's amazing it's it's it's tough because it's like a as i say a multiple day hike in that altitude and your body's not used to it and it is really tough but no like you're not in risk of avalanches really or anything like that there has been avalanches i've hit base camp but obviously it's quite rare um even well they happen every day like five times a day ten times a day there's an avalanche but normally it's not crazy so yeah base camp itself up till there is quite safe but then from there that's when it starts to get tricky and so obviously that was when you was 18 right yeah yeah 18 19 i think i just turned 19 actually but yeah and then what made you decide to join the marine so that's when kind of things went downhill there's reason why chapter two is called adversity equals power so i was basically living in australia um with my with my auntie and just exploring and traveling and trying to figure life out and um I just had my knee torn my ACL I just had a total ACL reconstruction done in in Sydney because it took like a year to even get an appointment obviously in the UK to try and get a um surgery so I just had a full ACL reconstruction done I was in crutches and then got a call shortly after um telling me my dad's got about three weeks to live basically and that was it everything's you know in life everything seems to hit you in one go you know with adversity, struggle, grief.

9:26So that was like the biggest turning point for me massively because I was stood there. I was sat there having just recovered. I was back in the UK now, managed to get to him just before he'd gone. But the last thing I ever said to him in the hospital bed was, in the hospice was, I promise I'm going to make you prouder than you ever dreamed possible. And we spoke about Everest. You know, he always supported that. He was just kind of an old school farmer, you know, worked hard. He was driving tractor since he was six. but he he never once said you can't do that what you're doing I'm so lucky to him and my nan and my mom my family have been so supportive they've just been like okay like you're gonna do it you know and they've always been supportive so the last thing I promised him was that I was gonna just make him proud and he could ever could ever imagine so I walked out of that room and he died and he died the next day you know before we got back to the hospice and that was it I just the fire was set then and I was sat back in the gym and instantly or did it take kind of like a couple of weeks last month it took three weeks pretty much in total from like when he was working full time to gone i mean like oh sorry after after he suddenly passed like did you the next day was that fire lit and you was like super motivated or was you like obviously it's a tough one like obviously everyone deals with grief differently i just think because i've always got to be on my toes like the night he passed away i was at the cinema i went out with my friends and they said how was your dad the next morning i said he passed away yesterday not because i was trying to avoid it or anything but it's just I know he would have wanted me to be happy, be strong and live, carry him with me, you know, carry him with me and move forward.

10:58So I'm very lucky that I kind of naturally had that mindset. But yeah, it was tough. I didn't cry for a year. It wasn't until I was getting a lift home one day, hung over, no, drunk, sorry, drunk, and I had no one to call, you know, and that one, that realization, oh, that one person you'd normally call to help you would be your dad, and he's not there. So that's kind of a lot of people, it hits them after, like, you know, the first Christmas maybe or something. That's when it happened for me, and it was horrible. So then I was sat there in the gym at the time because I was a PT and a fitness instructor after this happened and twiddling my thumb, not really know what I'm doing with my life, only just recovered from my knee surgery and stuff.

11:32And I was sat there at a computer and one of the things we always spoke about was joining the Marines. So then and there I clicked apply. And that was the start of, pretty much the start of everything that followed from that moment. How did you find training? Because it's pretty tough, right? Yeah, it was crucible. It was like the crucible. you know it was um it's it's incredible though isn't i'd love anyone to do like just a taste of it because it lays the foundations for everything to come it lays the foundations for this mindset which allows you to be comfortable being uncomfortable you know how to be comfortable being uncomfortable is just to embrace the unknown embrace discomfort what was the hardest test for you oh god it was a few times so uh the hardest one was actually about halfway through so long story short they'd snuck like uh about 80 pounds worth of rocks into our bags woke us up like and said you've got get your bags on and go and we didn't even realize so we ended up having to do a big march back to camp with over double of what we should have had and um it was just like people were dropping like flies and it was one of the hardest things that was the hardest i've had to dig deep at that point to to kind of finish something you know what i mean um it was really tough it was really tough i wasn't and my knee was always an issue as well because i wasn't even meant to be able to join that was kind of a funny thing i'd had um or surgery done but luckily the surgery had been done in Australia so there's no record on my medical records in the UK that I'd had it done so I was like there's only one way to there's only one way to find out whether I've got it whether I've kind of got what it takes so that's what we did I uh just dedicated the next 12 months of training three hours a day seven days a week mobility strength conditioning everything and managed to get into that point so that was the hardest thing actually was was just getting in you know and then at that point a lot of it's luck you know it's you just don't you're not the person that twists their ankle we lost some of the best people um ever just because they got injured so i was really lucky and thankful but i always felt like dad was on my shoulder watching that whole way so yeah luckily got through in one go on that in that in that nine months eight months and um the next six years were just amazing yeah it's an incredible environment you're with great people um did you did you specialize in anything so i was heavy weapon specialist so done mortars and things like that first first three years was just as a soldier but done some incredible stuff you know the military is like life it's like it's what you make it you know a lot of people complain about this and that and um but it's like anything it's it's not it's what you make of it and if you're proactive you can do so much and i'm so thankful for every moment in there the the exercises the the sports trips you know like just the friends you make and and the stuff that it teaches you that baseline of that baseline of that mindset which without it nothing would have been possible did you travel anywhere cool with them yeah we We don't, I mean, we were, we, we, the Arctic Circle, I mean, Eastern Europe, the US training.

14:14We were like training with the US and training the US Marines in the desert. All sorts of amazing stuff. Jumping in the frozen lakes in the Arctic, you know, doing your minus 30 Arctic training, mountain training, all around the place, all around the world. So, yeah, it was just all the skills, anything practically. And more importantly, you know, the resilience, the layers of resilience that it forms. and a lot of the lessons sorry a lot of the most important lessons you know chapter six one of the chapters in the book is cheerfulness in the face of adversity about how humor is one of the biggest interrupters of resilience so the humor is one and laughter and being able to smile just in the toughest situations is one of the best ways you can just temporarily deal with adversity so that's one of the main things that's one of the commando values is actually cheerfulness in the face of adversity so that's one of that's why i wanted to make it a chapter um because it really that value is so important and it's as i say the whole kind of concept of the book is nothing there's no super science to it it's a concept which anyone has done before in the past something anyone knows it's just the simple lessons it's just what i what helped me get through this thing and if it can help somebody else that's why that's why i've done it so but yeah it was that was the next toughest thing of my life by far was getting through that train for sure how did you find coming out of the marines because i know a lot of people kind of struggle with yeah the you know exit no of course yeah you've been in there for a long time and it's you know it's tough luckily i wasn't in for too long and i'd lived i'd like you know lived and worked probably a dozen jobs before i'd got there so i wasn't like kind of institutionalized there's a lot of people um but i loved it i was fine coming out although I did leave during COVID like 2021 which was probably stupid leaving the most secure job in the world during the most uncertain time but it was just a time to leave it was incredible as much as I loved it there's a restriction obviously there's a certain amount of restriction you can't you know you wouldn't be able to compete when you want you wouldn't be able to do the adventures that you want to do so I had this burning dream of Everest and all these other adventures in my head and I just knew that I got what I needed to I got what I could from the military and I was so thankful for it I wouldn't change a day of it even the hard times and the people you know some of the people that you know weren't great but it was every single person i was going to ask that have you got any kind of like crazy stories because i feel like it's it's full of um i don't i feel like there's a lot of crazy people yeah within the military as well do you know what i mean like you've got to be you've got to be some type of person to be able to go through all that kind of like pain and suffering and stuff like that that they go through with the training you're wired kind of different you yeah i think so i think it's like everyone again it's kind of the premise of the book you don't have to everyone thinks you have to be a super gifted human or athlete to be able to get in the military and marines or or to do something like this it's not it's the most like people that would fall that would drop first would be the biggest you know the biggest and strongest because it's it's 99 mind just in your head and um i think it's more if you go in with a powerful why if you have the why and the anchor you know um the last chapter of the book is purpose beyond self about how having a reason a purpose greater than just yourself um that can push you through things you never thought possible.

17:21So I was, I'm not going to say lucky, obviously not lucky at all that I lost my dad. But because I had that burning kind of reason to be there, you know, that I call it kind of like, you know, adversity is like a fire. But when you lose someone, grief, that's the log. That's the log that burns. It makes you stronger. Yeah, it burns the hardest. It burns the longest. It takes the longest to burn out. It never burns out. And it's the hottest part. And that was my log that got me through that. and that taught me so much in itself as you know Matt when you're in a pit of the low when you're training and you're like on that station and you're like you feel like you're about to collapse if you have that little reason to keep on going um it makes all the difference after that you rode across the Atlantic yeah yes yeah so left it why did you even it was so random so as with most things that happen in my life it's like did you have any experience like no nothing at all so you know kind of just manifested stuff randomly so I left the marines and I say during covid within three months of leaving a friend turned around to me and said Mitch do you want to row across the Atlantic 5000k from you know from the Canaries all across the coast across the Caribbean and I just went yep that sounds epic okay what do we do um and it was kind of a last minute job a couple of friends who were meant to be doing it from the military um it was all for the Marines we'd never been able to do it if it wasn't for the Marines they weren't allowed to do it in the end so I got a spot on the boat and um yeah no training I'd done 110k on the concept too and I've been out on the boat once for five hours in the uk before we flew to gran canaria to row 3000 miles seven weeks completely winged it yeah yeah what's it actually like what is the setup so it's an ocean rowboat it's about a five meter um rowing boat um just literally got two small cabins and you can either do it i mean people do it on their own some people do it solo in a pair as a four most commonly it's as a four so basically like with us you're rowing for two hours on or we were doing 90 minutes on 90 minutes off or three hours on three hours off three hours on three hours off non-stop for seven weeks across the entire ocean not so you didn't really sleep don't sleep for more than two hour blocks for the entire for seven weeks it was 48 days and we'd accumulate probably seven six seven hours over the over 24 hour period but your body just adapts and it was horrible though like yeah it was scary because we got there you can imagine and uh this is the reason why another chapter of the book is the power of compartmentalization not thinking about anything but the next step in front of you if you think of the big goal think of the end picture your mind will explode we lost lost sight of land within three hours no we're moving or not see human being another human being again for nearly two months of open ocean storms animals you know everything and that i remember i absolutely crapped myself i laid there for like half an hour like thinking what am i doing yeah exactly and it was like but i had to just dig deep and use everything that i'd learned if i hadn't been in the marines and all this i don't know if i would have been to get through use all the mental tools which have just come along you know how many was in your team four so there was four of us so two on two off so me and yeah that was it so and so we had basically two months worth of military ration packs stuff to shove away in the boat um so that was it um two months of just living off military rations and jet boil um um didn't seem to be human being for two months you know the closest human being is in the international space station while you're rowing across the ocean so it's a very lonely but the most beautiful feeling in the world when it's like literally the life of pie as you can imagine at one point we were a thousand miles from shore and there was a pod of dolphin that joined us and the behind dead like swim underneath the boat leaving trails of sparkling blue and green lights behind them under under stars so bright the shooting the shooting stars would turn night to day for like 10 seconds and all the time we had this piano playing um i love classical music and like we'd have classical music playing on the little bluetooth speakers and i remember just kind of thinking this is the most insane experience of my entire life nothing to that not even anything on my limitless expedition from england to everest nothing nothing in terms of like magical that magical connection to the world you know in nature nothing's compared to that moment because you're completely on your own no help it's it's just that feeling of being alone but at the same time just so connected it was it's incredible yeah did you get like cc kind of thing was it is it choppy so worried oh mad so some days sometimes like i say sometimes it some days it's like a mirror like literally a mirror as far as i can see and then 24 hours later you could be surfing uh surfing a 20 foot swell doing 20 miles an hour because you're trying to control this massive weight sometimes it's massive yeah sometimes it looks like a move like moving mountains that's how big it is and then sometimes it's like that's kind of it's it's a mad experience um but it's i say it's awesome at the same time so that was any kind of like serious storms or anything like that luckily nothing that was like It's massive, massive weather and a couple of little ones, but nothing that meant that we had to get...

22:01Because if it gets really bad, you have to get into the cabin, shut the cabins tight, make sure that everything's closed and you literally just have to ride it out, basically. You deploy an anchor with a parachute on, which basically turns you in the right direction so you're not getting smashed by the weather. And you have to just ride it out sometimes for days and that would have been horrible. Luckily, we didn't have to do that. We managed to keep it... Because I was basically foot steering. On these boats, you literally control the foot steering. so I was foot steering the boat for a lot of the journey obviously we took it in turns but that was tough you know you're navigating off a star using your foot to steer but you've got an electric chart and that in the thing but it's an incredible feeling just kind of looking pointing out a star for energy is it like uh solar panels or is it yeah so it's just two solar panels on the back um running two running two batteries and you just got to be very careful with when you use it so you only kind of turn the big like the water maker for example this thing that makes it makes fresh water from seawater but uses the most it uses the most power so you can only make sure you only use it for example when the sun's out when for when it's charging if that makes sense because if you were to have both your batteries die that's when you start to have big problems so that was fun yeah that was seven weeks and then um lost about 10 kilo but arrived in barbados 48 days later and that was that whole experience again was just the next step in redefining in the redefine impossible for me and yeah like you say going into it having never really rode ever you know it's most most people underestimate themselves much more than they overestimate themselves and i'm not saying don't do training don't do preparation it's so incredibly important you know but stuff like rowing cycling it's again it's 99 in the head the body human body is amazing as you know it conditions to anything you know to an extent if anyone i say this and people like what do you mean but any able-bodied person like could could tomorrow could get on the bike and cycle across the world you it would hurt but after a couple of weeks your body just gets used to it and you can condition anyone could row an ocean tomorrow you know if it's in your head it's in your head it's your mindset people people just these artificial barriers that society put on us as to what's normal what's not normal you know is it just holds everyone back so much because they just don't really understand their own potential the only way you know the only way you can find that out is to just push it a little bit a little bit get uncomfortable because the only way we grow is through discomfort as you know as to your point in eye mate so that's that's crazy after that you cycled across the usa yeah so that was the um crucially this this expedition rowing across the atlantic that's where i had the idea popped into my head and what if i imagine imagine climbing everest from england so my friend turned around to me and said what are you on about you idiot uh i had this idea it's i don't know even know where it came from really but most of your best ideas come you know as you know probably when you're doing a run or you're doing training you think so clearly you know exercises and medicine you're almost in this meditative state especially when you're doing like long distance cycling or rowing or something that's like a long run you know that's when you think clearly and it just come out of nowhere um i just had an idea why don't i combine all of my childhood dreams like all of these heroes that i grew up reading about into one ultimate mission of my entire life so i'll swim the english channel same as captain webb did the first man to person to swim the channel swim the english channel then cycle across the planet um inspired by gorn crop you know who was this swedish guy who cycled from his house in sweden to everest on his own climbed it and cycled home and then run to base camp because my dream was always to climb everest from zero to go from the beach is from zero meters to the top of the world on foot so i'll cycle to india and then i'll ditch the bike then i'll run or hike to everest and then climb it so that kind of just appeared in my head and that was it so from when i got back from the row kind of that dream i same with everest you know it was burnt was burnt in so the next thing was cycling i've never cycled more than i say genuinely never cycled more than probably 30 miles in one day in my whole life but when i was 26 you know um i'm not a cyclist i'm not a runner i'm genuinely crap at both of them like especially with my knee surgeries i couldn't go and compete if i was to compete in any race like i'd get smashed you know for me it's about adventure you know that's why people think you have to be some you know you have to be really good to do these races like no you don't just do it for you do it because movement is going to make you feel amazing because you're going to be connected to nature and more connected to yourself you know i do it for them just for the love for the love of it so the next trip was i need to at least see if I can cycle that far as I said to you earlier you know you're training for a marathon you see if you can do a half marathon first so I knew that this 5000k from across the United States would be roughly what I need to do well sorry roughly about half of what I needed to do it turned out to be a lot more actually but um yeah so I just got a bike I'd never ridden it um flew it to Florida um got out the box set it up and cycled from the beach in Florida to California um it was amazing yeah just camping in random places waking up with raccoons in my in my tent and all sorts what did you carry um so tent food roll mat clothes um everything i need but obviously good thing is you're not going it's not like cycling through the desert in the sahara it's you're going past gas stations you're you're going through civilization every day so it's not as if you have to pack all your food for it's not like the atlantic i went about to carry seven weeks worth of food by myself so it was just all your sleeping equipment camping equipment clothes spares um spares and repairs and all that kind of stuff what kind of bike did you have it was a um alp kit uh um alp kit as it was a sonder a sonder bike so it's like a gravel it's just a gravel hybrid um touring bike you know heavy as hell but strong and um yeah it's actually really annoying because it got stolen outside of nando's last year and i was really no way yeah yeah i was absolutely good as well yeah it was ironic actually i was no sorry two years ago i was on the way to london to um another random one so in training for the expedition we did an iron man in london so but pulling my golden retriever the iron man pulling my golden retriever and it was well and i used that bike the same bike i'm telling you about for the us that's what the bike i used but we got back after finishing it had a nando's and then went home forgot it left it from the train station literally from coming from london went back and it'd gone so i was gutted this bike that had been like the first real like you know adventure my my steed across the us was was gone but it was good bike sturdy bike it wasn't big mileage like i said it was just finding out what can i do daily what can i sustain that's gonna keep me going because with everest it's it's it's about sustaining it that's the thing i wonder if the guy that stole your bike realizes how far that bike has gone yeah i hope he's having a good time with it or he or she um I kept an eye out, but I couldn't find it.

28:38It's okay. I had to get another one. I was looking forward to using that same bike for the cycle across the world. You know? How many punctures did you get across the USA? Oh, I can't even remember. I think it was only about 16 or something like that. It wasn't too bad. Yeah, I got used to it. I mean, I'm not very good at bikes. You know, I'm not... And how many days is that yet? It was six weeks. So it wasn't that bad. No, I'd cycle. It's the exact same as when I cycled from France to India. So I'd do about four or five days in a row. um eight nine hundred k ish you know and then i'd have 24 hours off to stretch literally to stretch and see where i was and like we spoke about earlier i was take it in yeah exactly but that's the one i mean i'm not trying to do three four hundred k days like you know i've done a couple of like 200 exactly within everyone wants to do it the fastest and don't get me don't me don't get me wrong like that is impressive and it's it's incredible how you can like push the human body but exactly i feel like doing it for the experience and doing it for you and doing it for like the to take everything in I think it's nice just to kind of like yeah I'll take a hundred percent mate I'll see if you're training to do something because your goal is to compete that's amazing incredible for me it was just because I wanted to go fast enough to see stuff but not too fast I'm missing everything you know and it was that perfect pace you know and so how many miles on average a day close to 100 probably about 90 to 100 yeah ish it was just it was amazing and I'll be going through like New Orleans Austin in um like you know places like that and i'd stop and if i wanted to have two days somewhere i'd have two days somewhere you know if i love i got to new orleans and i absolutely loved it i was at this hostel um and met this ex-military guy and we ended up just going to jazz clubs for like two days it was incredible and um you know cycle along the mississippi river for 800k and i just one day i just had an extra day camping next to the river because it was beautiful and that's it was just incredible so yeah i fell in love with it let's say even though i don't love cycling i love cycling I love bikepacking, cycle touring, because it's an incredible way to see it.

30:36Just the first trip I ever did was Croatia. So I flew the bike to Croatia and did 700k, the entire Croatian coastline, just on the bike. Probably only doing about 100k a day. But again, just wild camping in the forests on the beaches and stuff. And I just remember thinking, this is amazing. This is just beautiful. So yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah. With kind of like the biking, how did it feel at the end? Like, did you feel the sense of achievement? Yeah. On the USA bit, yeah. On the USA bit, yeah, it was. It was like, I couldn't believe we got there. It was like, I hadn't allowed myself to like dream, to think about the end point.

31:14Kind of, even then I was, yeah, starting to hone in on these pillars and these skills, which would allow me to do the other expeditions. And were you listening to anything on the way? Yeah, on just millions of podcasts. Like you say, podcasts, audio books, like Lord of the Rings, you know, like I remember listening to Ross, you know, Ross Edgeley on, on like two of his podcasts on like the first day thinking these, you know, that's going to help. And like, I just, and same with the Atlantic, like podcasts of people doing crazy stuff is great because it just, you know, but also just, yeah, it was a mixture between classical music, reggae, podcasts, and just crazy books.

31:48Yeah, it was great. And that, you just get lost for hours, you know, and it was just incredible. But when I got to the NDA, it was surreal, just surreal. Like you kind of, I couldn't believe that it was over. It's amazing. and then obviously that set you up to do that was my tick in the box in my head for the cycle so in my head now the cycle training is ticked off now i've got to do the everest training tick off because you can't just go and climb everest so i had to go and climb in my head i was going to have to climb a seven or an eight thousand meter mountain before everest i don't have any money like i say my dad died i look up and look after my mom for the last 10 years i knew i couldn't spend 20 grand on an expedition a spot came up to climb amadablam which is one of the most were you working at the time like i was yeah so i lived when i left in 2020 when i left the marines in 2021 i was working um security like a lot of people do that i would then then bodyguided closure protection so a lot of people in the military it's just it's just an easy kind of route to go down and it's quite simple but during that whole atlantic row and cycling usa the first two years after i left the military i was working 20 20 12 hour shifts in a row i was working 20 12-hour night shifts 10 days off yeah and uh and alternating that with like days and then another 20 20 12-hour night shifts 10 days off just to finance it you know just to help um and obviously it was just so tough to have to raise every penny as well um so yeah it was really tough couple of years to get through and um yeah somehow we got there so so you which mountain did you go and climb so then we um after yeah after the cycle next thing was 2023 was amadablam so it's the um It's the most photographed mountain actually in the Himalayas.

33:20So when you're going to Everest base camp, it's just this beautiful, massive mountain. Very technical. So it's actually technically harder to climb in Everest. And a spot came up on a team and they were like, do you want to do it? And I was like, we've got one spot left. They said, you're going to do it. They basically said, you're on it. You're going to do it. And I was like, okay. So I just kind of threw myself into that again and did train my ass off. And it was tough. One of the toughest things I ever did. I had an infection, like projectile vomiting at six and a half thousand meters. And it was tough.

33:48but managed to get that done just and um that was the confidence the tick in the box the himalayan expedition that i needed to do to kind of get me instead if i if i had you know if i had a million pounds i would have done definitely done another expedition in training but um that's kind of where i thought okay i'm at a point now where i can kind of this dream's coming a bit more a bit more realistic now breaking it down into individual disciplines and individual chunks obviously the one thing remains swimming um i've always loved swimming um you know i've never swam for a club i've never swam competitively in my life but i've just loved swimming you know i enjoy it so i quit my job in 2024 in jan 2024 and um i had six months to before the start the start line because i managed to luckily get a last minute cancellation for swimming the channel so you have to book normally two or three or four years in advance pay five grand you know like for three to five grand it's expensive so i had six months so i just found a red top swimming based in london channel swimming and training coach and i was like can i do you think it's possible for me to be able to do this to be able to get to a position to swim the channel that was tough you know i'm talking five six days a week three hours a day swimming we went to croatia back to ironically where i finished that bike ride back three years before to a open water swim ocean swimming camp you know five hours a day three hours in the pool two hours in the in the ocean um for a week and that was and you have to do a six hour non-stop swim in around 16 degree water with no wetsuit to even qualify to swim the channel.

35:13It has to be signed off by a coach. So I just got to the end of that week. I was honestly like, there's about 15 people. I was probably in the bottom three. You know, like everyone there would, they'd either swam the channel or they used to swim for national for the US, to come from the US and Australia. And I was like, I felt like a little fish in a big pond. But all I needed, I said to my coach, I went, am I physically capable of crossing the English channel without dying? And he said, yeah, you're like, you're a good enough swimmer, you can do it. I said I don't care if it takes me 20 hours 30 hours you know I will do it I will dig deep and it turned into it turned into six hours longer than what I had hoped it would be it was one of the worst days of my entire life it was it was disgusting yeah what actually determines that was it just how you was feeling on the day or was it uh kind of like the tides and stuff like that yeah so it's so horrendous it's a combination of reasons uh so it was all right in the morning but the forecast wasn't great um it's basically about 10 hours in the weather changed completely and it was basically swimming in in in a wind state and a swell waves that in that in the conditions where the boat wouldn't have even left the harbour if it was that bad so the last um it was 18 and a half hours in the end of swim and we're hoping for about 12 13 um so the last six hours was just fighting for my life and i'm talking every single time you went to take a breath you'd inhale water and like you'd barely be able to it became a fight for survival like rather than swimming and just kind of keeping the boat off because you can't touch the boat because then it's a fail you know um and it i'd started through two three hours before the sunrise swam through the sunrise the whole day the sun had set again still swimming and um it got to like 11 p.m at night and it was so close and then he got pulled out about literally five times but my coach just said to the captain you're not pulling them out like we're gonna it got this close because if you don't get there before the tides change the tides run parallel with like calais basically and they can literally pull you out that's the point where that's it a friend of mine he was doing um he was doing the um arch to arch arch to arch you know the arch to watch challenge we started at the exact same time in dover and he got pulled out 500 meters i think from the from from the beach in france and that's how close the margin was and this was day one of 237 and i knew that it could if i knew that day one is where it could all go wrong you know like this is again there's three to four times more people who summited everest and swam the channel and i knew like like i said before you know you could just go on the bike tomorrow and cycle across europe you could get on the boat a rowing boat an ocean rowing boat and you could row but you can't just wing swim in the channel that's something you have to seriously train for get into a position technically to be able to do it you know um so i knew that was going to be tough and it was this this close when i got to when i got to france i just just about nearly wobbled and fell because if you fall over even in ankle deep water you fail you have to be completely clear so i wobbled up the beach 11 o 'clock at night nearly 18 and a half hours later and just literally like collapsed it was horrible I couldn't move for six days um I thought in my head oh a couple of days I'll get on the bike and then we'll begin the 12 ,000k journey across the world no I was broken my um my tongue was literally like dissolved chunks coming off it my rotator took off was torn I inhaled so much water I could I could I couldn't breathe properly I couldn't get out of bed I couldn't move by myself if i had to go for for a wee i had to i had to have my other half roll me over and i had to pee in a pipe glass or be carried to the toilet that was for the first three days i couldn't sit up i had to you know and and she had to stay up for two nights because i inhaled so much water that i was potentially having secondary secondary drowning um so yeah it was tough but after six days i managed to just about get myself on the bike one-handed and begin the cycle across 18 countries and that was tough that was tough again to have to then to shut off to not think past the next day to shut off that and just worry about worry about what's in front of you is that what you think like do you think it like you don't think about the bigger picture you're thinking about the day by day that's it and just take that's the only way i got through it yeah yeah so it's a big the reason why it was such an important chapter in the book is the power of compartmentalization it doesn't matter and it's the same concept you're going to work on a monday morning you're going to school you're doing a run you know you're doing the marathon or whatever you think of that next lamppost when you're going for a run if you can train your brain to not think about anything but the next thing in front of you and put everything into just that one get into that one stage that one bit then before you know it you know if you can train your brain to do that you can do anything like when we rode the Atlantic like I said lost sight of land within four hours and I let myself I allowed myself to think of the end and for a second and my brain nearly exploded because I allowed that to happen but I had to get a grip but I brought it back and I literally my world became nothing about the next but the next shift so after that channel after the channel when I couldn't walk I literally set an alarm on my watch 20 minutes at a time alarm would go off so when I set off from Calais I didn't my world became 20 minutes every 20 minutes the alarm would go off I'd get off no matter where I was by the side of the river on the motorway I'd get off the bike touch my toes do my little twist and just shake my wrists and just have a little stretch 60 seconds max that way I'd never be resting more than three minutes every hour of cycling but my world never had to evolve more than 20 minutes at a time had to revolve around that and that way i within well 10 hour days we just flew by then you know i was cycling for 10 hours a day for 134 days straight across 18 countries and across two continents and by that the power of compartmentalization by not thinking too far ahead i managed to um get through but anyone can do it you know like you go to work on a monday if you just think about putting everything into that half day and get to lunch put everything into getting to lunch and then before you know it it's it's tuesday before you know it's halfway through the week before you know it's friday you know but when you come into monday and you think of friday it feels so far away you know and that's what it felt like for me if i'd allowed my brain after that i got out that channel if i'd allow my brain to think i've now got a 12 000k bike ride to do then a 900k ultra then a 360k hike and then i've got to climb everest my brain would have been like no you're not like what you're talking about but luckily because of my dad and the marines and previous expeditions all the stages of redefining possible i just luckily managed to have that kind of that mindset where i could just say no you're not thinking about anything but 20 minutes that's it that's all that matters one country at a time was the cycle kind of self-supported as well so yeah in hotels so it was a mate i was so incredible in the end i ended up having so stan gaskell and molly my um my producer as well so i was going months before leaving I'd message I'd message Stan who had just finished Project Africa with Russ and just said you know anyone might want to help and he basically came back saying let's have a meet let's meet up and next thing you know him and Molly they these two people just believe and believe in the dream you know we've got no funding the worst thing about the solo expedition was was the funding so I had about five percent of the money I needed to complete this expedition when I left France when I swam did have enough money to make it to Germany do you mind it do mind like telling everyone like how much money you actually need for a thing like everest itself alone is like 50 grand minimum minimum just to climb everest you know and that's not so i mean i don't know the exact figure but you imagine seven months of of accommodation um paying people uh you know logistics visas food it's crazy so long story short yeah it ended up being me and stan basically um we got to france obviously got to calais and had a spare bike that i bought from decathlon for 300 quid and uh uh we had a camper van for the first few weeks so i'd carry all my spares and food and water and stuff but my big bags would have yeah i'd have in the um with having the camper van because now suddenly this isn't a self-supported mission i've got the incredible help of a team and i've got an opportunity to film this now because never intended it to be when i first had this dream i never knew it would be i had an idea that it would be able to get filmed and i'd you know but then after my other expeditions and my my partner and my friend said you should really try and obviously capture this because it's a great opportunity so who was in the camper in the camper it was me stan stan gaskell legend and we had another guy at the time as well who marry us at the start but he left after a few weeks the majority of the entire expedition was basically just stan he's incredible he was working 16 hours a day basically editing driving filming everything and it was amazing so basically me and this 22 year old freeboarding across 19 countries with the amazing support of my producer money back in the uk he would help with visas and logistics and this kind of stuff because it was tough you know when we left france again not only did we not have enough money to make i'd finished about 10 hour day cycling for 135 days every night i'd finish be on my phone trying to find sponsors trying to chase people up because nobody thought it was possible you know so that level of anxiety for eight months for the entire expedition was crippling because i couldn't enjoy them now enjoy the love of the moment because i was so worried about letting people down and them down not being able to get to the next country you know this could all be over you know that was the biggest anxiety you imagine you've done 10 000 k you get to every then it's over because you can't even pay for it that was kind of a crippling anxiety i had you imagine the entire way but having that their support obviously was amazing and my partner support back in the uk it was just crazy it was basically just wing it you know believe first figure it out later so how did you pull it off like what did you get in touch responses yeah so i had got a few to begin with and then basically as we got going a few people started to believe a bit more this is possible this is possible we'd get just a few grand here there but it was tough we'd have a single corporate sponsor for the entire expedition you know for the longest time i've ever seen history we didn't have a single corporate it was just little brands here and there that would that would send a bit and keep us going another couple of weeks kind of thing and it wasn't until i got to india that i kind of managed we managed i managed to secure um we managed to secure enough sponsorship to get us over the finish line you know what i mean it was it wasn't until i got to pretty much to nepal that i realized everest was even going to be possible i didn't finish paying every stuff until i mean six months after i got back to the uk anyway but it that was a relief yeah when we kind of knew that we could finish this thing we could finish it but we didn't know even up until like cycling through iraq and the middle east didn't even know at that point whether like we were stuck in the military lockdown in baghdad like not knowing whether we'd make it to the next country and it was you can imagine like so ironically the physical part i knew that i had the determination and to get it done but the the logistics the bureaucracy visas you know the idea that this entire dream could be over because of but that was also in itself a massive lesson you know to anyone you know you cannot worry about things that you can't control the uncontrollables you can't worry about things that are out of your control and that was something really hard you know to try and to try and deal with you know so frustrating trying to do something that's out of your control completely so there's a reason why chapter to chapter eight is the relentless pursuit of positivity and that was something i had to do every day it's just we are just relentlessly positive and you just believe with every ounce of your being and if you do that anything's possible were there any kind of like rough or dangerous parts of the cycle yeah there was some i mean by far the most dangerous part of the entire exposition was the cycle you know i nearly died dozens of times on the bike the closest i came to death by far was on the bike like on the syria iraq turkey border cycling along i've chased by hundreds of dogs at one point the dog came out and like i had to swerve into an uncommon lorry that just missed me um and that happened all the time in iraq i was right because only because they're not used to cyclists like they would there's no space like people don't go around you literally you just get run off the road you just get run off the road i got hit by a taxi like um cycling through india and places like delhi you can imagine like i literally had to once like went through two tuk-tuks and then dodged the dog dodged the cow in the middle of the road by like inches going like really fast you know and the amount of times where it was just coming this close I could sit here for hours telling you about the amount of close calls we had coming in coming into Baghdad there was like a again coming into oncoming traffic massive trucks and lorries my bike like kind of slipped on like loads of gravel and I nearly fell into into a truck that was like coming you know and I kind of banished to save myself at the last second and And it's one of the moments where you're like, wow, like I, you realize that was close, you know, that could have been, that could have all been ended, you know.

47:13So by the time we got to Everest, you know, what we'd been through in this question of morality was like, it was kind of, it was a strange, it's strange, you know, it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard to describe. Was there any point in the whole journey where you wanted to give up? The only time I felt, I thought I was going to give up, well, potentially was about 12 hours into the swim because we kind of remember hitting like a current and it felt like I wasn't moving literally for about an hour and that was the only time where I let every thought demon catastrophize in my head what are you doing why are you doing this you're an idiot you know you promise everyone you're letting everyone down everyone has these demons you know everyone has this in their head but the doubt the self-doubt you're gonna fail this that and the other and that was the only time where it became like really overwhelming and again I had to fight with every single pillar in that book to get through that moment to push through it after that I was so thankful for it because you know after a stupidly hard run or a race or something you now have a benchmark you now have something to compare it to before that I'd had with the marines and some tough times but that swim was was the crucible like every day after that including everest felt easy because of what I'd gotten gone through physically not more mentally what I'd gone through the levels of myself I'd had to chip away to to get to get through that it was it's like grief you know you lose someone you get through it and next time something happens just think I got through that I got through this I can get through this and that every so every negative every negative kind of moment of your life you can then flip on its head it's another callous yeah it's another cat it's callous and you know we have we have the ability to flip negativity into positivity is a mindset it's a perception positivity is literally a perception that we all have the power to flip on its head and if you can it's hard it's easy i mean it's easier said than done you know i'm adhd i see the world as always sunshine and rainbows you know i'm very optimistic you know i'm an optimist the glass is always half full some people look at the world as the glass is always half empty but you just got to try a bit harder everyone has the ability to flip that on its head it's just a perception negativity positivity is just a perception talk to me about Everest then so you mentioned before like the most risky part is the glacier yeah um but how was it the experience of like actually doing something that you dreamt of it was surreal yeah mate it was it was like you know it was like what was it day so we were pretty much like day 200 well by the time we got to there you know and it was I didn't know whether the body would hold out until I got to there um it was as I said we'd lost nearly 20 kilos and it was just like are we are we can we keep going and luckily i was i was i was like oh yeah but i felt fit and somehow because we'd gone from on foot from zero to base camp we had climber ties so slowly that i had no headaches and i was somehow feeling strong and positive but stan sat me down like the night before the summit it came out of nowhere as well like we're going tomorrow morning because there was one tiny little window you have to wait until like there's a weather window it was like you know you could die tomorrow how do you deal with that and it was just kind of like we've come so far in all this and it was just your whole moment your whole life comes down to one moment you know and because of everything that had come before just like of anything in life and your struggles because of everything that had come before it made dealing with that moment a bit easier so yeah the time came and it was also lucky in the end because my team was incredible whoever we went up with the red green light was given that the summit we could go to the summit we pushed it we got there and luckily um we were the first person we were the first people to climb Everest last year out of 700 people so somehow but I always think maybe because of what I went through in the channel and everything maybe that was dad an angel on my shoulders who was looking after us so somehow in the end not only was it the longest climb of Everest in history we were the first people to climb Everest in 2025 which was beyond bonkers I'm so thankful for that a lot of people struggle with well when I say struggle the most things happen on the way down yeah yeah yeah so that's the most dangerous part right so after you've summited and then on the way back down three quarters of deaths like and injuries happen on the way down because you become complacent you think you've done it you're coming down but the summit of any mountain i always say to people when i'm guiding or when we're doing tricks or anything like remember the most important rule is the summit the end the finish line of any mountain is back in the lodge at the bottom that is the finish line the summit is the summit is barely halfway that's the most important rule so 50 meters before the top i had to step over two bodies you know like they've been there for a few years but literally boots on mask on like they've been there for years and suddenly I just get hit with like this wake up you know like right you promised your family you're going to get back alive and uh and that's when I really had to remind myself that that flag is halfway so I got to the top managed to have the moment that we needed to it was everything I ever dreamed of you know I managed my nan and my dad was stood next to me you know and you can see the entire world lit up in gold below you like you can imagine like you were just it's the most beautiful feeling ever and it's it's unrivaled but very quickly after that the reality of where you are where i was um it was really windy and you know it's yeah it's minus 30 up there minus 40 and um i just switched on straight away and was like i need to get down i'm not done this until i get down you know and we got down back down from the summit back down to camp two and even then like i collapsed into the tent and then i was barely conscious and then that avalanche went off right next to me and it felt like it was going to hit me and it was quite a weird feeling because i remember like hearing it and having this weird feeling of like this this is the end i'm happy because you know but it was kind of just i remember having that lucid thought because i was so like out of it um but then woke up managed and we managed to get down to base camp and it was only when i got back to base camp that um you know that i so from the the summit down to camp too yeah so um so something down to camp doing it literally in a day so it's so you go to base camp basically and when you say a day is it a couple of hours is it like four or five hours i was about 18 hours or something 18 hours non-stop yeah it was so yeah so so you're doing it in the dark as well um you can you can do yeah yeah yeah part of it is yeah so when we got to um so basically we got to the summit at say seven i think we got to some at seven o 'clock in the morning and then we got back down to camp four in the death zone got back down to camp four and I was literally like pack a few bits a few bits of stuff up and then get down Do you sleep at camp 4?

53:37No no no because it's really high and it's quite dangerous because you're in the death zone you're above you're above yeah you're really high so we a lot of some people somehow go get from the summit back to base camp in one day and it's just I was obviously I was absolutely done by that point like I was barely I was like a zombie when I walked into camp 2 but it's a lot better down there you know if you can get down there but it was a long day so you went from How technical is like the climbing? or is it Everest itself is massively I mean there are lots of faces like that you know there's a line that goes up so you basically have an ascender and your crampons and ice axe and you're kind of pulling yourself and digging your feet and it's not massively technical the mountain I did in preparation was much more technical than Everest but it's out there the temperature the altitude yeah so you're eclipsed on so there's literally there's kind of what's the rock climbing where you're eclipsing what's it called the type of rock climbing where you're oh I'll just like pitch might be pitch climbing yeah but are you actually like yeah yeah so it's not like free solo yeah it's not like free solo it's a really pure way of doing it you know you can do it like when we when we've done stuff in the Alps you know it's you're just attached to the bloke to the person in front of you but on Everest and that there's a line there's a rope which goes all the way to the summit basically so as I say there's an 80 metre line you've got this thing which goes up when you get to the next rope you just you detach and put onto the next rope and you go up so there's only and at that you should always obviously be clipped onto one rope at one time anyway so yeah i mean so it's similar to yeah it's similar to um to kind of multi-pitch climbing there's always there was always an anchor there's always a you know um it's yeah it's but it's still tough yeah no that's uh it's insane like you said the that you walking over dead people yeah it's a morbid feeling yeah but it's it's kind of one of them people feel oh well that's kind of sad and horrible everest is is so many people's dream The mountains are, you know, it's, for a lot of people, it's their favorite place in the entire world.

55:32And it's the dream they've had their entire life. Most people, like, before they climb, they say, you know, if anything happens to me up there, I want to be left up there. That's, a lot of people say that because if you try and rescue somebody above camp four, you know, that's, it's called the death zone for a reason. You're probably going to die because it's too high for a helicopter rescue. And if you want to rescue someone, you have to physically carry them, you know, and it's, and, and it's, yeah, it's kind of like, it's a morbid, it is morbid in reality when you think about it but it's kind of it's it's where you want to be it's the most beautiful place in the world and most most people want to be left kind of left up there but there are there are hundreds of bodies up there um and it's yeah it's a strange feeling and it's my own feelings you try to not think about so after achieving the challenge yeah what was life like after uh just crazy got back and you're riding this adrenaline high for you know for 240 days basically and then boof you just stop for someone with ADHD and hormones all over the place it was tough you know and then having to write a book it was it was hard it was the adjustment takes a lot you know you get the blues of like what's next and all this worry luckily for me I I was worried that obviously worried that you know that that there's always ego involved everyone says there's not as lying everyone has an ego you know I was worried that you know everyone asking what's next i'd always be wanting to do something bigger and crazier but the one the one good thing that i'm so happy about is when i got down i wasn't i didn't have that feeling of like the need to be doing something crazy and more i've just achieved all my childhood dreams in one mission and that's what's important to me i've managed to do something amazing with stan we've managed to inspire so many kids and stuff it's been a dream which i never thought well i would ever be able to do so i'm very i was very content with it if that makes sense but just exhausted like exhausted and paranoid about what comes next and you know how do i yeah how do i get better and it's been it's been a tough i'm still still recovering genuinely to be honest because we got back june 20 june last year you know and and then it was nine months of writing the book which was one of the toughest things me and my partner have ever done and um yeah and since then i've me being me just yes man says yes to everything so i've just done you know we've I had another world record in the Alps, then a world record ultramarathon.

57:46And now I've got another one coming up in April, which is going to be fun. Would you be able to give a little bit of advice? Yeah, no, that's fine. So long story short, when I was doing Atlantic in 2021, my mentor for that, a guy called Nick, absolute legend. He's half Colombian, half English. He was the first South American to row the Atlantic solo, completely on his own. He's an absolute great guy. He rang me, like the month the book was published, and said, do you want to row the Pacific? ocean with me 15 000k three times i think for the atlantic ocean um multiple guinness world records and we're going to be doing it for an incredible cause and i honestly i was like probably not because i was absolutely knackered but then when i started to think about it and we only later and i started to think about the reasons um i was like i've got to think twice about this so we are not only is the expedition um the funding is much more secure because it's not like my last expedition so i'm not going to be going into it anxious that every day i'm not going to be able to enjoy the experience um so we're also we're also setting up the first men's mental health initiative in columbia's history by doing by doing this row we're working with the biggest hospital in the country um and then obviously yeah i mean great is guinness world records minimum of two just for finishing but you're chasing four so that's great of course like that but that's just an added bonus really has anyone done that before so if only five people have ever done the pacific totally unsupported and where would you go from and to so we're going from peru to australia so 15 ,000k so yeah so now out of nowhere I'm rowing me and my friend are rowing the entire pacific ocean totally non-stop and unsupported and what would be obviously there's a distance three times uh the length of the Atlantic but is there anything else that's kind of like more extreme I mean I mean uh weather can be weather can be bad you know wildlife uh El Niño which is causing a lot of kind of issues you know it might be slowing things down on the row obviously longer longer longer time away more more chances of exhaustion and things like this you know being totally because the last one was you know seven eight weeks this is going to be five six months of no one me and my friend rowing two hours on two hours off so you're going to be rowing solo as well really yeah it's literally one person on so we'll both be taking it in turns like so we'll be we'll be rowing for 12 hours each for five months straight 24 hours a day well 12 hours a day for five months five to six months straight um but it's this time as i say it's um it's a cause really close to my heart he's an incredible guy he's one of the only people that i thought that i could do it with because i'm adhd energy like i'll give the morale and he's he's incredibly organized and methodical and a great captain you know what i mean so i just think it's going to be interesting but i never in my wildest dreams thought i'd be um rowing ocean again um after the atlantic not because it wasn't beautiful but you know there's so many things i wanted to do um but it's one of them things you know when you manifest when you manifest these things and things happen for a reason and we are going to be genuinely saving like hopefully thousands of lives by doing this and it's something really close to me mental health has always been such a close thing to me and when do you plan to do this um this is going to be well we're going to go to peru for the whole of march um so ship the boat will be there it's still in essex at the moment um it's been shipped to peru so the whole of march will be rowing packing and all this and then 1st of April hopefully we set off we're rowing literally from Peru to Cairns um in Sydney so you'll have to come down mate the boat's here for another month if you want to get on an ocean rowing boat and have a go genuinely we'd love to have you genuinely be be honored yeah that might be incredible I'm trying to get um yeah well I'll talk about it after it yeah it's it's um obviously men's mental health is something massively important and anyone for me like especially anyone that's got a lot of young people especially young men following them who are a bit lost you know it's it's gonna be so important to talk about it so that's one of the main reasons i suggest to this you know it's uh it's gonna be incredible you know it's um it's just gonna be an experience like like no other um but it's gonna be a slog you know it's gonna be an absolute slog but i'm looking forward to it yeah i love that you're doing it for something more than just yourself as well yeah okay obviously like you say you did the other one for you like deep down it is for you 100 it was my lucky say it was me completing all these childhood dreams all these kids into one it became more than that don't get me wrong you know the charity i did it for make was we make mental health courses for people struggling and veterans using wildlife so doing that and also again having messages from like you know 12 year old i told your old messaged me when i was cycling through india saying i've just signed up for my first triathlon because of your video and like that gave me more power than a million pounds you know i figured i genuinely done like 200k that day or something like it was great just because that purpose beyond self that we talk about in the last chapter it was incredible but yeah this one is it's something really close to my heart just a month before I rode the Atlantic back in 2021 my cousin killed himself and he was like my mum brought him up like that's the reason why I got the dog a golden retriever because she was broken like broken so I nearly didn't go on that road because my cousin had just took his life and um it was a horrible situation and he didn't feel like he could talk to anyone you know he was in that position didn't feel like he had anyone in the world so an opportunity to go and do something like this that's gonna get the message out to young men is gonna be it's gonna give me a lot of power you know and then again we talk about having that that purpose in them hard moments it's gonna really help me when we're 6 000 miles from land thank you for today it's been it's been amazing honestly so motivating like i i feel like obviously i'm in like my my high rocks era at the moment where um you know a professional athlete like takes a part of my time but like i'd love to do some challenges adventures like like you say rowing maybe not as a as a two or a four but like uh you know rowing something that'd be incredible what um how else can you do it can you do it in teams of six do you say you can do yeah there's all sorts so um now there's like an actual organized race that goes across the atlantic for example okay and that's supported you know so you've got kind of boats around you it's potentially but you'd still row across the entire atlantic and you can do single doubles fours there's even a boat that has like eight people on or 10 people on which is mad so if everyone is doing anything like that about you let me know but also yeah i mean that's my job now is to take people on on adventures so come and join me for some you know what i mean yeah i'd like to say you know hiking up some of the world's highest mountains and stuff like that like it's something that i've never ever done but like like yourself like looked up to people that do that and um yeah i feel like everyone's got a bit of a adventure in them it's just uh we get caught with day-to-day life you know everyone loves camping everyone loves like like you say going to new places seeing new things but because we most of us need to kind of like work full time and you get caught up you never get a chance to do it life gets in the way mate and one of the most important lessons is you know every your everest is relative your everest is the most relative thing in the world it could be your first 5k walk and that's as important as somebody else's ultra marathon you're the hero of your own story so people watching this don't worry about comparing another chapter of the book is literally called proportionality it's about how not why not to compare yourself to other people so it doesn't matter what it is you know you can have a hard life you can have a busy life but everyone has the ability to just push themselves and get uncomfortable a little bit in their own way and it doesn't it could be going camping for one for the first time trying cold water therapy you know you're getting in the whole cold tub or just going for that walk or signing up for that gym or doing that hobby started start painting you know whatever your passion is whatever your whatever you've always wanted to do it's just in in relation to your own life because it's all relative you know it's just take that step take that plunge because the hardest part as you know is taking that first step the hardest part is always having the courage to just to just try it and i'm just lucky and thankful that that life's led me to this place yeah yeah very lucky and uh an incredible story i'm lucky to inspire so many people as well thanks Thank you, Mitch.

1:05:35Thank you as well for inspiring me. I appreciate you.