Can I Survive 7 Triathlons on 7 Continents? London is First...

0:00Welcome to Untapped with me, Spencer Matthews. For the next four weeks, we're going to be taking you on the Project 7 journey. I'm going to be dialing in very regularly with the team back in London to bring you behind the scenes access to everything that we are working on, all of the triathlons that we're doing and all of the incredible experiences that we are experiencing in real time. This podcast promises to be entertaining, uplifting and damn right awesome. so make sure that you catch all of our episodes from all over the world coming live not live every monday spencer just tell us firstly how you're feeling uh after the first triathlon or the first full distance triathlon that was the first one you've ever done i'm guessing first time i've covered those distances uh in a in a triathlon it was um well all bound together if you know what I mean it's it's a real it's a really long shift like there was 11 hours and 38 minutes of of sports in that single event um obviously we had the odd break because we're in London you know there's the odd interview and bits and bobs and coffee breaks and I even had a pizza at one point you know it's kind of less intense than what you think what what what an actual Ironman event may be like, I don't know, I've not done one.

1:24I've got one coming up on Sunday. It's Friday now. And I don't know, it came with like extraordinary highs and lows. I'll take you through just what was done, basically, just quickly as an overview. And then we can chat about the bits, you know, individually. So in the morning at 6am, I hit a 3.8 kilometer swim in the city of London. So like, you know, in the Royal Docks up near, um, up near city airport, somewhere where like, if you're driving past it, you look at it and you would never imagine you would swim in it. Right. Just like, just, just, just like a really dark, wet area that you imagine kind of, you know, big boats going through, um, and you know, big city skyscrapers all around you're really cool.

2:10actually. Then you get off that jump on the bike and cycle 180 kilometers. If you if you're not a cyclist, or if you are a cyclist, 180 kilometers are really long way. Like it's not it's not your regular ride. Like if you're a cycling enthusiast, and you went out and you did 120k, something like that, that's that's a that's a big old ride. I'm not talking about like riding to Paris or, you know, you know, riding through a country. You know, if you are a good cyclist, you love cycling, and you have the time. Going out and doing 120K is a pretty substantial ride. 180K is really long. So I was in the saddle for five hours and 53 minutes, but we took a few breaks with that because it's a long time.

2:56So I think the moving time was more like six hours and 50 minutes or something, or like seven hours. So from start to finish of the bike, it's a seven hour workout, essentially. having just done the 3.8k swim so the cycling came with some highs and lows the swim was mostly high because and then sorry just to top it all off you then get off the bike and run a full marathon and that was the weirdest thing right just like being on the bike knowing that that was yet to come and it's kind of like I like running as you know but like to be honest my knees were really like blown up by the end of the cycle, not because of a bad build or not because of a bad fit, just muscular pain, right?

3:47Because it's a really long way. So like, with about 30k left to go, I started suffering from, I can't remember exactly what Johnny called it. But the good news is it's not like, you can tell if like a tendon is twanging or if there's a real sharp pain somewhere that needs addressing and it's a problem with where your seat is or something i think this is generally just because you know we're cycling quite hard actually for a while we did it and this is another thing for cyclists we did the inner rich uh the inner regents park lap just over and over again it's about a kilometer we did about we did it nearly 180 times because we we chucked in you know the journey to Hyde Park obviously the journey um from the city to Regent's Park but that is like a pretty serious mental grind like knowing that you're only adding a K every time you go around this thing and it's just it's quite it also it just it encourages like a bit of racing because like parts of it are relatively fast so like we were cranking it for a while and Chris kept saying like mate you're gonna have to calm down like we've got another four hours of this and I was just like yeah no no we will I'm not putting out I'm not putting out too much effort it's fine it's fine and we're probably putting out far too much effort you know I think the idea if you're doing loads of these things would be to like really rein it in on the wattage like up the cadence just possibly go a bit slower but just like don't do the harm to your legs that that I did.

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7:49And then eventually got off the bike, which felt like, you know, incredible. Still full of energy at this point, by the way. And I slept for two and a half hours the night before. So I was beginning to think like, Jesus, it is extraordinary like what the human body can do. Because like ordinarily, if I slept for two and a half hours, I couldn't sleep. Like the desert, just like so excited, lying there thinking like, we leave in five hours. I just couldn't sleep. And then, yeah, got off that and started running the marathon. And in my head, I was like, isn't it amazing that this morning I was knackered.

8:29I was falling asleep in the cab on the way to the swim. And now I feel great. And it's just not great in terms of not tired or whatever, but just full of energy. The support was crazy. Also, let me just take you back to the swim just briefly. The swim was the weirdest thing ever. So you get to this like little pebbly like beach, essentially, in the city. It is pitch, but wait until you see the footage of me going into the water. It's gone. Can't see me. I'm wearing this big red boy like behind me, which is the only thing you can see. Chris Taylor, thankfully, was on a paddleboard like a few meters ahead of me.

9:13Just just kind of like so that I could see something. I couldn't see the boys. I couldn't see where we were going. It's pitch black, just dark. So like I'd look up and I'd see kind of like the boy sort of like in the distance where I'm going. And then I'd just pin it to like one of the buildings behind it and then just aim for the building because I couldn't see the boy. At one point, I swam into one of the boys and the rope from the boy like bashed into my shoulder. And I genuinely thought I was being like mauled by something in the water. and it was actually, I was actually like,

9:47Chris nearly fell off his paddleboard because he thought it was so funny. And then there as well, I did something like, I did something like 18 laps of like these boys that were in a 250 meter loop or whatever, whatever ends up making sense. I don't know, but like it was, felt like an awfully long time. First time I'd ever tried my wetsuit on, had lunch with my brother that day and he was like, the previous day And he was like, you've not tried your wetsuit on. And I was like, the wetsuit arrived yesterday. And I've swam like 4K in a number of wetsuits that are certainly not designed to swim long distance.

10:28And, you know, I'll get it done. The fact that this wetsuit, some banging Roka Maverick X3 is only going to be helpful. Like it can't be detrimental to the swim. It's obviously going to, and he was like, you should still try it on. And it says, I didn't try it on because it's actually a real nightmare to get her on and off. And I didn't have a replacement anyway. So I knew that I'd be wearing it. So I got the swim done. That was a nice moment. Like for some reason, when you're stood there looking out into the dark, cold abyss, it's quite frightening. I was like, this is sketchy. and I was like you know you get that feeling where like if you jump in the water and it's so cold that you kind of can't stay in it I was like what if that happens then like because like because the swim is an hour and a half right and it's like if I swim for 10 minutes and go hypothermic or whatever like what am I going to do like pull out and come back to the beach and delay the whole thing and wait for it to get what like it can't get warm so like in my head I was just like this sucks like and i feel like i've completely forgotten how to swim i can't like i can't swim and it's black and it's cold and it's like and so i was still on the beach with the men's health interviewer was there he came at 5 50 to interview me uh and then interviewed me throughout the day and he was like how are you feeling about this and i was like shit and he was like oh okay and he was like any words of wisdom uh you know for like people looking at i was like no like I just told you, I don't know anything.

12:09Let me get the thing done. I just want to get comfortable in the water. But, mate, in the car on the way over, literally, for someone that doesn't worry about anything, I was literally shitting myself. I was just sat there thinking, what if this goes terribly wrong? Because the swim is always, for me, a bit of a question mark. I mean, don't get me wrong. When we get to Cape Town and Rio, it's probably going to be really nice. But the distance is quite a long distance. It's an hour and a half of swimming, and that's like moving. Listen, loads of lads and loads of women will swim that much faster than me.

12:46I'm not particularly elegant in the water. But an hour and a half at that distance, for me, is front crawl the whole way. No brakes, no breaststroke, no nothing. That's front crawl from the minute you get into the water for an hour and a half. it's not aggressive like front crawl like you know racing tom dean um but it's like it's regular stroking can't remember what my cadence was or whatever but stroke rate was but it's i was swimming i in there when i got comfortable felt like oh my god i'm gonna bang this out in an hour like i'm flying uh no it's no it's just an hour and a half is my time and i actually don't know how i can do it any faster it wouldn't have been great to get in and find it too cold and then And you've just got to be thinking about Antarctica then for the next four weeks.

13:33It's dreadful. And the leopard seals. When I touched that buoy, I was like, oh, my God. You have all these awful feelings because it's like when I say it's dark, I know you all know what that means, obviously, but it really was dark. I couldn't see my watch faces for the first hour. So I actually didn't even know if they were working. You're wearing a wetsuit. So obviously if your hand comes over and you accidentally press a button and stop the data that I wouldn't know that. Sometimes you're running, you're wearing like two layers or a layer or whatever, and your watch gets tampered with and you can hear it and notice it and you can press play again.

14:09So I actually, most of the first hour was spent thinking like, what if I'm not recording this? What if there's no evidence of this or any data of this on Coros? I would have to start again. I literally couldn't see anything. So I'd bring, I'd sometimes just like stop for one second and like bring my watch like so like within an inch of my face. And I'd be like, that's moving. That's moving. Yeah. I like keep going. And it was amazing. It actually got like, it was an awesome experience. Swim was great. Came out, felt pretty good. Got on the bike, felt even better. Cycling through the city of London was pretty cool.

14:51We're cycling down the line bike paths at like 30 kilometers an hour, getting yelled at by everyone because we were overtaking everyone. Obviously, our bikes are like, you know, dragons from hell compared to a line bike. So we're like hammering it through town and like coming in and out of cars. And like the whole thing is actually really cool. And then the marathon, like the heavens opened up for the marathon. Like we started running. Then it was dark, by the way. So by the time we got to the marathon, it was dark, like getting dark. We took our Oakley Metas off and stuff because we couldn't see wearing them.

15:31And then it like started to rain and it was like raining hard, like hard raining. Everyone's gone home. We're the only people like running. We saw two other runners like in Hyde Park, right, on a Thursday evening. um it was not like like no one goes running in this weather and it started about 5k in 5 6k so you know we had you know god my head has gone crazy 38k or 37k left um and obviously but at this stage we started off like nice and slow and so the kilometers are ticking over like really slowly uh didn't have any music uh because my headphones were in the fucking van and and we all know from berlin that i like running with a bit of music um and uh and anyway we we we just started lapping high park we just did lap after lap after lap after lap and like there was the odd incredibly dark moment um like it was it was it was really miserable dark cold pretty painful I was looking down at my watch thinking like oh if we if we move at this pace like we're running an easy like sub four no sorry not an easy we're running easily a sub four marathon in base based on time so I was like you know whatever happens we've only got you know three hours and 50 minutes of this but like it's three hours and 50 minutes of running at the end of the day that we'd already had um so listen massive respect to iron people um because it's it's it's a very it's a very serious um it's a very serious undertaking like chris taylor and i were we did a lot of the run together and we looked at each other and we were like this is like and like we both love sport you know we're pretty able um generally speaking endurance athletes uh but like we kind of were pretty taken aback by this kind of joint um you know sport day um it is quite flung but this morning the things that you can celebrate i suppose this morning are like knees feel better than i felt yesterday which is excellent news like you know that's that wasn't a given i'm actually not that stiff which probably means that my bike position is fine and good um my legs don't feel bettered really from from the run um because obviously you know i wasn't trying to hammer a sub three hour marathon or anything so all in all it's good experience it's i mean it's i am less enthusiastic about the rest of the challenge now having done that yesterday like it was it was uh it was pretty grim and actually this is a big shout out to our friend sean stafford who please can we get him on one of these episodes one of the shows he's a dear friend of mine i've been lifting weights for sean for i don't know 12 years consistently he is he's a he's a phenomenal person heart of gold complete legend actually Sean heard that we were having a bad time Cycled on a line bike over from where he lives It was quite far away It took him ages I think it took him an hour and a half to get to us Like a long way away And he brought a boombox A 10 kilo boombox on his bag And did 25 kilometers with us thumping tunes so loud right that like you were you felt like you were in a nightclub right just like and and we just slowly drifted through hyde park and the very few people who were who were out in in the park with umbrellas loved it and i'm not just saying that it's like nothing to do with me or the event or anything it was just cool right because there was a little group of us running with this music in the rain in the freezing cold we all just looked like shit you know it was proper just like proper grindy stuff but we were just like thumping Justin Bieber and like other awesome songs like the hills um you know in entry music what's that called that thing's fucking belter and just like really kind of like unmanly fun tunes and it was just really great and we had the time of our lives actually it literally that transformed what was going to be the worst part of potentially the whole challenge into a moment and a memory that I'll never forget you know it was just like amazing like and he just brought he brought it he brought so much energy he tried to run with us with this thing on his back and you know um he did a full lap with this thing on his it's awful bouncing like a ninja turtle it's like carrying gigi around with you like like you know it's just just like yeah he did look like a ninja turtle and um she weighs more than 10 kilos i think

20:58she won't mind she won't mind you saying that i don't think so no 10 kilos is all right isn't it yeah you know 10 12 kilos you're right um and uh she's only a little girl um and yeah just seeing the family and the support you know it was it was incredible like you know vogue and my mom and Auntie Gina, you know, came with the kids and supported when we got off the bike and, you know, huge cohort of people from James's Place came down as well. God, like the people from Huel were there. My friends from Clean Co came down. There was a huge group of people. The whole YMU office was there all day. Like that's very serious support.

21:40The girls from Sunshine Sachs, you look after the PR for myself and the challenge. We're there like all day as well. You know, a lot of people made a lot of effort, like, honestly, sitting around for 14 hours, you know, and 45 minutes whilst we lap the park is pretty boring. So it's, it's epic, right, that they did that. You know, there was a really touching moment with a couple from James's Place where I won't name them. You know, she came up to me and just burst into tears straight away and said that you know because of our post um earlier in the year about james's place she was able to get help for her partner um who was feeling suicidal and he was there as well and and you know he's he's not taken his life as a direct result of well they kindly said my post but obviously it's james's place you know do the work um but that's what this is all about you know That's literally what this is about.

22:35And so to have a story told like that of a life that's already been saved before the challenge because of even just the James' Place announcement was really heartwarming. And it meant the world to me. It was a very emotional thing, actually. But she was just a wonderful woman. And he seemed like he was in a much better place. And, you know, just I think the whole thing makes so much more sense if it's able to have an impact like that on people. Obviously, like in the moment, you said it was kind of emotional, but like, have you seen sort of just reflecting on it a little bit, you know, overnight?

23:15How does that sort of put the whole sort of day in perspective for you? I mean, yes, a big question. For it to end unexpectedly like that was, you know, nothing short of incredible. I really wasn't expecting that, right, to come into contact with somebody who literally has said their life has been saved from the introduction to James's place because of, you know, Project 7. So, no, you know, that did make it obviously very special. The day itself was, you know, it's highs and lows. I don't think unless you're a professional athlete that you can do something like that and enjoy it from start to finish.

23:59You know, it's a pretty, it's a really long day. You know that the world record for this is like sub seven hours. Like what animal has done that? You were on the bike for seven hours. I was on, yeah, longer, longer. If you include the pizza break. yeah yeah it's it's absolutely that is but that i think there's fitness right there's fitness and then there's just like complete elite level um you know professional stuff which you know i certainly am a million miles away and could never be a professional athlete but it's it's nice you know this challenge is great because it's going to test all kinds of stuff you know a fast marathon and it's a test, but it's a physical and mental shift for three hours in threshold.

24:53So it's high, it's low, it's rough, it's grim, but it's kind of like, you know, it's over, you know, the majority of the race is probably all right. Then there's a proper pain chamber for, you know, it could be an hour, maybe two, you know, whereas like, this is a bit different. I wrote something, I posted on the finish post last night, just, I can't actually remember exactly what I said, I wrote it from the sauna and actually that was a strange idea because my, I felt like there's a really good chance I might black out in the sauna.

25:27I'll just read it. Cause it's probably easier. Where is my, yeah. So I said, what a wild experience that was day one done today. I covered 226 kilometers. Like if you think about that, it's, it's, it's a lot, it's 140 miles, right? Like in a day, it's fucking, from start to finish. 11 hours and 38 minutes of endurance sport, the first of seven Ironman distance triathlons in 21 days. The highs were high and the lows were low. This kind of interesting experience makes you truly understand who you are and what you're made of. Despite it being one of my hardest physical achievements, all in all, I loved it and very much welcomed the rest of the challenge, although I'm truly uncertain about its outcome as this has never been achieved before.

26:13and I can now more clearly understand why. Tomorrow we travel to Arizona for the official Ironman event this Sunday. I'll be the most depleted person there by a long way, but keen to get stuck in, proud of Team Project 7 and what was achieved today. It's just, it's hard, it's genuinely, it's pretty difficult to explain. And also, look, I've not even done an Ironman event yet, right? So that comes on Sunday and that will be a completely different experience to this. Like this was music, friends, like camaraderie, fun, like hometown. Like, but it was also, but that also makes it quite grim because it's just like you're in Regent's Park and Hyde Park and it's raining and you know where you are.

27:02And you know that a full loop of Hyde Park is only like 6K and you know that the inner loop of Regent's Park. So there's no surprise anywhere. You know, like when we go to Cape Town, even if you're looping something, it will be new and interesting and fun and cool. And, you know, you'll stop in some cafe that you're unfamiliar with and you don't know what they serve. And, you know, it could be really cool. You know, and it's like the whole thing is a bit more of an adventure. Like yesterday, yesterday didn't feel like the start of an adventure. It felt like a very grueling punishment.

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30:01can we just talk about i think maybe one of the things that people might not realize and again this you sort of alluded to it there about the big difference between sort of running consecutive marathons compared to doing like uh all these triathlons full distance triathlons the logistics involved right so there's a lot of moments within that that can go wrong essentially and there's a lot more to think about you're stringing together so many more things so many more locations and And, you know, especially because you're not obviously, apart from Arizona, they're not races that are organized. Now, you've had to sort of figure all this stuff out and you and your team.

30:38The other thing you throw into that is also, especially when you're in London, you're starting off, you want to get pressed, you want to do this. You know, there's all these other things you've got to think about. And those things don't always go to plan. So I wonder if you could just quickly tell us about the slight chaos of trying to get a picture of the Spotify billboard.

30:59Oh my God. Yeah. So, so obviously we do this awesome podcast untapped, which is, um, which is a love of my life. And, um, and, uh, Spotify reached out to us and put a massive billboard of us up in Leicester square. And they were like, we see you're doing project seven that day. You're swimming in the city and you're cycling a region's park. Is there any way that you could cycle through Leicester square? And, you know, firstly, check out the billboard and get a picture of it. and just give it a bit of air time. We were like, hang on a sec, you want me to drive through Leicester Square to see a big billboard of myself?

31:34Yeah, sure. We can probably make that work. And we get there. It's just like chaos in Leicester Square. It's just like there's vans and buses everywhere. Well, not buses. There's big, big like huge, because I think there must be some huge premiere on or something this weekend. it's all the bars and restaurants have their trucks loading and unloading all of the drink and food for that day basically so there's like nine trucks just driving around leicester square it's crazy you basically can't see the billboard right there's this monster like truck in front of our billboard and it's like changing over and it's like keira knightley's new film which looks great and then it's like loads of these incredible films and then it's our massive like untapped thing and like when I first arrive it's it's on it's there and like we have this moment where it's really incredible and then it goes away and then it comes back and then it goes away and then it comes back and there was a big you know van there and we arrive and then we see you and then the van moves uh oh also I really I really needed the the toilet like badly so I needed the toilet before the swim right but I couldn't um because I was so nervous I couldn't I just couldn't quite go but I kind of knew I needed to so I then got fully wetsuited up at the house when this thing's on you're not finding a reason to take it off it's like a second skin obviously if you desperately need the loo you of course would take it off so anyway I get out of the water and I'm like I need I absolutely must go to the toilet so I get let into this office and then the toilet's out of order the bloke won't let me in i'm like i actually like i i don't really mind that it's out of order and like you know as it's already out of order like i can just i can just make it even more out of order and he was like no no you can't um you can't you can't go in and i was like okay cool and we end up jumping on the bikes right i'm like you know when you feel like there's a chance that you might actually have to go on yourself right like like literally that's where i was and i'm like get on the bike and i cycle and i'm in my mind i'm like i can't I'm even going to have to cycle the whole way to Leicester Square to go to the toilet.

33:53So I get to Leicester Square, billboards up. Matt's like, oh, let's take a picture. I'm like, wait, please, I really need the loot. Going to Burger King, they tell me that I can't use the toilet. I'm like, why not? And they're like, well, you need to buy something. I was like, all right, I'll buy a burger. They're like, we're not open. I was like, can I just use the bathroom? They're like, no, you can't use the bathroom. So I was like, okay. so I pop into Jolly Bee a very jolly little man welcomed me and let me use the bathroom fell down the stairs properly because I'm in my cleats right so I step onto the stairs fall back and luge down the stairs the whole way down the stairs the entire way down the stairs to the bathroom basically luge and then got into the bathroom don't think I need to tell you what happened in the bathroom but it was an almighty experience, a wonderful experience, actually.

34:50I'm not sure what was more satisfying, arriving at the gates of Buckingham Palace, having finished my first full-distance triathlon or the Jollibee release. Anyway, we then come out, and the bus has moved. Not a bus, the van has moved or whatever it is. And then we're stood ready to take this photo, and it just doesn't come. goes like kira knightley like gerard butler like spotify benedict cumberbatch and i was like bloody hell's our thing and it's just like we stood there for about 10 minutes it just wasn't like we're messaging spotify going like have you taken the billboard down because like we're here um and uh and it just wasn't coming another van pulls in you know like you know where this is going anyway and then like obviously we get the thing comes back up we can't take the photo because a bloody van there now and then like you know over and over again the thing and we eventually got a clean photo and got back on the bike bosh off to regents park one one other thing to note in that story as well is whilst you were trying to get the picture one of these trucks that we had sort of had very kindly said they would get out of our way then proceeded to reverse into one of the other trucks oh yeah it took its wing mirror off um so can we can we just do a quick comparison and then we'll preview Arizona a little bit later.

36:14So when you talked about the 1330, when you referenced it on the podcast before, so you talked about the sort of prep of that, how you were kind of, you controlled all the controllables, you know, you had all this tech, you know, there wasn't a sort of a moment that wasn't sort of thought about. This one, it feels like there's a lot more of a sort of jump into the unknown, like, and kind of yesterday, well, I guess was that first step into what that is like. Like, what's the sort of mindset shift now for you from, you know, the 30 mountains desert that was much more like you kind of, you felt pretty comfortable you were going to do it.

36:48You know, the idea was to complete it and that was, it was to sort of execute it. Does this feel more like, can I do it? There is absolutely no guarantee that I will do this. In my opinion. I think I, like, I won't give up, but like doing it and completing it kind of like i suppose those are the same thing like you know if i have to cycle at seven kilometers an hour for 180k i'll do that you know if my legs are battered i'll tape up my legs and and i'll find a way of hobbling you know my way around these courses but i think i have to do these within 18 hours for them to count that was a bit of a wake cup call yesterday right the whole thing taking 14 45 because actually nothing nothing went wrong didn't did it quite fast right in my opinion um so you know there was plenty of press and stops and stuff that we probably won't have to do anywhere else um and i suppose you know a three hour 15 window is quite a lot uh you know but if something did go badly wrong and you had to cycle at, you know, snail's pace for 150K, that's going to take absolutely ages, like ages and ages.

38:06So it's hard to tell where this is going to go. The element of being able to rinse and repeat the winning formula is a nonsense, right? Because it's like in the desert, once we found that thing that worked, we could just do the exact same thing every day. We ate the same food every day because it didn't make us sick, right? So like getting sick in the desert would have been a big problem because at times we were 300 kilometers from the nearest hospital. So that journey in itself through the sand would take ages. Then you've got to be seen in the hospital. Then you've got to come back to camp if you're allowed, if you can get back to camp.

38:46And there's a chance you miss your, you know, the marathon the following day, which means that you break your consecutive, you know, string of marathons, which means the whole thing's over. So getting ill, big problem in the desert. I mean, getting seriously ill, obviously, if you're just chucking up, like you're still just going to do it. But like, I mean, I mean, like, you know, if you're properly ill, the problem, food poisoning would be a real problem in the desert. So, yeah, mate, this is savage, what we're doing. Like the logistics of this, I like, I don't mind even saying these, saying it in this way.

39:20If we pull this off in the way that it's designed, it's a masterpiece. like not from me or anything like from the full team i'd say that the chances of us finishing when we're supposed to finish are like five percent maybe because like you only have to miss a flight or a bike has to go missing uh or or you know whatever really like like you should see the bangs right i'll send you a video that we have we're traveling like kim kardashian and her entire family would travel to, you know, Paris or the Maldives. Like, we've packed everything into, like, tons of bags. And, you know, something has to go wrong.

40:07Also, let me give you a taste of what's about to happen. So we fly to Arizona today, check into a hotel. Tomorrow, it's sort of a day off, but it is, you know, we've got to go and plan. We've got to sign into the race. You've got to drop off the bike. You've got to go to the various things. So there's a good three, four hours of admin-y shit that I have to do tomorrow. And I say I because obviously Chris does admin all the time. I have to be present for that. I can't put my feet up and sleep all day, which would be lovely, but can't do that. So out and about in Arizona, which is fine, looking forward to that and experiencing Arizona.

40:43Ironman Arizona. I'll finish Ironman Arizona probably quite slowly. I won't be the people doing it. the average time for a man um is about 12 hours 12 and a half hours for an iron man i'll be slower than that i'll be 14 and a half hours maybe maybe i'd look i'd love to do it faster but like if i feel any kind of issue i'm just going to take it nice and steady i say this now i'll end up racing obviously and i'll probably i was literally just about to say it and now because it's a race i know you're just going to see people go and you're going to want to like keep up with them i know but you know, not at the expense of the help.

41:23Let's see what we can do. Let's see what we can do. I'd like to just take it nice and easy, motor through it, stop at the food stops, load up on food. You know, let's just, you know, just do it well. You know, just, you know, I don't think anybody's expecting me to win this thing. Get to the end of Ironman Arizona. I believe we get back to the hotel around 10 p.m., something like that. So we get back to the hotel around 10. at 5 a.m. or 4 a.m., we're leaving the hotel to go to Cape Town. So we'll get back at 10. We'll probably chill. We'll probably catch up. I won't have seen my team for the day.

41:59So, like, we'll have a debrief and a chat. I'll have an hour of physio probably. And I'll probably end up going to bed at, like, 12, right? Maybe, you know, fall asleep at 1, something like that. Best case scenario, I get four hours sleep, three to four hours sleep after Ironman Arizona. so like the body will shut off and i'll have to wake it up again just just as it's you know trying to repair itself then we are flying to cape town which i believe is like a 23 hour journey with a stop right so like and we're we we're on a budget all flights are economy you know like like i i'm well i might actually see if i can upgrade at the airport's gonna but they're like all flights are economy all flights are economy apparently and we probably won't get a seat it's iron man arizona do you know what i mean everyone will be leaving arizona um so jump jump on i i actually can't remember where we're flying to but there's a stop in the US Salt Lake, something like that.

43:08Atlanta, indeed. So we fly to Atlanta, a couple of hours, two, three hours in the airport. And then we fly over to Cape Town the wrong way, essentially. So when you're flying west to east, you lose time. You know, if you're flying from London to New York, you can make a lunch meeting, you know, because you gain the five hour time difference, right, by flying that way. So this is the opposite of that. It's a long haul flight and you're losing like your rest day, essentially. So after Ironman Arizona and getting hardly any sleep and changing and flying to Cape Town, we'll get to the hotel in Cape Town at about 10 p.m.

43:48and at 4 a.m. I'm in the water the following day. So that sucks. Like that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that would be like us doing the Arizona Ironman tomorrow morning at 4am basically like, but, but with, you know, with a lot, yeah, similar, similar. Although Arizona is a direct flight. But coming, but, and I wouldn't have any jet lag going to Arizona. I won't have any jet lag. Whereas like I will have jet lag coming back this way. like I recently went to New York on business for three days and came home and I was fucked like like I got back here couldn't sleep you know waking up at two in the morning like you know like a real problem the way the jet lag doesn't matter so much as long as you get the sleep so we'll see but it's um that's going to be crap and then we're going to Perth I think in Perth we have a full day off so there will be the chance to just like sit there have you know two three hours of physio drink you know 10 liters of lovely water you know with all of the right bits in it and and just you know just just really relax for you know a day but essentially yeah we don't we don't have a day to do that now until perth which i believe is like thursday next week well what's nice about that little three-day stint you've got now so you did london yesterday arizona then over to cape town is you would have done that horrible journey and three triathlons ironman distance triathlons and you will nearly be halfway through we also just can't get into the habit of like looking to the end of next week and going oh by then i will have done this it's kind of like this is a real real unknown like i would run a marathon a day every day for a very long time over this like for sure um you know and that's not that's not me having a dig at my previous challenge or anyone else who's running multi-day marathons it's just it's a very different style of of event this you know the the different disciplines being chucked in together are pretty hard on the body particularly the long cycle into the run is is pretty it's pretty wild like i think i'm actually there's a little part of me that's hoping and johnny the physio made this point last night that my body may begin to adapt to it slightly um so that by the time we get to like perth you know it it may feel a bit easier you'll be lighter um you know your legs will have an awful lot of mileage in them like you know your your brain will tell your body like this is happening now so just you know match it you know when tom beard and i were on everest filming finding Michael, Tom's filming our, is directing this documentary that we're making now.

46:40It's insane like what just being somewhere, putting your body through something does, you know, change-wise, like upper altitude, your body just chucks off muscle and any weight that you don't need. Up there, you don't need big muscles because you're not lifting anything heavy. So it just gets rid of it. You know, it's like you're not, nobody is up there moving around, like reorganizing the furniture or anything like but you know because it's you'd be completely shagged and out of breath so literally up there you're thin well let's move on a little bit then so what what would you say then you sort of described the various points of it was there like one absolute like toughest moment where you thought we're we're in trouble here yeah definitely looping looping the looping hyde park when it was raining and cold and miserable I thought there was a real chance of hypothermia just because not because of the temperature.

47:33Obviously, in 12 or 13 degrees, you're never going to get hypothermic. But when you've pushed your body to extreme lengths, you're just depleted generally. So temperature is almost less important. Like you can have issues with temperature even when it's warm. You know, I went hypothermic at the end of the Jungle Ultra in the Amazon rainforest when I crossed the finish line in 26 degrees. so like it actually it actually doesn't um it's to do with exertion and just how how depleted your body is so i thought there's half a chance of that also just like you know when you're when you're slow lapping hyde park and you realize you've got six more full laps to do after the day that we'd had i was just a bit like that's so long like it's just you know and and when that when the boredom start, when you start to go like, you do the maths in your head, you look down at your watch and you go like, right, I'm clocking like five, 10 Ks, five minute, 10 seconds per kilometer.

48:40Like, yeah. Which by the way is like not bad moving, I don't think after the bike. And you look down and you go, right, at this rate, we are going to be here for, you know, three hours and, you know, 30 minutes if we don't break. but you know if we have issues with uh the wet the cold the you know the potential hypothermia then we will have to break and obviously if anyone in my team wasn't feeling great we would you know stop and look after them as well you know it's just there was there was the potential for something to go wrong and also like it's really easy when you're shattered for motivation just to dissipate you know this is where the discipline motivation thing comes in it's like The discipline thing to do is just to keep going.

49:26And just, you know, your legs hurt, your mind hurts, your body hurts, you're freezing wet, you're cold, it's dark. Everyone's at home, you know, cuddling their kids, you know, having a lovely pizza and you're out here doing this. And it's a case of, you know, it'll all be over soon and you just got to crack on. If Sean hadn't come with that boombox, it would have been a different ending. You said that, you know, I was energetic and lively when I got to the end. that's because of Sean and the music genuinely I was not like Chris and I weren't happy we weren't talking like we were running and we were just like kind of head down you know charging on and then Chris pulled off to do some admin which he absolutely did need to do and you know Johnny jumped in and he was a bit more energetic but like you know I'd kind of lost my energy by then I violently threw up as well um which we have on camera I just never know whether to post these things it's quite disgusting um everyone like it's people message me going like oh the reason you don't get the credit you deserve is because you make it look easy it's like do you want to see me shitting in a bush or like what do you want i'd like i don't know like what about yesterday looked easy by the way it's just fucking nonsense in their defense anyone could shit in a bush yeah yeah it doesn't require any talent really looking at arizona then what's you know obviously unique in the sense that it's actually a race so but also you're going from rainy london to basically the desert so what's the sort of unique challenge now of arizona i would take the desert over rainy london anytime to be honest it's uh it's part of the reason we chose the desert for for last year's thing um i i love the desert i love the heat um so yeah i i uh yeah can't wait for antarctica uh i yeah no i um i i like the desert mate arizona is cool you know it's in the US.

51:14I love the US. I love American people. The whole thing will be super high energy. It'll be great fun. I genuinely, the only concern I have at this stage is that the, I can't remember what they're called, but the muscles just on the inside of my, that link essentially my lower leg to my thigh are quite rare. Not rare, everyone has them. Raw. They're quite raw and pretty banged up. So I'm just hoping that that kind of really calms down ahead of that race. We have got a couple of messages from some friends of yours. Hi, Spam buddy. It's me, Jamie. Just sending you a video to wish you good luck on your challenge.

52:00Monumental, my friend. Dig deep. I know you will. You're mentally stronger than anyone. You're going to kill it for an amazing cause. James's place. Just good luck. I'm going to be cheering you all the way wishing you all luck all the way going to knock this out of the park and I can't wait to see you on the other side it's nice isn't it and we've got we've got one more Spencer, Ben and Kat here we've just come off air and we wanted to send you all the best we do, no one likes a show off but it seems like you are which is what makes you magical seven Ironmen on seven continents Or a glutton for punishment.

52:42It's hard to say, but we're wishing you all the best of luck. Go for it, dude. You can do it. You've prepared physically, you've prepared mentally, and as long as you've taken enough Vaseline and Louvre to cope with the friction, the lights are even going off here, then you'll be absolutely fine. It was when he said Vaseline and Louvre. Yeah, it all goes dark when you bring up the Louvre. Hold on. There's our lighting director. Good luck, mate. We will be cheering you on from the sidelines. Can't wait to hear all about it. I should probably go upstairs and pack some of the lube then. I'd left that out.

53:20How's it feel to get a couple of nice messages? Didn't realise we needed any lube.

53:28That feels absolutely lovely. No, it's a shame Jamie couldn't make it yesterday. You know, obviously they're expecting a child and I think he was in with Sophie for a scan. but that's fine I'm not really expecting people to you know we're not doing this so that we can attract you know crowds of people to say that you know things are going well or whatever honestly we're doing this with James's place it was awesome to see everyone like I loved like the people who came were great but there was absolutely no expectation for me for anyone to show up so all of it was just a bit of a bonus including you Simon coming twice so lovely no but no that's kind he has messaged me this morning asking how he is generally He is genuinely curious about this kind of stuff.

54:12And, you know, he enjoys a good tale. So I'm sure I'll catch up with him in Arizona. And yeah, lovely to hear from the This Morning sofa as well. What a pleasure. I have to finish packing and we're leaving in like seven minutes. We're doing this to raise money for, and awareness, for James' place, who help men in suicidal crisis. and we believe that they are an incredible charity and we would love it if you could subscribe, support and share our content because ultimately you could help us save some lives.

54:59During Lowe's Pro Savings Days, my Lowe's Pro Rewards members can save up to 20 % when they buy more job site materials. Save 20 % when you buy 30 or more select bats and rolls of fiberglass insulation. 24 more cartons or pails of joint compound, tape, and bead. Or when you spend$200 or more on 3M painting and job site essentials. Members get more at Lowe's. Valid through 925. While supplies last. Selection varies by location. Program subject to terms and conditions. See lowes.com slash terms for details. Subject to change. Hi, I'm Nick, co-host of The Best One Yet. You optimize your workouts, your portfolios, and that rando startup idea that hit you in the middle of the shower.

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57:00Thank you.