Danny Jones Podcast - #142 - Why Swimming Through Shark Infested Ice Water is Good For Your Brain | Ryan Stramrood

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

Ryan Stramrood is a multiple Guinness World Record holder for ultra-extreme open water and ice swimming. Ryan is rated globally as one of the top 50 extreme swimming athletes in the world. Ryan's death-defying accomplishments have uncovered some of the deepest psychological myths of the human mind. Ryan's book - https://amzn.to/3tJHfWn https://ryanstramrood.com https://www.instagram.com/ryan_stramrood Follow Danny https://www.instagram.com/jonesdanny  https://twitter.com/jonesdanny Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What got you into these crazy marathon swims in Arctic waters? A journey got me there. You know, you definitely don't wake up one morning and say, I want to do the kind of thing that I'm doing. You know, obviously I've specialized in the ultra-extreme ice water stuff. So, and eventually pushing boundaries, firstly my own and then eventually the boundaries of what was meant to be humanly possible.

So I've taken it to the nth degree. And again, that's not something you decide to do. it's something that slowly evolves. You know, I was, you know, just to backtrack a little bit, I think a wonderful part of my story is that at the age of 30 years old, 30, I would say 30 and everyone thinks in America I'm saying 50, but 30, 30, I've done nothing. I'm 48 years old now and I was a couch potato doing very little

and running an advertising business back in South Africa, doing really well and enjoying life and relatively, was active but then that kind of slid into the couch and one day I just decided to to make a change and um you know I took a client away and he said well join my little swimming squad and I hadn't done any swimming for many many years up until that point I thought well I've always enjoyed the water so let me get in the pool and I managed to do a few lengths before I almost vomited because I put myself in the frost lane and then you know ego kicks in you try and keep up with the guys who have been there for years and you've just on on number one

session one. And I stuck to it. And that just started an unbelievable process. So where were you the first time you did one of these ultramarathons? Like where was it? Was it in like freezing temperatures? No. So if anyone's been to Cape Town and had a swim in our waters in Camps Bay and Clifton, they're really, really beautiful. I encourage everyone to come, but the water is cold. It is, you know, I'm going to use the metric system. So we'll have to do some conversions into imperial for you. But the water is around about 14, about probably 45 degrees Fahrenheit is what you find and that is quite chilly. So you are exposed to the cold water. If you ever want to get out the swimming pool and into the ocean, I don't wear any wetsuits or any grease or anything like

that. It's purely sort of a brief or a speedo type costume, one cap and goggles. And so I started to be exposed to the cold quite a lot. And there's a small, back in the day, there's a small swimming community that used to do short distances in these conditions. And I sort of joined them and started to be exposed to the cold and then taking on more. And eventually someone challenged me to do a swim from Robin Island to the beach. Now, Robin Island is where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years incarcerated. And the swim from Robin Island to the beach at that stage, it's a seven and a half kilometer. So what's at about five miles?

Wow. And it's cold water. and it's quite scary water, to put it bluntly. What coast is that off, is that island off of? It is Table Bay, so it's right at the tip of Africa. Right at the bottom tip? Right at the bottom tip. Wow.

That is a sharky place. That is a sharky place. Yeah. So that, you know, we'll get into that because that's where a lot of the psychology of what I do comes into it. But just in the early days, you know, if someone swam from Robin Island to the beach, it made front page headlines. It was a big accomplishment. And I remember looking at these people who are doing it.

And, you know, every now and then maybe once a year, someone would do it. And they'd make the headlines. And I'd just be in awe. I mean, who can do that? It's just insane. Crazy, crazy stuff. And eventually somebody set me the challenge. Well, hey, you're not enjoying your swimming in the swimming pool.

Why don't you try, set Robin Island as a challenge? And it was absolutely insane for me. But long story short, I ended up giving it. at a go after training for about six months and making it and then starting to realize a little bit about myself that what I thought was impossible for me or reserved for better humans was actually well within my grasp and that set me on quite an interesting journey so it was one part of the journey the other part of the journey was I started through so much exposure to the element of cold I started to realize just how unbelievably impactful the element of cold is on the human body

but more importantly on the human mind. So we haven't as humans evolved well at all to handle the cold, but we've evolved exceptionally well to avoid it. So if you throw yourself into cold water, your body, and most importantly, your mind implements some highly evolved and very powerful defense mechanisms to make sure you get out of that situation. So you get pain and panic and fear and hyperventilation, all this kind of happens in your head.

And, you know, if the water is really cold, you often denied the ability of rational thought. And it just wants you to get out of that water because reality is if you stay in without protection, you're going to die. You're going to cool, the water is going to cool you down to its temperature. That's just science. It's going to happen. And through repeated exposures, I started to realize just how overzealous this unbelievably powerful defense mechanism in my head was, trying to get me out long before I actually needed to.

So there is an end point. I acknowledge that. There isn't impossible. I'm just on a sidebar. I'm the inspirational speaker who's made an international career not saying that anything is possible. I actually say there is an impossible. There is an end point. Let's be real.

But where your mind tells you the endpoint is is not where it is. And that's kind of the crux of what I preach in a much more entertaining way. And I started to figure all of this out that there's a line that your mind wants you to go back to comfort. And that's to keep you alive, which is great for the survival of our species and all of this, but it's way over zealous. I'm sure that has to compromise for a major chunk, a large degree of the human brain is probably designed to keep you away from dangerous situations. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that is what we evolved to do is to stay alive. And that makes complete sense, and it's obviously a very useful defense mechanism to have.

But it holds us back. But it holds us back, you know, and it usually, 19. 99% of the time it happens subconsciously. So it's something that happens at the back of your brain. You hit a uncomfortable situation and you steer towards comfort. That's absolutely normal. Now, when you throw yourself into cold water, that what usually happens subconsciously comes bouncing to the front of your brain.

And you actually notice it. Like, hang on, it wants me out right now. I can't think of anything. So here's an example. That Robin Island swim I spoke about. Yeah. I did it the first time. It was my absolute Everest.

I've now done it at one. 222 times. So no one in the world has ever done it more than me. So it has become quite a routine. In summer, when I've got more daylight hours, I go out to the island. I'm there by six in the morning. I swim maybe two, two and a bit hours to get to the beach and I'm in the office before 9 a.m. So it's routine. But I tell you that, because on each and every single one of those crossings, which is now routine for me, I get negative. There is, at some point I start to look for reasons why I can get back into that support boat that's alongside me, rather than stay in the water and make it across to the beach.

And I started to become fascinated as to why this is. I mean, here's something I know I'm going to make it to the beach, yet my mind is just telling me and looking for every excuse under the sun to get me out. Now, you mentioned sharks, a cold water swimmer, I promise you, sometimes praise for a shark. Just let the support crew see a fin because then they will pull me out the water, and it won't be my fault. I didn't fail because it was a shock.

You start to actively look for reasons why you can fail, not why you should stay in and succeed. And once I started to figure all of this out, I started to realize just how applicable it is, what I'm experiencing in the cold water. And as the colder you get, the more brutal it becomes or more profound it becomes, is happening in everyday life to every single one of us, especially in the corporate environment. It is absolutely quite profound. And the reason I reckon, and I'm no scientist, but I figured that. us out through many, many swimming expeditions is that that defense mechanism that is designed to keep us safe, the side effect, just to keep us safe from running into a fire or running off a cliff, I suppose, the side effect is it's also designed to keep us safe from the emotional

pain that comes from failure. Because when we fail, there's a little bit of hurt, there's consequences, humiliation, there's all those things that go with it. So when we see an environment or a decision that we might take or a step we might take that could advance us, but it could also lead to failure, because we don't know what's on the other side of the line. It's not in our lane. We naturally just gravitate back to staying in the lane and delivering nice, steady performance, perhaps,

but just not excelling and not learning and not growing. Jordan, could you pull up a map of that island? What was the name of the island? Robin. Robin. Robin. R-O-B-E-N. Yeah, pull up a map.

I want to see what that looks like. So off in the distance, that is mainland? land? Yeah, we can swim there. That's the further route, but you can swim to Bloberg Beach, which isn't in that picture. But you get the shortest route is 7.5 kilometers, about five miles. If you swim to Table Mountain, that's about 10, 11 kilometers. Now, I'm sure you've seen the video of Mick Fanning getting attacked by that Great White Shark in the middle of a freaking televised surf contest. Like, that does not, how does that, I mean, that is like one of the most terrifying things. That is, like, the epitome of my worst nightmare.

And that places, whole South Africa is infested with those sharks and seals and stuff like that, swimming everywhere. But you're surrounded by boats that are constantly watching for this stuff and looking out for sharks? So, yes. So firstly, my comment on the Mick Fanning situation, and he wasn't attacked

by the shark. The shark wanted to attack him. It would be a different outcome. I think I got stuck in his leash or something. So it was checking him out just to see what he is, but sharks are not man-eaters. I think we all know this. And in the daylight. They, obviously, they're opportunistic predators, so they want to come and see what you are.

So they'll get nice and close and maybe, and on the rare occasion, they take a bite and they take an arm and maybe kill you in the process, but I really mean to. And we call it a shark attack, which I totally understand. But 99.9% of the time that they check you out and realize you're not what they eat and they're very often. I think in Mick's case came a bit too close and got stuck in his leash. And, I mean, just looking at the video that I saw. But yes, I'm not surrounded by boats, but generally if I'm doing an open water swim, I will have a support crew alongside.

So there will be a boat and, you know, someone looking out for the wildlife. Do they have like a really tall tower so they can have like a nice aerial view? No, it's a rubber duck. It's a little zordia. Because you can't see much from one of those little rubber boats. No, you take the chance. You do the maths and you realize you're going to be okay. But to be honest, the shark that you spot is not the shark you need to worry about.

Right. We've got the Great White is what's prolific down in the waters I swim in. And that comes, if it's going to take you, it comes from below and it breaches and it's made its mind up long ago than it's going to do it. It's been watching you a lot longer than you've been watching it. Because you haven't seen it, and it is it comes in for the attack. What draw drew you to doing, was it more of like the adrenaline rush of doing this? Because it seems like kind of making a trek like that, it almost seems like the equivalent

of skydiving to me. Probably, and skydiving still on my bucket list that never have time to do it. So, yes, there is an element of that, but I'm not a cowboy. My journey is, you know, I started to, I was totally unsporty, as I said, I was sitting on the couch and I started to do

these swims that I didn't realize I could do and they were reserved in my head for other people. And it's the element of cold that fascinated me, the element of how that impacted me and trying to go a little bit cold and a little bit further. And, you know, swimming with the sharks

is just a side effect because they all there where I do my training and my swims. Does it add to it? It absolutely adds to it. It's a psychology. So swimming in cold, swimming is obviously a very extraneous sport. When you're in it, you're tired, you're physically fatigued. There's salt water. You're mostly stung on nearly every swim.

They're jellyfish in blue bottles and things. So it's extremely uncomfortable. Then you throw in the element of cold, which really impacts you mentally. and kicks in those defense mechanisms I spoke about. Then you throw in the psychology that you're looking deep down into the blue abyss and you know what's down there. And even though you haven't seen it, it's probably seen you. And that just pings on your psychology as well and your state of mind to continue in what is often a very difficult challenge. And all of that put together makes open water swimming, certainly in my neck of the woods, a very, very, very tough sport,

which makes you quite mentally resilient. if you do it more and if you manage to compartmentalize those fears and, you know, I don't want to say it's irrationality because it's quite rational being scared of shocks. But you put it in a place in your head and once you practice that enough, you start to be able to do it with other stuff and move forward in a direction that many can't. How did you learn to control that part of your brain that's just cycling through those scenarios that are designed to get you out of the situation because I've been in a lot of those situations. I've spent a lot of time in the ocean, whether it be diving or sailing or surfing, where I've been in like, like, hairy situations that I really

wanted to get out of. And I know what you're talking about. My mind has been there before. How, I mean, spending hours and hours in the ocean like that, it must, like, there must be some sort of evolution of, of your way of thinking, spending that much. time in the water. How did you learn to control that? Through repeated exposures. And I do a little bit of homework before and you have a look at what the odds are. Is it likely that if I swim for that many hours in that body of water that I'm going to attack? And it's always highly, highly unlikely, but not impossible. And it's that little thing as humans can't let go of, that chance. I mean, if you drive two miles down the road, you don't think what are the odds of me getting killed on this trip? It's possible. But you're still

going to do it. You visit something you do every day and I've just, you know, so I put it in the same place really. Maybe it's a little bit more extreme. So, you know, I, let me tell you this story. So I think I control it really well and I do. I'm right up there with with the top. However, when I'm swimming, you've got to find a very clear zone in your head because sometimes I'm doing great distances and it's 10, 12, 13, 14 hours swims nonstop in the cold. And you've got to go to a certain zone in your mind to be able to handle that because you're not you're not there to worry about shocks you're there to worry about your body and pacing yourself and making sure you you get to the other side shocks and everything else that stings you and it's under you that scares you

is is a byproduct so i put it to the side but every now and then my handle hit a jellyfish or hit a piece of kelp and the reaction to that inside my body is a jolt it's like an electric shock and that's when you realize you're just harboring that fear just slightly left of center. So it's not front of brain anymore. It's just to the side, but it's still there. But I'm not aware of it while I'm swimming. I go into a zone and I separate myself from it, but it comes rushing back when you when you bump that object. Right, right, right. I know what you're talking about. What is the longest swim you've ever done? At this point, it's the English Channel. So it took me just short of 13 hours to get across, but I had very rough conditions and it should have been a bit

A bit shorter than that. 13 hours. Yeah, 12 hours and 554 minutes. Non-stop? Non-stop, yeah. Jesus, you don't stop to get water or anything like that? You just have to drink water, right? So you've got a support boat,

and you will stop on whatever your agreed feed schedule is. So every 30 minutes I will stop, and they will throw me a carb drink, because the one thing you know about the English channel, you know, I'm sure your listeners are familiar with carboloading. any athlete is, you eat as much pasta, whatever, to get as much carbs and you serve to fill the tank up. Now, in an English Channel swim in cold water, which turned out in my day to be extremely rough as well, there is no way you can carb load enough to get you across.

So at some stage, your tank is going to run dry. You drink carb drinks all the way through, but again, you deplete more than you can possibly put in. So you're going to hit the wall. But you do feed. We call it feed, but it's mostly liquids that you take in. Right. So it's not like I swim 13 hours without stopping or having a drink. A lot of people don't realize that you still need to drink, hydrate when you're swimming.

But you don't get out of the water. No, no. You're not allowed to touch anything that helps you. So you start clear of the water. So your ankles must be outside of the water. And then you swim in terms of the English Channel. You start in Dover. And then you swim all the way across to France.

And then you've got to clear the water. Once your ankles are clear of the water, your swim stops. What do you wear when you do these? swims. A speedo? Is that a brand here? I'm sure it is. Yeah. Speedo, one silicone cap and goggles. That's it. That's it. You're not even allowed to wear one of these GPS watches or you're not allowed to wear those aqua music things in your ears or anything that helps you. Is there a benefit to only wearing is, oh, that's you right there. Is there a benefit to only wearing a speedo and a swim cap? Or does it, would a wet suit hinder you at all? Not hinder. The opposite. So there's no benefit in wearing the

speeder. It's the purest side of the sport. So a challenge like the English channel, it's pretty much, as a crow flies, it's about 35 kilometers, but you're going to swim about 40, 41 self-propelled on the day. And that is obviously a huge challenge in itself, but anyone can get that level of fitness if you

dedicated enough and you put in the hours. But the real challenge of that, and that Robin Island swim, and most of the cold water swims, the challenge is the cold. So the challenge is, performing when your mind is screaming at you that you are you're on your way out and that's the real challenge so if you put on a wetsuit it takes that all away plus a wetsuit gives you buoyancy so you sit a little higher and it reduces the drag and so your times increase a lot on so wetsuits are

huge help let's put it that way did you start out just like going sitting in cold tubs at all or did you just dive right did you jump straight into ultra marathons in ice cold water No, definitely started slowly. So as I said, you know, in Cape Town, the water is cold. So you start with a level of cold. Right. And that triggered my fascination with the mental process of handling the cold. And once I'd done everything in and around Cape Town, I looked a little bit further to see where else I could swim.

In fact, my first international trip for the cold was to Alaska. There's an island called the Pennock Island there, where most of the locals do the swim around an island annually. I think it's about a 12 kilometer circumference, and the water's around about 12 degrees Celsius as well. I have to get my cheat sheet for Fahrenheit, do the conversions. And I think many of the locals do it in wetsuits, so we went to see we could do it in our speedos, and you know, you learn a lot about yourself. And then slowly, but surely I've worked my way to Siberia and then ultimately Antarctica. I think I heard somewhere that swimming is the most taxing type of cardio exercise that you can do

because your body is unable to sweat. You're unable to perspire in the water. So it actually takes the most out of your body than anything else. Well, I've never heard that, to be honest, because I think you do sweat. Although you, I don't know. Yeah. Well, that's why you have to hydrate.

You know, a lot of people think you're in water, so you don't have to drink water, which doesn't make a lot of sense. No. Even though it's cold water, you are physically exerting quite tactically. Swimming's a difficult sport, especially when, you know,

if you take water, that's absolutely flat like a mirror. Swimming can be strenuous. But you really get that. So generally there's even a small wind that whips the water up, even a foot of chop, where you're a foot of chop, and that totally changes your swim.

Because now you're not just self-propelling. You need, you have to buoy, you use muscles to keep yourself stable as well, stabilizes. So you've got to train all of that as well. So that uses great exertion. Have you ever read David Goggins book? No, which one.

I forget what it's called. I think it's his only book, or is his latest book. I listen to the audio version. He basically tells his story of how he did Buds, Navy Seal, the underwater demolition training course. That's why it's in my head. Someone recommended it to me the other day. It reminds me a lot of what you do.

He talks about, because he failed it, I think, twice because of fractures in his legs. He had like splinter spider cracks in his leg bones. and he had to go back and do it and he talks about how they have to like tread water for 30 minutes. And that must be a breeze for someone like you. I do it in my pool every once in a while. I'll try to I'll try to doggie paddle for like 15 minutes and I'm completely exhausted after doggy paddling for 15 minutes. Oh, it takes the life out of me. Yeah.

It is very strange. But you can train for that like anything else. You can and I'm very well trained for that. So I'm a fit swimmer. I keep myself very swimming fit. And that takes a lot of work and a lot of dedication, a lot of hours, mostly in the swimming pool, but you also got to get out there in the open ocean. When you're not, when you're like preparing for one of these long swims, do you like daily go get into ice water?

Is that like a daily ritual for you or part of your daily routine? If I could, I would, but it's not that practical. So I live in Africa, it's hot. And we don't have a lot of ice water. We've got cold water in the ocean, but when I've done, you know, I've eventually graduated to doing stuff in the real cold, so 40 degrees Fahrenheit below. And that's where things get hyper, hyper, ultra extreme. When I'm doing a challenge like that, then I will make sure I'm very fit and I will have lots of cold exposure as cold as I can find it. And then what I do is I go to our local fishery and they have lots of ice.

and they fill up a big tub for me. They fill it with ice and water, and we bring that water down to zero degrees Celsius for what's at about 32 Fahrenheit, just before water freezes at that point, and I get into my speeder and I sit in that, and I'll do that, not every day, because it's quite a process to get permission

and get that all set up. But I do that a few times, just, and I'll talk you through why I do that, by the way, if you want to know. Yeah, I mean, I've done it before myself, like after work, not getting into ice, but like, I'll do it. In the winter here, I will get into my pool and it gets to like maybe 60 degrees at the

coldest. And before I get in, that is the difficult, most difficult mental aspect of it is just getting your body in there like neck deep in a 60 degree pool. It's fucking difficult. That is. Like, explain how you get through that. And also go ahead and explain why you. Yeah.

So it never gets easier. There's the bad news. It's always going to hurt. there are a couple of tricks of the trade that I can share with you guys, but you just, listen, I literally have a conversation with myself. I know that sounds silly, but before I exposed to the real cold, I mean, the 60 degrees Fahrenheit and that, that's a bit of a breeze, you know, that's, for you. For me, I'm very used to that.

It still hurts. It's all get the ice cream headache and all of the things that everyone else will. But, you know, I'm so conditioned now to know that it's just temporary and that disappears and you'll be comfortable in five minutes, so, you know, man up and get. through it. But when you start getting into the lower levels, it becomes really brutal. And one of the reasons I do those ice buckets, ice baths, as most people call them, is because there's quite a process that happens. I mentioned earlier that you, you know, your mind is this defense mechanism. So you throw yourself in there and it goes into overdrive. So there's pain, panic, and fear that come together

in a split second, they accentuate self-doubt and you deny the ability of rational thought and the hyperventilation. All of that happens. And while that is happening, in your head, your body starts implementing its own defense mechanisms, and that is the blood rushes from your extremities to your center core. And that's not just fingers and toes, that's arms and biceps and thighs and everything, all the blood rushes out of

those muscles to sit here in your center core, because, I mean, I'm no doctor or medical dude, but you can live without arms and legs, but you can't live without a heart pumping blood to the brain. So all the blood rushes in here to keep your heart warm enough to keep supplying your brain with blood. So

you lose all coordination and strength in your muscles because there's no blood supplying oxygen to those muscles. And that is a process I need to understand and I need to figure out. So, for example, when I took on a challenge in Antarctica to try and be the first in the world to do an official mile south of the Antarctic circle, I would sit in there and I would have to compute that I'm going to be feeling all of this, because as you sit in that ice tub, it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal and it hurts. It's excruciating. pain. And through that pain, I've got to actually calm myself and say, well, you're going to be

walking down the gangway of an ocean liner in Antarctica in 10 days, Ryan. You're going to be diving into water that's as cold as what you're sitting in, and you're going to try and swim a mile distance. How on earth are you going to overcome the massive instincts that are going to kick in, the hyperventilation, that pain, panic, and fear that petrifiedness, you're going to be scared. Everything is going to just try and get you out. How are you going to, not sprint the first 200 meters out of sheer adrenaline and panic and then not be you know not have enough energy to do the 1,400 meters there after all of these things I would have try and visualize while I'm sitting in that horrible tub of ice so that's why it's a very important part of the

process for me but I don't do it every day and life wouldn't be worth living if I did it's terrible have you noticed any sort of differences in like your health or anything like that like since you started doing this and spending more time in cold water, does it benefit you in everyday life at all? So there's a massive global movement. I'm sure you're aware of that, you know, the cold has got. Oh yeah, everyone on my Instagram feed is showing off how they get into ice tubs. Yeah, you know what? I look at those and I think I wish I'd love them to come and do an ice tub with me. Because so many people, so we're going left of sent here, but so many fill it up with water and throw some ice to cover the top layer and they jump in and, and it's probably brought down a few degrees,

but you have to do an ice tub properly because, of course, when you get in as a human, immediately you start warming that water up. So you've got to keep adding ice, because if you're in the ocean, you're not going to warm the ocean up, it's going to keep cooling you down. So you ask about the health benefits.

There's definitely health benefits to the cold. I don't know that. I'm sure everyone's heard of the Wim Hof method and all these things which are taking on big time. I certainly not criticizing them, but I just don't know a lot about it. What I do, I don't think there's any health benefit to. I've been pushing boundaries, so to the end of the past.

Certainly a mental health benefit. Yeah, so let me tell you about the process and why I think everybody comes back and thinks there's such a great health benefit. And I'm not saying there isn't, so don't get me wrong. But when you, the most dangerous part of any extreme cold swim is not while you're swimming. It's actually when you get out. And that is because there's a process called the afterdraft. up. So now you've done your swim. You've gone through the pain in the beginning. You've got through that pain. You feel good about yourself. You've now sat in the water for a little bit or you've had your swim. You then get out and you feel great for a little bit. And then all of a sudden, that warm blood that's now sitting in your center core, protecting your heart, starts to release and it goes back to your extremities. So it goes back to your fingers and toes and whatever. And now they've frigid because they've had no blood in them and they've been exposed to the cold. So that warm blood that was in, your core rapidly cools down and it circulates back to your center core and cools your core

temperature down. It's called the after drop. So after swim drop. And that core temperature just keeps coming down. Now, it's not that dangerous to most people doing sort of mildly cold swims and enjoying it a little bit. But what we do, it's a deadly process because if you drop one notch below, you can't control it. If you drop one notch below, you're dead. Finished, that's just how it is. Hyperthermia is an absolute killer. That's what hypothermia is. Yeah, that's hypothermia. And when you do a, when, at some point, presuming you don't die, which clearly we do a lot to make sure we don't,

you then turn what we're turning the corner. So you go back into and you start shivering. And shivering is good because it means you're on the app. And when you turn that corner and you slowly start getting some warmth back in your blood and your bones, it releases endorphins like you won't believe. And I mean, I've never done drugs, so I don't know, but I presume it's. it's like being on a high. It must be what it's like.

Someone, when I gave a keynote yesterday, someone said, trust me, drugs are a lot easier. To feel the high. Yeah, there's a lot easier ways to get the high. I wouldn't know, so I'll stick to the cold. But I think when you feel that and you realize just how euphoric that feeling is, because when I do the cold swims, I always come out saying, well, that's it, finished, and I'm more intelligent than this,

and not doing that again, that was horrific. And then suddenly I come out of that afterdrop, and I'm, I'm, I'm turned the corner and I'm like, wow, what's next? That was awesome, how rad. And it's just an endorphin release that just makes you feel so great about life. That's why it's treating depression and it's treating anxiety and all of these things. You just feel so good about yourself. Yeah, there is no better feeling.

I'm aware of the feeling just surfing in like really cold water for hours on end and then getting out and warming up and feeling that kind of like zero drag type feeling. Yeah. It's like there's nothing holding you back. you're just kind of like moving against like without gravity almost so so you you've got a good taste of what it's about yeah and then but when i do it in tub or like in my pool i've i start i have to get out once like i start to feel the pins and needles in my head and in my face yeah it's different it's when you're out in the ocean like for me for surfing it's like it's different because i'm not

thinking about the elements because i'm having so much fun like doing something else my mind is i'm distracted exactly but when you're in the pool it's like well you could hit the escape button just by moving two feet to the right or just climbing right out. It's like right there. So it's way more difficult and it feels more painful too. But you've hit the nail on the head. The distraction thing, I talk quite a lot about that because if you're not distracted and you walk into really cold water,

it's excruciating and that's all you think of. And I learned this, there's a beach called Camps Bay down in Cape Town and it's often really flat and you just walk in. But every now and then there's a set of waves that are coming through that dump and they can really hurt you if you get your timing wrong. And every time I go swim there and there are no waves, I find it excruciatingly hard to get in that water. You go through all the pain.

But every time there are waves, suddenly I'm swimming and I have forgotten all about the cold and the pain and I hardly notice it. And I started to put all those things together. And the pain's still there, but you just focused on something else. You're focused on not getting dumped by the waves. So what happened to that pain? What happened to all those negative emotions and sentiments and squealing and everything else that you do?

So that's always been fascinating to me, but I've looked quite deeply into that. When you swim through giant surf, do you swim under the waves or do you swim over them? I go under. Yeah, I would imagine that. I don't have a surfboard or anything, so I just keep low.

Right, right, right. Do you surf ever when you're in Africa? Not at the moment. I used to as a lighty, as a youngster. Lighty, as we say, in South Africa. Uh-huh. In Cape Town? Cape Town, yeah.

Really? Yeah. Why have you stopped? I ran out of time, really. Oh, okay, too busy, too busy swimming. Oh, swimming, okay. Yeah, I don't have time for anything else, but it's a fantastic sport. In fact, I did it again the other day.

I hired a board and went down to Musenburg. Have you heard of False Bay? Mm-mm. So False Bay is a body of water in Cape Town that is well known as one of the most dangerous places to swim. It's where our great attacks have happened. Not that many, so I don't want to blow it out the water, but that's known as a feeding ground for the Great White Shock in a big way. and that's where I do my surf.

When I was a surfer, I did my surfing. But to the point, that's a 34-kilometer cross body of water, so to swim right across it. And I, last year, made it a goal to try and swim that 34 kilometers across, but in a direction. So five people had done it before, but in a different direction. Really? And I try to swim the other way around, yeah, and got it right,

and got a Guinness World Record for it as well. No way. It's crazy, man. That is wild. And that's making, not the Guinness World Record part, but the actual swim was a product of an amazing journey for me. And it was a product of a failure. And it's actually a keynote I give now called Failing Ford,

where in my swimming career I started small, and then I tried something bigger and I succeeded, and I tried something bigger and I succeeded, and then I tried bigger and bigger, and I kept succeeding and succeeding and succeeding. And then all of a sudden I tried a swim, which was from Ireland to Scotland across the North Channel, and it kicked me in the bat properly.

I got something called Saip, which is swimming-induced pulmonary edema, where your lungs fill up with water and you don't even know it, and you're basically drowning, and I was getting this while I was swimming, and I very nearly drowned. But it was my own fault to a degree in that, let me give you a little bit of how it works if you're interested in this. So it's steer me.

So when you're going to do a swim like the North Channel, so that's also 35 kilometers across, it is 12 degrees Celsius. Where is this North Channel again? That's between Ireland and Scotland. So in far northern Ireland and Scotland. Okay. So you're going to try and swim from Ireland to Scotland. Jesus.

And it's about 35 kilometers, but it's very cold water. And again, no wetsuits, anything like that. And it's meant to be one of the toughest swims. I've done tougher, but this is a real tough one. What makes it so tough? Just the distance? The distance of the cold, yeah. And the currents that move in between those, they're massive.

So you have to get your timing right on tides. So there's only a certain tidal cycle that you can actually humanly give it a go. And that you rely on people to help you with. But I book that with a guy who knows the channel and has expertise in taking swimmers across. He tells me maybe two years in advance the time. tide I'm going to swim on. Okay. And I've got one week. I've got to fly from South Africa to Ireland where you're based. And I've got one week to make it across that body of water. And if the weather doesn't play ball in that one week, and that one week selected on tides,

so tide variance, if the weather doesn't play ball for those seven days, you go home, finish. It's kind of like summiting Everest, you know, you, if the weather's terrible and you're only 100 meters from the summer. How does he know two years in advance? Because the tide. Tides are predictable. The weather's not. Okay. So the weather's your gamble. So you can tell me I know exactly what tide's going to happen on between the first and the 7th of August.

So that's your slot. So I arrive there and then I've got to wait for a nice day to happen in that slot. And if there is no nice day weather-wise, then I'm in trouble. And of course, Murphy's Law for me, there was no nice day. So it was, hey, thanks for coming to Ireland at great cost and trepidation and training to get yourself. Get yourself there. but you might as well go home because it's, you know, the weather's not cool. But being me and being a little bit arrogant at the time,

and I had had all these successes and successes, you know, I was the guy who always succeeded. I'm the guy who figures it out, and no matter what the ocean throws at me out there, I'll figure it out and I'll get across. And I managed to convince the guys to give it, to let me have a go on a day that they would not have taken anyone. And they knew my reputation, so they were okay to do it. and it wasn't the roughest day in the world to be honest.

So that's another thing I must just disclaim here. A swimmer looks at water very differently. So what looks maybe quite benign to most people. As a swimmer, you'll be looking at a going, that is terrible to swim in. So even just a big rolling swells are okay, where some people go, oh, that's rough. But a swimmer looks at the chop and the sort of washing machine kind of effect. There's no uniformity to it.

So you just cannot get into any rhythm for 12, 13. hours that's brutally hard. And I was out there in that kind of weather and it was very cold water. So I think about, we get this right, probably about 50 degrees, what's 12 degrees Celsius? I should have brought that cheat sheet, damn it. Thank God. And I was six and a half hours in to the swim and I was doing really well and I was getting all the thumbs up from the support crew and all of a sudden they stopped me and it had

at a scheduled feed, so on the half-hour mark, and they said, I need more from you, which is very unusual for me to be told, I need more. In other words, I need you to speed up, you're slowing down, because they track you on the currents, and you've got to get to certain points before the tide changes, otherwise you get washed out to ocean, so you've got to make it across, so they needed me to up my pace. And I remember thinking that's a little bit weird, because, you know, I'm swimming hard, and I've been getting all the thumbs up, I haven't changed anything. So I try to pull harder, and I just couldn't grip the water.

just the most bizarre feeling and I was I'm trained to understand hypothermia I'm trained to feel shit for a long time and perform under those those conditions yeah so I was feeling shit as I expected to um and I just remember having absolutely no power in my arms I could not pull I could not give the guy what he needed more and then they stopped me again and you know there's no kind of gentle love on these boats so there's no like oh dear won't you try and push a lot harder. It's like, do you want to go to Scotland or back to fucking South Africa? You make a decision. Give me more.

And it kind of hits you and I tried and I tried but eventually all of a sudden everything just went black and my eyes went totally fuzzy I couldn't see. Oh shit. And I took my goggles off apparently I don't remember this part and I swam away from the boat. And obviously the crew

realized there's something proper wrong there and they pulled me out and I can't remember getting into the boat or any of that, but I remember suddenly being in the boat and like, am I still swimming or what's going on, I'm being very dazed. And then I heard what could only be described as a death rattle, you know, like a rasping sound. That sounded like it was inside my head, but what it was was my lungs had filled up with water. So I was drowning. I got this swimming-induced pulmonary edema, Saip. And the water, through a whole series of things that

we unpacked later, my lungs had kind of allowed water to come. And I'd also, in the rough water, I'd drunk a lot of salt water as well, which also the salt then upsets the balance and your chemical makeup. So I was drowning. How did the water get in your lungs? Just because the waves are splashing over me and I was... You're inhaling it. And, yeah, sorry, no, that's not how to my lungs. That's how to get in my stomach.

But what, I don't get too technically here, but you've got a layer over your lungs, which is impermeable. So it doesn't allow water in. It only allows out. but when there's a chemical imbalance the way I understand it, when something goes wrong in your body, that gets disrupted and it allows moisture to seep in. And I'm taking in a lot of moisture, so I suppose I've got all this salt water in me and various other things, lack of sleep,

and there was a lot in hypothermia and everything that's just not comfortable. And slowly it was drowning me, so I was like inches away from death. And that was, I can't remember, why I started telling you the story. I've got totally left of center. Anyway, that was a huge failure for me. It was a massive kick in the pants that, that, yeah, I was talking about the failing forward keynote.

And that being me, you know, we got the coast guard out. I didn't know, they got oxygen on my face and they saved my life and I went to hospital and there I was sitting. They got a helicopter out there? No, no, they came out in a, you know, we were about, I'd swam 20 kilometers. So we were 20 Ks off the Irish coast so they could get out there quite quickly. they were already on the water, thankfully. And they carry oxygen, so they got it all in my face.

And then they zooted me back to the harbour where there's an ambulance waiting and got me to. Donagadie Hospital, fun place. And the doctors didn't explain, because I was quite belligerent, you know, I'm tough, I'm bulletproof. And now that the oxygen was in my brain, I could start to compute that I'd failed to swim. And I was brutally unhappy, brutally unhappy. But being me, Being the guy who had never failed before, I didn't know how to process failure. I didn't know, I did what guys do or what I think guys do is I swept it under the carpet.

And instead of processing what actually went on there and what my role was in that, I pointed fingers at everything else and I set a bigger goal. And that's why I was telling the story because that bigger goal was to try and swim across false bay in South Africa with the sharky water, which I knew was something that was going to really mess with my mind. And that's why I wanted to take that on. And yeah, that took me three years to get to that false base start. And the reason it took me so long was purely because I did not manage that failure well at all. I took no accountability.

I did not go introspective on it. I did not acknowledge my role in it. And for three years, I set the goal. I trained my ass off for it. I spoke a big game and everyone was waiting for me to do it. I had the team set up. But psychologically, in the back of it, my head, I just couldn't find that starting line.

Couldn't. So you, still to this day, did you figure out what it was that caused that? Like, what could you have done differently to avoid getting all that water in your lungs? So there's nothing conclusive. However, I could have been less belligerent and taken the pain of not swimming in my week and coming back the following year, number one, could not have pushed them as hard to have me swim on a day that they, as they, as they, experts suggest I don't swim. I had to meet in the harbour at 3am in the pouring rain in the freezing cold. And because I wasn't going to swim but right at the last minute they said,

okay, you've badgered us enough, we'll let you swim. I wasn't totally prepared. So I then had to spend, there's a lot. You think of swim, you just take your speedo and your cap and a towel. It's not how it works. You really, I mean, you're going to be swimming for, in this case, 12 to 14 hours in cold water. You need a lot on the boat to make sure. that you're going to make it across.

So I spent probably until like 10, 11 p.m. preparing and then getting into bed and then trying to work on my headspace was very important that you get in the right mindset before you stand on that shore. And then you want to get a good night's sleep. But when you've only got two hours to sleep before your alarm clock goes off,

what happens you don't sleep, you're waiting for your alarm clock, and then off I went and, you know, so there was a whole combination of stuff. Plus there's some medications as well, which I don't tell a lot of people this, by the way, but I'll share it with you is that I have a heart condition. So I have actually, I have three stainless steel stents in my heart keeping me going,

which was, you know, something that also impacted my psychology a little fairly recently. But I'm on medication for that. So that also impacts. How did it affect your psychology? Well. Do you think about it? I think about it every day. You can't, yeah.

So I was at a training session at the tender age of 39, 39. three nine and uh um i was at my normal training session did a hectic time and uh right at the end of the session i was doing a cool down so you just get do 20 laps just to like kind of bring your heart rate down and i just had this unbelievable pain in my chest and i could actually feel myself sweating in the water i could feel everything getting hot and flustered and i don't know what it was i just training in the ocean or a pool no in a pool okay with a coach and you know other people on a Saturday morning, so kind of a social vibe. Okay. But you train hard.

And I remember thinking, well, I'm not going to stop as I must just work, but I think it felt like air trapped or some pressure in my chest. I don't know what it was. And I carried on, I finished doing the swim, and then I climbed out, and I was sitting on the side of the pool, and people were chatting to me. But even though I'm dripping wet, I can still feel sweat coming through. I just remember thinking, that's really bizarre and a horrible feeling. And then the pain subsided and everything was fine. Didn't bother telling anyone.

Got in my car. and I was driving home and I just felt it just like a like this pain in my chest right in the dead center and all the sweat and a pain down my arm and I just realized there's something seriously wrong still not knowing hot because I mean I'm super fit, super healthy 39 year old didn't make any sense

and I remember having to make a decision I'm going to pull over on the side of the road and die in my car or I'm going to make it home so I decided I'm going to really push and take it get home. And long story short, I got home and my wife at the time I'm not divorced. I told her the story saying something weird happened and she could see I looked a bit disheveled and she enforced me to go to the doctor which I reluctantly didn't want to do but thankfully I did and through her whole sort of extended story they diagnosed that I had these arteries that were about

to block off. And it's a hard attack that you had. I never had a heart attack. I had the full on angina. So I had days, weeks before the full-on heart attack came. So the arteries were really closed. Then they put the stents in those arteries to open them up again. And you asked me why that affects you psychologically? It's a massive psychological blow. When you think

you're bulletproof, when you're on the app and you're doing stuff that, you've got all these plans, my swimming career just started, and I had plans to really push my limits, and all of a sudden your body says, no. And everyone, and your doctors and all your family, and everyone are like, well, we're glad you're still with us, but you know, your

swimming days are over, you know, now you just be stay-at-home dad. And that just was so impactful to me personally, it was terrible. So besides the, I suppose, humiliation and, you know, belittlement that that comes with, also now when I do, when I did go back to swimming training, like two days later, gently, every little niggle and little pain still to this day, nine years later, I still, you react differently because now I know I have a problem and I know it could trigger at some stage and I mean, I'm normal. The stents have fixed it, but it's, uh, it just impacts you. So you, you feel maybe far more vulnerable than I would before. Did you have any sort of like history of this in your family or did they say it was because of, because of your lifestyle or what,

what do they say could have been the reason for it? The, 100% hereditary. Hereditary. Yeah. So my lifestyle's good, never smoked. I enjoy a bit. I enjoy a bit. a glass of wine, make no mistake, but I'm fit as a fiddle, active and generally a very healthy lifestyle. My dad had some problems. He's still with us, so he's fine, but he had heart disease. And I got that clearly through that line. What do you have to do, like, how long do you train before one of these swims?

Excuse me. Again, how long is a piece of string really? So you take something like the English Channel or the false-based swim or the North Channel swim, or one of these longer cold marathon swims, there's a whole different training regime to trying, for example, to do a mile in ice water. An ice water we classify from 41 degrees and below, 5 degrees Celsius. So before you do a really long swim in really cold water,

do you have to change your diet at all beforehand? You need to put on weight. So the more weight you have, the more insulation you carry. And it makes a huge difference. And how do you put on weight? what kind of nutrients what do you eat i'm not very scientific about it i wish i was like is it more carbs more fat yeah i eat i eat more carbs really um and i'm not i'm not necessarily a huge believe in carbs it's just they're the most accessible and the easiest way to put on weight i am from what i

do i'm really not the right physique for it i'm if you saw me now maybe maybe you disagree but i'm generally not the right physique for cold water swimming um if you look at you look at Look at most cold water swimmers, they are very large units. Are they? Yeah, I'm not. And that means I'm at a greater disadvantage. They have a lot of fat on them? A lot of people have a lot of fat, yeah.

And that plays a huge role. I mean, I'm sure it does. I mean, fat is supposed to be one of the best sources of energy. Yeah. And it's also, I mean, it's also very buoyant. So I imagine it just makes it way easier. You buoyant and, yeah, it is,

but from a cold perspective, it keeps the cold out for longer. Right, right. Have you tried, never experimented, like thought maybe about, transitioning and to get more fat on you? Yeah, so before big swim, I often try and bulk up a little bit. You don't do the opposite, but it's sometimes a bit of a push and pull because you're eating more, but you're training so hard, so you're losing more.

And up until recently, I lose weight really quickly. Now that I'm getting a bit older, it's getting a darn side harder, but I've got to readjust to that. But I would be eating a lot and training more and just, you know, the, you know, the, very hard to put on weight. I was told to put on six or eight kilograms before going to English Channel and I think I managed to put on like two or three. Wow. Yeah, and I got cold properly. Jesus. So like before you do a big swim like that, you would just gorge on food. You would eat like a massive fatty steak or something? I absolutely love food. So it's a great sport for me to

justify. For example, I'll go and do it at 20 kilometer pool. training set, which is horrible and brutal and takes about seven hours in laps backwards and forwards. And the thing that will get me to the end is the burger I'm going to eat afterwards. I fantasize. Really? Fantacized. And funnily enough, you know, in fact, I went in great detail in my book about it, you

know, on the English Channel, I got to a point where my nose got blocked because there's quite a lot of ship diesel and stuff in the water and the salt impacts my sinuses. So my sinuses were completely blocked. Plus, the weather went really foul. So I've got big waves. And now you've got to try and picture. You've been swimming, let's just say, at this stage, for 10 hours. So you're tired.

You're freezing cold. It's getting dark. And now you want to, you've been drinking liquids, but now you want to eat, like, I have like little marshmallows or a grape or a little piece of chocolate or something that you throw down. And that gets thrown to me in the water in a tap away. So now, picture of swimming, holding a tap away with one hand, taking the lid off and then having to pick stuff out with the other. Now, both your hands are above the water, right? Right.

You're not treading water, but you've got waves coming over you, so you've got to try and get high. The higher you get, the harder it is, the more energy. So when you've been swimming for 10 hours, it's just not great. Cramm kicks it. So what was happening, I'd take that tap away and I'd shove it all into my mouth and at one. But then... Just like dump it in. dumping in, but now my mouth's full, my nose is blocked, now I can't breathe. So then I have to

spit it all out. So these are the things you can't train for and you've got to get through. And so all of a sudden, I'm in a place where I can no longer eat any solids. I can still drink, but no solids. And solids were part of what I planned for two years on this particular swim. So I had five more hours to swim. No, okay, wait, we'd be doing 10. So I had like three more hours to swim, not knowing I had three more hours to swim, but I got through the last three or four hours of that swim fantasizing because I couldn't eat, fantasize about what I knew, because I'm cold and hungry. I knew was in that boat. And if I made it and I got back on that boat, because you don't then stay in France, you go back to England. I was going to eat absolutely everything on

that boat. And true to form, I did make it. And I did get on that ship and I remember, you know, the English crew, I said to them, bring that roast chicken, bring that thing, I'm going to kill it. And he said, no, I'm going to bring you the vomit bucket. I said, no, don't worry. Trust me, I do not need to vomit. Just bring me the food. So he brought me the food and the vomit bucket. Because he knew you're going to throw out.

Five minutes later, I was vomiting up a storm. Does that make it easier thinking about the food at the end, that having, like, does it give you some sort of like dopamine drip to keep you alive? You know, each to their own, but you need to incentivize yourself. So whatever works for you. For me, that was part of it, was actually fantasizing about what I can eat and how many calories are burnt on this and I don't care anymore anyway. So, you know, my strategy for something like a channel and for other big swims, long swims

where you really, it's just you and the water. There's no one to talk to, no music, to listen to, no nothing, you are just there by yourself. Yes, there's a support boat, but you can't talk to them unless you stop and you don't want stop. In cold water swimming, you don't want to stop. So you have to stop and feed, but you drink and go, never longer than 30 seconds. So it's not like you can have a conversation. So you spend a lot of time in your own head. And when you're in your own head in cold water, all you feel is discomfort, all you feel is negativity, all you feel is your hunger, all you feel is the things you want and lack. Right. So if you let that get the better of you, which it's very easy to do, because the element of

cold again makes you this excuse magnet. That's a term that you might not understand. But when you're in a hostile environment or uncomfortable environment, you want to get out of it. And if you get out of that uncomfortable environment in my case, that's failure. So I start becoming an excuse magnet. How can I fail? And it won't be my fault. Like I mentioned that, please let you see a shark thing and then they'll put me.

So you start to do that all of this kind of snowballs in your head. So my strategy, which is a very rehearsed. mental strategy was to promise myself that I'll have no negative thoughts whatsoever. And when something horrible happens like I swim into a jellyfish or a blue bottle and it stings me and it hurts, I need to laugh about it. Physically laugh out loud under the water. And even though I'm cursing deep down, just to keep those endorphins and keep those positive.

And when you take a breath and a wave hits you and you gulp down another mouthful of disgusting seawater, laugh about it. say yes this is what you say that's just a mental way that i keep myself tough in the swim and uh maybe positive do you ever look or look into or read about um different types of breathing while you're swimming for instance um i've read i've read that book called i think it's called breathe or breath yeah all about breathing and he talks about like endurance breathing through your nose basically like gives you way more you know way more cardio endurance and makes you go longer than if breathing through your mouth.

But it's hard in the water, knowing from surfing. And I try to do it. I try to focus on it when I'm surfing or like when I'm trying to like paddle like out through a really long lineup and there's big waves trying to do it through my nose. And it's extremely difficult because you got water splashing everywhere. Have you ever tried to focus on that while you're swimming? It's impossible to breathe through your nose. It's impossible.

So you meant to breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. Right. Okay, that's kind of the accepted. And that's pretty much what I do. but I get such reaction to salt water so often my nose is closed I get sinus so I'm my breathing is really bad but I do believe that their you know breathing plays a big role but as you suggest it's it's nearly impossible to practice to practice a certain breathing regime I mean there are ways of you know you breathe in through a closed mouth and suck in like that or you there's

different some for energy some for calm some for stress there's lots of different breathing techniques that I've read about, none of them you can do in the water if you're swimming, unless you stop and do that, and that's not going to happen in the cold. Unless you're maybe doing the backstroke. Have you ever done the backstroke when you were swimming? Definitely not. You never tried? No. Why not? Listen, I don't like the backstroke. No. I'm very trained to do, to do, look, you want to, some people do breaststroke. It just

blows my mind. So you only do freestyle? I do freestyle. That's the fosters, and generally the mindset is to get across in the least amount of time. backstroke is not efficient. Not for me anyway. Yeah, but to take a quick break, like, let me do backstroke for five minutes. So, okay, so that's it. I'm talking about traditional backstroke.

So one of my techniques is, so if I'm doing, I mean, we're talking about the English channel a lot. I've done a lot more than the English channel. But anyway, let's use that as a nice point to reference. So when I'm feeding, some of the psychology that you apply, I'm going to do probably about 22 feeds. So in other words, they're going to stop me, they're going to hand me a drink bottle or a,

something to eat or whatever. And I've got 30 seconds usually, maybe a minute tops to put that away before I need to get going again. So I never tread water and consume. I get on my back and almost, I can demonstrate it on a podcast, but you kind of kick, breaststroke kick on your back while I'm drinking and eating. So even in those 30 seconds, I've still moved maybe 20, 30 meters further towards my destination. and then I get going again. So I do do an element of backstruck, but it's certainly not my preferred means of propulsion.

Right. I would imagine, I would just like, thinking about it, I would imagine people would switch it up just for that kind of a distance and not do, I mean, breaking for, how long do you say it was again, you break to eat?

30 seconds. 30 seconds. Half a minute. God, that's insane. And 20 times. Approximates, every half an hour, I have a long attack. So it took me 13 hours,

so I did approximately 22 stops. Is that right? Yes, 26 stops somewhere on there. Didn't you say that you swam in like Siberia somewhere near Russia? Yeah, oh, let me tell you that story. I'll tell you this story. It's quite interesting. So through my journey, you know, we've done all the marathon.

You get marathon swimming, which is your English channel and your false bay and your North channel. And then you get ultra extreme cold. So through my journey unpacking the element of cold and how brutalizes the body and mind, I started to obviously get cold and cold and look for cold and cold or water. And one day coming back from a cold swim somewhere, I think we try to be the first to swim around the southernmost tip of South America. I remind me to tell you that story. Literally I can write a book about.

We came back and we were trying to, we're getting quite into this cold thing, myself and a couple of like-minded mates. And we had a look at where is the body? or the book of record that tells you what a cold swim is and then records different feats in the cold and who's done the furthest and the hardest. So we went on the internet and we tried to find like where this, where you could find this. And there is no, it didn't exist. There is no body or book of record that tells you what I swim is and then records feats in the cold water. Because as I've described before, the cold is the challenge. It's not the distance.

It's keeping your head in the game for the distance while the cold impacts you. That's the challenge. And we were sitting in Cape Town, which is on the southern tip of Africa, and it was a boiling hot day, which is kind of like Tampa for the last week. Yeah, for real. And we decided, you know, why don't we start the organization or the body that tells people what you need to do to do a cold swim and then record different feats in the cold? And on that day, at least in my mind, the International Ice Swimming Association was

born. So it's an association. Yeah. So it's a formal association. It wasn't started by me. It was the idea of another gentleman. But I was a founding member of it. And together as a bunch of mates, we said, let's tell the world the following. If you want to say you've done an official ice

swim, you have to commit to swimming a one mile distance, so 1,609 meters. You have to swim that one mile wearing only a speedo costume, one cap and goggles, no wetsuit, no grease you can't even have a plaster and you've got a cut, you've got to take it off.

It'll be that pure. No watch or anything? No, yes, no, take your watch off. No watch. You have to swim that one mile in your speedo in an outdoor body of water. Can't be indoors. And that body of water needs to be 5 degrees Celsius, which is 41 Fahrenheit or below. If you can do one mile in the attire I've described and follow the rules that we set, you will be recognized by our organization in the International Ice Swimming Association as having done an

official ice mile. We'll give you a certificate and it will give you a red jacket and a badge cool stuff and you will go on our book of record as having done this ice mile. We kind of, the gentleman who started, it takes all the credits and did all the work to make it an official and we then sent it off into the world to see if we get any bites. there's anybody out there who actually wants to try this stupid stuff. And Offord went, and probably about three weeks later, three of the founding members received an invitation to come and partake in an ice swimming event in a place called To Min Siberia.

Two Min? You got to pull up the map, Jordan. T-Y-U-M-E-N. Okay. Two-min. And they were holding an ice swimming event. They had come across the International Ice Swimming Association. and they wanted to use the good name of the association at their event.

And if we prepared to do that, they would then fly us over and we're allowed to come to the event, but not to do a mile, to do like a 50 meter or 100 meter dash maximum 400 meters. Okay. Yeah, I'm looking at the map. I haven't seen this place for a long time. I've got mixed memories. That's not. That can't be, yeah.

It looks like. Well, that's summer. Look for two men in winter. Is this? So are you swimming in a river or in the ocean? No, so T-T-Y-U-M-E-N. Try that. Two-min, two-min.

Yeah. Somewhere down there. Oh, my God, yeah. Now that's the right spot. Yeah, that looks better. Jesus. Now pull up like a map view of it? So there you are, quite far north in Russia.

Okay. Like the northern tip. Yeah. Looks cold. Yeah. So anyway, we, you know, we. We're sitting in Africa and we get this call from them to say, we found your organization and we're having this ice swimming event.

And if you want to, we'll fly across if you let us put your organization name to our event. And we were like, hell yes, we're going to Siberia. I couldn't believe that anyone wanted to pay for us to do anything. And we were equally unanimous, though, that we're not going from Cape Town all the way to Siberia to swim a short distance of 50 meter or 100 meter dash, which is what they're were saying we could do we were we're going to come there and swim a mile and they weren't happy with that but anyway long story short they weren't happy with no they said yet uh-uh not gonna happen so there was a lot of banter eventually we compromised on a one kilometer distance thousand

meters and they said okay we can try that they'll put the medics in place and you know we were a bit annoyed about that and there was a lot of banter and should we go shouldn't we go eventually we said of course we got to go we'll toughen them up a little bit and you know, just spread the word about our organization. Pussy Russians. Yeah, Russians, come on. And we arrived probably 10 days later in without doing much more homework. And we're escorted to the swimming pools in inverted commas.

And I got off the bus and walked into the teeth of minus 27 Fahrenheit air temperature. In the air? The air temperature was minus 27. Dude, I don't know. I mean, I live in Africa. We just do not experience stuff like that. I knew without a doubt that there was the biggest mistake that I've ever made in my life to arrive there. There were no pools.

There was nothing. There was no water. It was just absolutely white and everything was powder. I had two beanie on, two gloves on each hand, five layers of clothing, and I was absolutely in agony getting frostbite through that. It was just insanely cold. And the idea of stripping into... I want to cry. just listening to this.

The idea of stripping into a speeder and jumping in water which doesn't exist, because it's just ice, was impossible, literally impossible. And they were eventually cutting through the ice

with chainsaws to expose this water. And to add insult to injury, the local media were fascinated by these three men who have now come from a distant land. Crazy Africans.

Who have invented the international ice swimming association and who have moaned that they can not swim a mile and only getting to swim a kilometer these guys camera people wouldn't leave us alone at all or journalism it was just unbelievably and i'll never forget a very pivotal moment in my life in fact in the story and i include this in the keynote and in my book was when i um we broke away from the cameras and the media and three of us that had gone to siberia from south africa we were and sat in the little sauna that was provided at this event, a little wooden hat.

And we barricaded the door closed from the inside. So sitting in a sauna, which is boiling hot, five layers of clothing, barricaded the door, and there was no of the usual testosteroney kind of banter that we get off on. It was just white eyes, and we could only think of like, how the hell do we get out of dodge? I mean, this is just saying, we'll pay back the money, but fuck this, I'm out of you.

And I honestly believed outside that door, if I took off one of my gloves that, you know, my fingers would fall off. It was that brutal. And it's a fascinating 24-hour mental journey that I went on in Siberia that took me from absolute certainty that it was suicide, 24 hours later standing on the edge of this pool of death that they'd now cut out with a chainsaws, getting ready to swim a kilometer in minus 33 or minus 27 Fahrenheit, minus 33 Celsius. And yeah, it was absolutely excruciatingly brutal, but I survived it and got it and got all the frost bite to prove it. And it taught me some unbelievable lessons.

How the hell did you swim that far if they, I mean, they weren't able to, they cut that distance out with the chainsaws? I'm going to show you the videos. You have the videos? Yeah. Where are they? Well, I've got my computer. Oh, you know, they're not online? No, there's a lot of them are in my keynote.

Oh, you'll find bits and piece. I'll gladly share with you off, but maybe you can cut it in. Yeah, we'll have to cut it in. I'll give you little snippets because it's quite amazing. So they basically just cut this long strip, like a long swimming lane. They already mapped it out.

You might be able to find pictures of it, though. If there's a lot of people have done it before. I want to actually see if I've got a... What's it called? Siberian swimming? Yeah, they do it in more places, more places than that. Let me just see while I'm...

If I can see anything, you can kind of get the idea there a little bit on, I know it's not very useful to podcast listeners, showing pictures. Oh, okay. They even put the lane separator there you go. Okay, there we go. Yeah, that's me, I think. Is it really? Yeah. Can you full screen that?

I think that might be, everyone looks the same. Watch that video right there. There's a video to your left. Up. Holy shit. A lot of this is people just doing that they're in and out and they jump in and jump out and they have a bit of fun. No, no, no. To the left

of that. Right there. swimming with her beanie on. Yeah. So a lot of people you'll see swim with their head up. They don't put their head under, is that's where you lose most of your... Right, right. Most of your heat.

Oh, there's some crazy nutters. Little kids? What kind of a psychopath do you got to be to put your kid in that water? Look at this guy. Oh, my gosh. So... They're all types. So when you do...

Like, for example, when you do like plunges in the cold, when you're not swimming, do you go all the way under or do you just go like up to your neck? No, I go all the way under. So when I'm doing the ice tubs, it's up to the neck, but then I always go under completely under as well. But when you're swimming, it's face down, freestyle. Straight from the beginning. Right. So you have no choice, obviously, when you're swimming.

Yeah. That looks torturous. So, yeah, Siberia was, I mean, the early days. So the swimming thing, this ice swimming thing is caught on a lot. and we also learned a lot from our Russian friends as well, who obviously were far more used to this environment. But the distance that we did that day, the kilometer was way, way more than most would ever consider doing.

And that's what kind of put us a little bit on the map and taught us a lot about what we were able to bear. And that was kind of the benchmark to take it a little bit further. How do you, is there a process when you were in Siberia doing that when you get out when you're done? What is like, there has to be like an immediate protocol once you get out to like make sure you don't fucking die. So you're pretty useless when you get out. So you're brittle.

Okay, you're absolutely brittle. Let me tell you just quickly. So what they do, they cut that lake out, that 25 meters swimming pool out of the lake. And then they put wooden boards on each side. Okay. So when you turn around, because you've got to do laps, you've got something to kick with your feet. You're not allowed to do a tumble turn because when you do a tumble turn, you get quite disoriented, the cold and your ears go all funny, so you're off balance, and sometimes you kick off skew

and you end up underneath that ice sheet. And it's just not good. It's horrible. It's dark and scary under there. So you're not allowed to tumble to touch the side and then swim. Even on just changing directions, touching the wood above the water, your hands stick immediately in that minus 33, just like that little feeling. So you end up then touching underneath the water.

So the protocol is, obviously, there's a support team ready there. there's medics and everything and they literally help you out the water gently because you're absolutely brittle it feels like everything's going to just crack off and fall off. They got me out and I had walked down, I mean being South African, I'm totally underprepared. I came in in flip-flops or so I walked to the pool in flip-flops and I took the flip-flops off when it came time to dive in and do my my kilometer. By the time I finished, I got out 15 minutes later. they then sturdy me and they want me to put my flip-flops back on

and then walk me to the sauna where they're going to recover me but they put my flip-flops on but they had absolutely, they'd frozen, frigid into the ice. They were stuck in the ice already. So I had to walk bare feet to, which was probably about 70 metres away where this little sauna was.

And then very strange technique of warming you up. You've got these big Russian ladies. Firstly, before you go into the sauna. So before you're in the sauna, a warm pot. They sit you outside and they take the snow. They give you a proper snow rub. And I think the snow there is so dry. It's warmer. That it's, yeah, and it also absorbs water. So they get all the water off you very quickly. But just the walk, I already, all my eyebrows and my hair had gone solid into ice. I mean, it's

that cold. It's got to be so much, it's got to be so similar to when you're, when you're free diving and you go super deep and when you're scuba diving and you're super deep breathing that oxygen, you shoot to the top, you get the bends. It'll kill you. Like going from that super cold to the sauna, that will fucking kill you. You've got to do it very slowly. The other truth about the recovery process is that the places that hurt the most are your fingernails and toenails and one other piece of anatomy. That really takes some proper strain. Your peepee?

Yeah. Exactly. So if you put your hand on a cement table and you take a hammer and you whack every single fingernail, that's the level of pain. It is absolutely brutal. And that is probably because the little, the tiniest capillaries under your fingernails actually burst because the water, the blood freezes in them and they kind of expand. And then later when you're warming up, that blood tries to get back in, but now it's all broken and messed up. And it's just excruciating you saw, and the nerves don't like that at all. So they start by, first, the snow rub, then you move into the super warm environment where they start pouring usually just room temperature water over you.

Normal room, not Siberia room, but like. Right. And then they slowly increase the water temperature. And I can tell you, their ladies doing it, but all you want your hands and your feet done, and all you want to ask them is, please just pour it down there. It's so sore. That is crazy, man. Did you guys go out and just drink gallons of vodka afterwards?

How did you know? You're in Russia. Yeah, totally. In fact, you know, it's quite an interesting. I won't tell the whole story, but we went out huge that night. I bet. Right through the night and then very nearly missed off flights. My one friend tackled another guy into a pile of snow,

and just beneath the snow was a bunch of concrete or a pavement, and he cut his whole face open. Oh, man. Jesus. It was messy. Wow. So where did you fly? You flew directly into Siberia?

Did you go through Moscow? Yeah, I think Moscow and then two men. Okay. And two men's quite a town. I thought it was going to be like. I always imagine that part of the world was like barren wasteland. I think there's oil money there. So everyone drives big expensive cars.

Oh, really? It's very expensive, yeah, but it's kind of like a... A lot of oligarchs running around there? Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I mean, very hospitable people at a good time. And that, anyway, that's our bearer experience. It kind of opened my eyes to a whole lot of other stuff. So then, you know, that set me off on another kind of segment of my journey to push the boundaries.

And did you do the trip around South America after that? No, South America was before that. So that was us just getting cold and cold water. And what we realized, that there's nobody had ever swum around the southernmost tip of South America. There's a little island called Cape Horn. And it's known as the sailor's graveyard for good reasons. And if you're into sailing, generally your Everest is to sail around there.

So we thought it would be a good idea to see if we could be the first guys in the world to sort. around there. Well, that's why they created the Panama Canal, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's just properly dangerous. So, and we eventually managed to find an old sea dog who's prepared to take us down and throw enough dollars at him and he couldn't speak a word of English on. I'll never forget that, which we thought was a big hindrance in the beginning because you can

communicate with the guy. And we had like a one day, a 24-hour period of weather and we had a long, I think it's something like a 28-hour boat trip to get down there over really dangerous waters. And I don't think he quite understood that if he got us to Cape Horn alive, we were then going to take our clothes off and jump off his boat into the water. But anyway, we did it and we became the first in the world to actually swim around that. And that's a Guinness gave us a recognition for that as well,

which was the first Guinness record that I got. And yeah, that was probably one of the most amazing experiences. We went to South America to do three swims, firstly to try and swim across the Magellan Strait, or Magellan Strait, which is very cold and quite a bit further, and then we wanted to swim the Beagle Channel, which is from Chile to Argentina,

and we decided we want to do a double, so we want to swim there and back. That's very cold, lots of whirlpools. Let me tell you, I've never experienced that again before or after, and that is, it's phospholing water, and it kind of, I don't know, just wraps somewhere, so you get these massive whirlpools,

that make a loud, sucking sound. And if you get sucked into that as a swimmer, it's obviously not good. So we're sucked into water? No, I didn't, but no, but we were very close to it. What creates them? It's just the fos flowing water, and I think because tides change because it's tidal. So at some stage, water's trying to get in and out, and I think, I'm not, I don't know, I hope there's no scientists listening to this, but that's my, so I figure it out.

But they're quite daunting. I never forget stopping the middle of that Beagle channel. It's 8 degrees Celsius water, which is about 50 Fahrenheit. So you're cold and you're dangerous and you're in danger and you've got to keep it moving. And then I just remember stopping because there was no support boat alongside. It was all alone out there with another swimmer friend alongside. And we just heard this. And you realize, you can't see it because your eye line is kind of the same height.

But you know it's close. And you don't know which way to swim and you just, your mind's. starts playing tricks. You start feeling yourself getting sucked in. Anyway, we just like change trajectory and swam as a nice little adrenaline burst to get us across. How far away from shore do you stay pretty close to the shoreline when you swim around the horn? Around horn, we hug the coast, but we couldn't hug it too close because you get bashed on the rocks. Right. And also we had a bit of a strategic fail there. All the homework we did, which there's very little research in that area on which way the currents go and when. So we had done the research with the

Chilean Navy as to which way we should swim from where and two way. And when we jumped in, we all swam for the first five odd minutes without moving anywhere. So we were completely inner current in the wrong way. So the only way to get out is to take the risk and swim really close to shore. So risk the break is a risk getting bashed in the rocks. But often the current doesn't run right along the shore. So that we had to do. Wow.

Yeah. So look, you've got to make split decisions. There's something that I've really learned through this process. and pushing these boundaries and doing these world first is that firstly you can't follow the rules okay you cannot take no for an answer there's a very good reason no one's done it before so if you really want to do it do the homework get it get it do the research put the safety stuff in place and and then figure it out and one of the guys in our group was really good at not taking no for an answer I'm kind of I'm kind of I'm kind of the guy that when I'm presented with a whole bunch of facts as to

I'll probably die yeah I'm like okay you know you're the local you've got this how far is it I wonder from the horn of South America to Antarctica. Do you know? Well, unswimmable distance. Yes, unswimmable because I've done it on a boat. So the biggest challenge in the cold that I set for myself and with guys who I joined the guys who were doing it was to try and be the first in the world to swim an official ice mile in Antarctica.

So I have gone, once I've done the swim in at the Cape Horn, we went back again and then took a ship cruise liner to Antarctica. So I've done that. You go across the Drake Passage. It's one of the most volatile bodies of water. It's really, really tough. Drake Passage. Drake Passage, yeah.

It's really tough. Those are some of the most unexplored parts of the ocean. They are. Yeah, and quite interestingly, although, I mean, I wasn't part of it, so it's not really my story to tell. But I was part of a rowing crew that was going to be the first in the world to row from Cape Horn or basically South America to Antarctica. Wow.

And then unfortunately, I had to pull out just because of financial reasons. you had to and the club in was was quite hectic and that's such a pity because eventually discovery came on and financed the whole thing oh did they really costing the guys the guy took my place got a salary for doing itself quite bitter but good for him for sticking it out anyway so so you can it's been rowed once and i was meant to be part of the team but i wasn't so it's a chink in my armor but i'm not really a row i've never rode anywhere anywhere anywhere at any time so it was going to be a new experience but we went to a Antarctica, to try and be the first to swim a mile south of the Antarctic Circle.

And that's one of the most fascinating stories or experiences of my life. We didn't get the geographic goal just because we don't have our own ship. So we had to be paying passengers on an ocean liner. And this thing just keeps moving and they don't change the schedule for anybody. They literally go up the coast or down the coast of Antarctica. And they go in south of the circle and then 48 hours. later they turn around and come back. So the weather isn't good in those 48 hours, if it's unswimmable, which you're going to miss that goal. Now, I, before I went, I knew Antarctica from what I've

seen on Nat Geo and Discovery channels, a beautiful flat water with a whale frolicking in the distance and some ice over there in blue skies. That's not what we experienced. It was just brutal and wild and hectic and very, very, very daunting. And even though we missed the geographic goal, we still made the mile attempt after seven days of being on standby. We got them to give us a go. And the water that I did it in was minus 1 degrees Celsius. So that is, man, I wish I could remember my conversions better. That's 30 degrees Fahrenheit.

30 degrees Fahrenheit. So salt water freezes below 32. 32. Yeah. 32 is when water freezes. Swimming through ice. So, yeah. but it's salt water, so it actually doesn't.

It's still liquid, but there's plenty ice floating at it in icebergs. And then you get the added little bonus of something called a leopard seal. Don't know what that is. Yeah. That is just an insane beast. And when you get to Antarctica, they're absolutely prolific. So they're all over the place, and they're huge, like dinosaur-looking things. Do they mess with you?

Yes and no. So they've been responsible for a couple of deaths, but they're not, they're kind of like your great white sharks scenario. You know, he's not a man-eater, but he wants to. to see what you are and he kills you by mistake and sorry he didn't mean to. These guys, I think, are really inquisitive. So sometimes the people who have died at their hands or mouths have been inquisitive and pulled them under the water and not let them back up as they want to play or whatever they're doing.

I don't think they're malicious, but they're deadly, absolutely. What about polar bears? You don't find that in Antarctica. They're in the north. Oh. Yeah. So they're penguins and things like me. He doesn't know that.

I didn't know that until I got there. Well, listen, when, you know, the crew of the ship were meant to help us, and they expected us to arrive with some cage apparatus to swim in for the leopard seals. Oh, really? And I didn't even know leopard seals existed until I got there. That's how bad I was. So don't feel bad about the polar bees. A cage apparatus to protect you from the level.

A lot of people swim in cages. So the false base swim that I did in South Africa, which is the great white feeding ground. there's a few people who have attempted it in a cage because sharks attack from the bottom so you've got kind of this U-shaped cage and if you can picture it with an outboard engine on that that you swim inside. And it drags it behind the boat or something?

It's actually got an own transom and I mean there are lots of different makeups but picture almost like two canoes and a transom between them at the back and underneath each canoe there's there's sort of a cage that goes down and then a flat cage and coming up at the other canoe. No way.

So you swim between the two canoes, but below you there's metal bars. That's insane. I had no idea. That was a thing. I've never done that. I did do a swim with a guy once, and he was in the cage, but there's no room for me, so I was on the outside. And I thought that was so rude. I wasn't freaked me up to you.

Sorry, buddy, we don't have enough room for you. Yeah, you're on the outside, mate. Wow. But I've got no experience with that. And in fact, I haven't. heard of anyone swimming with a cage for many years. But some of the crew couldn't believe, A, we were going to swim in that

water without wetsuits, and B, that we were going to swim in that water with the leopard seals. And true to form, obviously, when we did eventually get to make our attempt, and this, by the way, is a very long extended story, which I'm cutting very short. The leopard seal did come along to try and have a look at us, and they went with a

Zodak and they circled around it. Oh, really? Yeah. Got some great video footage of that. And eventually, luckily, it decided to go the other route. So what's next for you? Do you have any sort of like big goals on the horizon that you want to do next? Like I don't understand. I don't even know what could possibly trump swimming around the horn of South America or swimming

in Siberia. Well, yeah. I mean, I know we can't go on forever, but one of my best stories was trying to swim from Russia to the USA solo. Oh, too. You mean from like to Alaska? Let me, let me, can I tell you the story? Oh, for sure.

Yeah. Oh, we got plenty of time. All right. Let me. So obviously you've got Russia and Alaska, about 180 kilometers across between the two of them of Bering Sea.

I was invited to be part of a relay attempt, a Russian relay attempt, that was looking to swim from Russia world first across to America. It was a big international thing, mostly Russians, but then they had an international component

of which I was one. And it was meant to take us three or four days in a relay. It took us about 13 days eventually. I turned 40 years old twice, by the way, because smack in the middle of that sea is the international date line. So it's where kind of everything meets. So, you know, on one side is 24 hours away or 23 hours away from the other side. Wow.

And I happened to have my 40, we had just crossed that line. We're in American waters. and I turned 40, and the weather turned so bad, and we had to anchor. And because we couldn't move anymore, we ran out of permissions to be in American water, being a Russian vessel. So they then had to go back into Russia, which put me back into yesterday, so I turned 39 again, back a date. That's hilarious.

And then we crossed over the dateline again, I turned 40 again, all the time caught up. So that's quite a, I mean, that's just a sideline. And that was a fascinating story. However, while I was on that relay trip, which was successful in the end, and a complete adventure, and I spotted two little islands called the Diamedi Islands, smack in the middle of this bearing sea. So there are two little clumps of rock, really. One is called Ratmanova, which is big diamidi, and that's in Russian waters. and 3.8 kilometers

across which is about two miles there's another little island called Little Diomedi and that's American water. So I figured if I can swim between those two islands I will be the first male to have ever swam from Russia to America

solo. Now it's been done by a lady called Lynn Cox who I've met and were a great swimmer. She's an American woman and lives in San Diego I think well that's where I met her and she did it in 1980s. No one's ever done it or tried it since. So I really,

really wanted to try and do that. So living in Cape Town is quite hard, but eventually I flew with a group of guys who had different goals. They wanted to do it in wetsuits and they didn't want to get cold. They just wanted to do quite cool swimming from Russia to the USA and across the date line. Oh, yeah, just so that one island is 23 hours time difference to the other, but they're only two miles apart. So it's quite a weird.

So you're swimming from one side to the other, and it's very bizarre in your head trying to figure it out. It's either going to take you the longest swim of your life for. It's going to be the quickest. So, anyway, where was I? So I had to fly from Cape Town to Johannesburg, Johannesburg to London, London to New York, New York to Anchorage to Nome to Prince of Wales. And then I had to get on a little boat and catch a ride out to the island to start the swim. Wow.

You just have no idea. And what had happened in all the preparation that we're done to get there, It happened to coincide with the first time that Russia decided to invade Ukraine. Or say the first time, maybe there's a time before, but the last time. It's not this current time that we're happening now. When was it? What year? It must have been 2014.

Yeah. 2014. Was that when they took over Crimea? I think so. I don't know too much about the politics. All I know is that it was hypersensitive. And the Russian island is a military base, kind of a first line of defense from the American side. Right.

So we couldn't get permission to enter Russian waters, no matter how hard we tried. Because you're going through an orthodox way. You're going to buy a boat. You're going to swim into Russia, essentially. They just don't understand that. It's just too crazy. So they said, no. There are also a whole colony of walrus that live there that are quite dangerous and, you know, it adds to the hecticness.

Walrus. Walrus. Okay. Walrus. Walrus. Walrus. Walrus. Walrus.

Walrus. Walrus. Walrus. Walrus. And, yeah. So eventually the American expedition company that took us, because we couldn't get permissions, refused to go across that dateline and into Russian waters. So it only escorted us the first mile from America to that line,

then they wouldn't go any further. So we lost our support crew, most of it. There was only one or two boats. But when you're in a place that remote, you can throw enough cash at anybody to kind of, you know, someone's going to figure it out for you. So first, sorry, just backtracking. We didn't get permission to get into Russian waters. So generally what normal people would do is then to say, well, you know, it didn't work.

Sorry, we can't get permission. I decide I want to go anyway, because I know that when you get into these really remote places, they often have laws of their own. And money talks, so you throw a bit of money at the problem, and you find a way to get yourself across. So that we did, and we got out there. But no one gave any support whatsoever. The locals were just saying, uh-uh, you'll get shot out the water. Really?

Don't do it. Yeah. And it's really messed with my mind. really mess with my mind. So remember, I'm there, I'm there with a really good bunch of mates that are doing a swim, but they are completely different missions. They've got no threat from the cold, but they're in proper wetsuits and protection. I'm going to try and do the swim solo in a speeder, okay?

So I'm going to be pushing myself to the brink of death, and then I need someone to take over when I've achieved my goal and get me to recover and bring me back to life. So it is quite a hectic mindset. one when you're doing it with a bunch of mates who are doing the same thing with you, but when they're not, you feel very alone. The next thing that went on is that when I went past those islands on the relay attempt, we measured the water at 6 degrees Celsius, which is flippen cold. What's that?

Anyway, working out 6 degrees would be about 45, 48 Fahrenheit. Yeah, 43 Fahrenheit. And I reckon I could do the two mile distance in that, just over two miles, 2.2 miles. When we got there to do the solar, it was 3.2 degrees Celsius, which is closer to 32, 33 Fahrenheit. So it's really cold. It makes a massive difference. So it's half the time before you did, basically. It's not just three degrees colder.

Plus, we lost the support crew, so we lost about three boats. So now we've got five guys swimming. all of the six guys swimming five in wetsuits and one in a speeder having to share a boat I have to get myself in a very meditative state so I separate myself from the herd they all jokes and banter

and are talking about what the plans are I just had to get in the zone to focus on the cold and we eventually got a guy who's prepared to take us into the Russian water and drop us at the island and I made a call I'm not going to climb out on the island because immediately you can see the Russian military reactists

Really? Yeah, you can see them. They watch, there nothing else to do out there. So they're watching, like, what the hell's going on here? And they're pretty got to imagine they're probably half in the bag, drinking vodka. What else is it to do? So, yeah, so anyway, I lost a little bit of nerve and decided I'm still going to do the swim, but I'm not going to access the Russian island, which means I can't claim the record because you have to exit land and exit land on each side to say you've done the swim. So I decided to take me to opposite the island, drop me in the water and I'll swim healthy leather back to America, which is what I did. But I need a support boat alongside me because it's three degree water. There were patches of six, so it was between three and six Celsius. And because we had lost some of the support crew, we were all sharing a boat. And when we reached that dateline geographically, obviously there's no line.

You're kind of swimming one stroke you, this side of the line, and next stroke you. that the guys will stop for a photo shoot. And I can't stop. So, and it just went. So they all said, no, no, just swim on, swim on. So I kept swimming by myself, completely exposed out in the middle, knowing that I'm dying, body-wise. There are war-russ in the area.

There are currents that are sweeping me out. And I swam the 3.8, the two-mile distance. And the support bank came alongside me, and I'd realize I got my trajectory horribly wrong. So I wasn't swimming to America. I had to swim at an angle to compensate for the currents running between the islands. And, yeah, I'd got a little bit wrong. I'd gone a bit too hectic because I'd have a boat beside me and you can't really see where you're going.

Bottom line is, I didn't make it, I got pulled out. Really? I did the distance. I swam from Russia to America, but I did not start on the Russian islands, so I can't claim the record. Long story for that, but it's quite hard to picture all. But if I had the visuals, it makes a lot more sense, I'm sure. that was an adventure amazing i mean i don't think anyone would uh fault you for not touching on land in russia and fear of getting shot i mean that's well that yeah no listen you still did it i still

did it and the other thing in my head just the last hurdle was that i didn't personally believe i get shot although that's what i was told by the people who should know um but even if they didn't shoot and they just pulled me out and arrested me as we know and legally in russia as we know and legally in russia waters. I need proper medical support to recover, and they're not going to know that. So they're going to take me and maybe try and process, I'm going to tell them in English, dude, I'm going to be trying to tell them in English, dude, I'm going on a speedo. Rested a guy in a speedo. And he can't talk. English or Russian.

What's worse? Arresting a guy in a speedo or shooting a guy in a speedo? I don't know. But yeah, yeah, all these things were playing in my mind and I let it get the better of me. In retrospect, I should have just gone and climbed out on that Russian island and swam across and I don't think I would have had a problem. They probably would have clapped and applauded, but it was a different political time. So, right. So what's next? Do you have plans for another crazy expedition? Yes. But it will not be extreme cold. It will be cold water. And it's going to take a long time because right now, after COVID, you know, I've got a,

different challenge on my hands. So being a public speaker, you can imagine how many events were happening For the last two years, it took quite a curve. And things have picked up amazingly, but I just need to ride that storm. But I've mentioned False Bay a few times through this chat. False Bay is 34 kilometers across. It is the Great White Feeding Ground, so psychologically it's difficult. But there are more things that sting you and that are going to bite you, and the distance is quite extreme and the currents are unpredictable.

It's not a channel, it's a bay. So currents, you don't always know what's going to happen. I took that on and I got a Guinness World record for completing it and, you know, it was a wonderful accolade and I was very proud of myself. However, if I'm deadly honest, that was within my comfort zone. I set goals that I don't think I can achieve, not goals that I know I can achieve. Because if you're setting, even though it might look extremely hard to most, if you're setting a goal that you kind of know if you do A, B and C, you're going to achieve it. That's comfort zone stuff in my frame of reference. So try set goals that you actually don't think you.

Find that that will be really hard for you and then take it up a level. Uncharted territory. Unchartered turf. So I knew I'd make False Bay. What I don't know is whether I can make it back. So turn around and swim back. So call it a 70 kilometre swim, which I've never done in close to. I know it's humanly possible.

Whether I can do it, I don't know. It means I'll swim for probably around 24 to 28 hours. And that means I'll swim overnight and protected in the dark in False Bay with the psychology of that just scares the living daylight side of me, to be honest. being an extremely cold, tired, frustrated, salt chafed, dehydrated swimmer, and then it gets dark, and I have to try keep my wits about me for another probably 10 to 12 hours. So you would swim through the night? I'd swim through the night, yeah.

That's the plan, so that's the goal. It's going to take a few years. I need to find a nice sponsor who can give me the financial piece of mine. You need to find a film crew. Yeah. It's going to make fascinating footage. I thought of that, actually. There's been a little bit of interest.

But I'm not, although I'm talking about it on a podcast, that's just part of my process to get my head right. I am disclaiming it by saying, there's a lot of stars that need to align before I even start the training for that. So it's a long way down the line. But you asked what my goal is and that is my goal. That's an incredible goal. A lot of people do that.

A lot of people will, like, make a goal public so it, like, holds them accountable for it. So what's up with your book? What's the name of your book? It's called Push past Impossible. Hold it up next to your face right here so the camera can see it right here. There you go, guys. Push past Impossible. Push past Impossible. And you just now got it released recently, right? Just released. It's been out for a month. All of a sudden, it arrived on my doorstep.

So this is a product of hard lockdown in COVID when I was finally given enough time to do it. You'll find it on Amazon. It's on Kindle and everywhere as well. So it's not audio yet, but a lot of my mates who don't like reading want me to do the audios. That's me. I can't read. I understand that. But it's a, it's been out a month and it's a very vulnerable process, to be honest, writing a book. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. And then you're of all those self-doubts and will everyone read it? And is it going to be interesting? And will the messaging come across? Because I include quite a lot about, you know, the mind of that and how you relate that to daily life. And, you know, some of the stories we've shared today, there's a lot more in this book. And it shows the whole progression from me as a good old couch potato at the age of 2830. And now a three-time Guinness World Record Holder doing crazy stuff and traveling the world as an inspirational speaker and doing wonderful podcasts with you on concrete. So how taking a little step in your life and just taking a change and taking a little bit of a risk every now and then,

how that can change your direction and really just revolutionize your life, which it has for me. And this book takes you through that. It's really incredible what you're doing, man. And I love the parallels and what it does to basically explore the human mind and, you know, the powers of the human brain and what it can do and understanding what it was designed to do and keep you away from as opposed to, you know, having, being able to have the motivation and the desire and the just will to do impossible things. And that's the biggest thing I think I took away from, you know, listening to you was like, trying to discover, you know, understanding at least that this, your brain is trying to hold you back because of evolution. So you have to learn how to push past that. 100%. Yeah. And I hope I'm glad you took that out of it because, you know, obviously when

I do the keynotes in the corporate, it's far more succinct and, and nicely laid out. But you've nailed it. So that's exactly it, you know, and my swimming journey has taught me that about myself. And I'm a complete, that's, I think that's where I started. I'm a complete average Joe. There's nothing special about me. I have no clever ability to self-heat my center core and survive some of the situations better than anyone else. It's just a matter of understanding. It's a matter of being aware of what's happening in your head, as you've just put it. And then one of the hardest parts, believe or not, is actually believing it's relevant to you. Because as humans, we always think, well, that's relevant to someone else, not me. I've got my shit together. I know when I'm taking

a risk. I know when my mind's steering me away from comfort, I've got this. But when you believe that you actually not. Okay. Only then can you be brave enough to try, take a step. Right. So it's kind of a three-tier process that I teach. Be aware of it first and that we do through wonderful stories and then believe and then be brave enough to try. That's beautiful, man.

Do you have a website or anything where people can find out, find more your work or your talks or anything? So website is Ryan Stramrud. I'm going to hold this up so you can see the spelling. Everyone spells it all. There it is. Oh, there it is. Ryan Stramramrood.com. But where I'm most active is on Instagram.

And that's Ryan underscore Stramrude. St.R-A-M-R-O-D. I will link it below. Thanks again for your time, man. I really appreciate this. What you're doing is fucking fascinating, and I love it. I hope more people can find out about what you're doing and find your talks and your book and all that good stuff.

Yeah, fantastic. Thanks for your interest. And thanks to your listeners and viewers and everybody. I really appreciate it. Interact. Love to hear from you.