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

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Ross Edgley is an endurance athlete and an author. Ross just broke the world record for the world's longest non-stop river swim. It took over 2 days with no sleep, no stopping or touching land. He's also swum around the entire UK and competed head to head with sharks. Time to find out how his mind, body and preparation works. Expect to learn how Ross prepares for an endurance event, how you go to the bathroom when you're locked in a wetsuit, what 50 hours of sleep deprivation whilst exercising feels like, Ross' diet and daily routine, the scientific mindset of resilience, strategies to push yourself to your absolute limit and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Get Magic Spoon's brand-new Protein-packed Treats in your nearest grocery store Get up to 37% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout)  Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Ross Edgeley. He's an endurance athlete and an author. Ross just broke the world record for the world's longest non-stop river swim. It took over two days with no sleep, no stopping or touching land. He's also swam around the entire UK and competed head to head with sharks. Time to find out how his mind, body and preparation works. Expect to learn how Ross prepares for an endurance event, how you go to the bathroom when you're locked inside of a wetsuit, what 50 hours of sleep deprivation whilst exercising feels like, Ross's diet and daily routine, the scientific mindset of resilience, strategies to push yourself to your absolute limit and much more.

Ross is a beast. The guy is a complete freak and the fact that he does it all with a smile on his face makes me so unbelievably suspicious and in awe of what he's been able to achieve. He genuinely is a one in a seven billion type of human and there is so much to take away from today Also people of Australia and the UK my live show is coming to you this November, Brisbane Wednesday the 6th of November Melbourne Friday the 8th of November and Sydney Saturday the 9th of November tickets are available right now and selling very quickly at Chris Williamson dot live slash Australia and London the event in Apollo on Thursday, 28th

November. Tickets are already more than 50% sold out, so you need to get yours quickly at chriswilliamson.live.com.au us edgy. Take me through what you've just done. What have you just completed? Yeah, yeah. So I suppose after swimming around Great Britain, so the 157 days, 1780 miles, that was the world's longest stage sea swim. So stage just means basically that you swim to a certain way point, you get out on the boat and then you start from that way point.

You keep going until you go all the way around Great Britain. I sort of had this idea and sort of fascination with a non-stop continuous swim, which is just basically no sleeping, no touching land. No one can touch you. I don't know why it just ignited a bit of a curiosity in me. Tried a few times in different bodies of water, Loch Ness, which didn't go entirely to plan. Go through what happened with Loch Ness and the Italian one. That's right. So Loch Ness was the first one and that was 2022. It was all to raise awareness

around ocean conservation, doing some brilliant work with Talisker and Parley, protecting marine ecosystems around the world. We had everything set up. I mean, Loch Ness is a body of water that you don't take lightly. It's as long as the English Channel, the way that the wind picks up is always a massive funnel. So you'll just end up getting 10 foot waves. We were already pushing it into the winter and then the queen actually died the day that we were meant to start. So obviously out of sheer respect, you know, the entire country shut down. Then I sort of sat there knowing full well, and as a team, we're like, okay, this is now getting into the winter, which it goes from being ambitious

to a little bit stupid. But with all of that said, the goal was always to raise awareness around ocean conservation. So I was like, do you know what? Not ideal conditions, but let's go. So I sort of set off knowing, not to say it was doomed to fail, but the odds were stacked against us. Things are going pretty well, 53 hours in, and then it just kind of went dark. And then I remember just waking up hospital bed, seeing my mum and my girlfriend and I was like, oh, it's not gone well, has it? They're like, no, it's not. Hypothermia cellulitis was actually what stopped it, which is where the wetsuit was chafing.

It's a bacteria infection. But basically when that gets in your lymph nodes or bloodstream, it can be fatal. So so glad that the team sort of called it and the doctor did when they did fast forward another year. And I thought, you know what, let's get away from the cold. Let's go somewhere warm. Went to Italy, Tres Amino seemed like a good idea at the time. Again, paid for the boat, paid for crew.

Everybody's out there. And then an anti-cyclone from the Sahara desert ends up in Tres Amino, which is kind of this huge dome as well. So it just became a massive sauna. But because of the authorities in Italy, they basically say, if you're going to swim in that lake, you pay for permits, organized permits. It has to happen at that time. We flew camera crews out and crew, it had to happen.

So we set off, I think in the shallows, the water was like 36, 37. For those who- Celsius. Yeah. Freedom units, that's 100-ish. Yeah, it was, yeah. It was a bath. It was a jacuzzi, you know, which, um, Fina, I had the governing body for Open Water Swimming. So often they will cancel events where it's

anywhere just over 30, because it just becomes dangerous. So I knew that wasn't going to be great. But again, we tried our very best to be self. And actually what's really strange is I'm really proud of that particular metric. It was a great swim. Doctors and friends of mine ever since were just like Ross, that was rhabdo waiting to happen. So where the muscles essentially break down and liquefy and end up in your bloodstream, which is something you don't want to happen. They were like, we're amazed you went as far as you did. So in a weird way, with all the data we

collected around that, I remain weirdly proud of it. The human guinea pig yourself, even though you didn't achieve your goal. So how far did you go on a swim one and how far on swim two? So I don't actually know on swim one because it all went dark and I, it all got a little bit and then people had to basically jump in and pull me out. And as soon as you do that, the swim's over. So we don't know the metrics on that one. But the 53 hour duration was something I'm quite proud of. And then what was strange with the Tres Aminos swim, because we went between two islands.

So it was basically 70 kilometres between all the islands, but with the wiggle room it was getting up over 100km. Which again, in those conditions, I was weirdly proud of. But we then sat there, fast forward now to this year, and I just thought with all the data that we have available to us, there was this allure of a river swim and non-stop river swim. So basically there's a, there's a, uh, it's called the Yukon River quest, where people paddling kayak down there in boats every single year, uh, annual event, an amazing event. I sat there with my girlfriend, just looking on the internet one day and I was

like, oh, but if you can kayak it, you can swim it in theory, reached out to the health and safety team there. Uh, the organizers out there, they said, yeah, yeah, in theory, if you avoid whitewater rapids, bears, wolves, you know, there's a chance you could do it. The team out there were incredible. The way that they read the river was just insane. It was such a team event. And essentially this was last week now, um, set off from a white horse, uh, in Canada and swam 510 kilometers over about 60 hours total expedition time and, uh,

set the record for the longest nonstop room. Eventually we got one. Is that different to doing it in a lake? Have you got assistance from big streams? Is this going to be contested in some way? Oh, it's exactly that. Yeah. I'm glad you asked that. So there's different categories for different. So this would be classed as an assisted swim. So it's very different from a lake where there's no tide or current. Uh, but with all of that said, it then comes with its own challenges as well, because as you're kind of getting pushed down by the river, it might take you down one route where you know that's leading

to Whitewater Rapids, a log jam, you're just going to get impaled on some rocks. So it's almost like interval sprinting for 510 kilometres because you're the boat. So you've got to essentially have enough power to steer your navigate around things. Exactly. So it's very different. I think that's the beauty of, um, open water swimming is there's so many classifications and categories. Um, this is just, you know, a non-stop river swim. Talk to me about preparation.

You did a lot of preparation for the great British swim. You've got this really interesting insight about size actually being an advantage, even though people might think it's not. And then what did you learn? Great British swim into Loch Ness, into Italy, into Canada. How did preparation change and explain what your training looked like? Yeah. I do not, I'm so glad you asked that just because I think preparation is so different for these sorts of events.

Cause people sort of think of swimming as just swimming. It's all encompassing, but it, but it's for me, it's so different. Like you, you couldn't compare me to sort of Adam Petey, for instance, like Adam Petey, good friend of mine, greatest breaststroke of the world has ever seen. You know, you look at him, he is a Mako shark. He's a white shark. He looks phenomenal. Broad shoulders, six foot plus.

He's a mate and in the water, he's poetic. You look at his technique. I am a chubby whale shark at best. You know, I'm very different and they're two different disciplines. But I love that because I say so many people have like a swimming superpower. You know, some people are incredible. Adam Peaty is rapid. He's poetic. You look at him. I'm just stubborn. You know, I'm stubborn. I can eat lots and I won't give up. And I think that's the sort of difference between the different disciplines. So preparation for

this was really different because with most swimmers you would say, how's your technique? High elbow catch, are you bilaterally breathing? Is it a two beat, a four beat, like all these technical things. Whereas when you're 60 hours in, none of that makes any sense. You're just like, am I still kicking my legs? Am I still afloat? That's literally all you're concerned with. So preparation for this was like not necessarily building a faster body. It was building a more robust body because speed wasn't going to be what determines success or not. It was, is a ligament tendon going to give up, uh, gastrointestinal distress as well, almost training the digestive system. That's another thing as well. Studies

looking at how competitive eaters, they have an adaptation in their stomachs. So now actually endurance athletes are saying, hang on, we can actually learn from competitive eaters. So all of these things actually preparing for a nonstop continuous swim training looks very, very different to what a conventional Olympics swimmer would be. How are you preparing the ligaments? What does this look like from a training perspective? Strength training.

Yeah. I think with all training modalities, people look at, you know, proprioception, kinesthetic awareness, agility, mobility, all these sorts of things. Whereas strength as a training modality, it's called mechano-transduction. So people will think in terms of weights, stress and stimuli makes the muscles strong. Yes, absolutely that is true, but it's also the ligaments and tendons at the same time. So again, it's so counterintuitive because there's some swimmers who won't touch weights in fear it'll affect their mobility,

their proprioception kinesthetic in the water. Whereas with me, it was very much just trying to build this big robust body. I think again, to use Adam Peaty as an example, he is a Formula One car. Everything on him is refined. It's unbelievable. It's designed to make him the fastest human in the water. I am a big truck. I'm a tractor. An F150. John Deere tractor. Is exactly a big truck. I'm a tractor. Nef 150, John Deere tractor.

Is exactly it. Yeah. Okay. What about the gastrointestinal preparation? What did that look like? Do you know what? This was my favorite prep actually. So a shout out to James Morton. He was the nutritionist for team Sky when they won the Tour de France and he does some amazing research just into looking at not only the carbohydrates and or calories that you can tolerate, but the calories that you can assimilate at the same time. And that's really important because up until recently, people fought 60 to 80 grams of

carbs every hour on the hour was the upper limit of what you could actually digest. Where there's a studies looking at different osmolality digesting of carbs, we found that we've been able to push that to 120 grams of carbohydrates every hour on the hour. But what we were doing with James Morton, and this was fascinating, I found it helped so much, is when you're looking at just marginal gains, is we did that 120 grams of carbs every hour on the hour, but then also on top of that used MCT, so medium chain triglycerides that are very different to long chain triglycerides because they act more like a carbohydrate. So essentially what we're doing is just trying to take the digestive system and say, how much can we put through every single hour without actually it's sort of detrimental,

you know, the sort of digestive system imploding as it were. And on that note, you know, for anyone sort of wanting to trial it, MCTs are something that you have to train the digestive system. There are stories of people having too many during lab. Explosive. You said it Chris. Yeah, genuinely. Yeah.

People will literally just shit themselves. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Kit, what are you wearing? People will literally just shit themselves. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So, uh, kit, what are you wearing? Specially designed, uh, wetsuit of some kind. Yeah. Okay. You know, since, since we're on the topic of toilets as well, I might as well start with this story.

Is there a butt flap? Is there a special butt flap in your wetsuit? How does it work? It was a butt flap. Yeah. There is, but to this day, I'm unsure if my bum hole is in the wrong place or the, uh, the flap was in the wrong place. Okay. Right.

Yeah. I'm five hours in. So what was a 60 hour swim? Um, sure enough signals to the team. I was like, guys, I just went like that T as in I'm going to the toilet. They were like, cool. Everybody sort of turned their back to, to give me my dignity. Yeah. Went to the toilet. It, let, cool. Everybody sort of turned their back to give me my dignity. Yep.

Went to the toilet. It, let's just say it didn't, it didn't work. It didn't evacuate what it was. Right. So I am then nursing what I was trying to get rid of in my wetsuit for what was essentially, yeah, what, 55 hours in the sun. So honestly, Chris, it was so bad. I knew as well, like this is the thing. I'm just sitting there and I'm swimming. I'm just going, this is disgusting. But no one said this

will be easy. We got it done, but it wasn't until the end. And again, the team were amazing. It was just made up of just big, hardy, manly Canadians, the sort of men you'd want if you go on to war like in a hunt. These are big men. And as they're cutting the wetsuit off me because of compression and chafing, I just said, guys, I- Heads up. Yeah, forewarning. I've fermented something. Indeed. I'm so sorry. And they went, no, no, no, it's fine. We've seen all sorts. They cut it off. What was interesting is Dr. Tom, very good friend of mine, he said it didn't actually smell like feces at all. He said it was more akin to

a burning flesh. I was, I couldn't smell anything. You churned it into butter. Oh, whatever. It's essentially it. He said it was like a grey powder that had come out. How that happened, I don't know. But sorry, like I said, uh, Canadians, some of them just had to excuse themselves. They've seen, they will gut a bear, you know, they will, they will behead a wolf. You after 55 hours swimming, slowly mashing poo into your, your own wetsuit. They just said, I'm sorry, I've got to go.

I was like, no, not for me, mate. All right. So tell me, tell me the story of the, of the swim. Yeah. So what, from start to not for me, mate. All right. So tell me, tell me the story of the, of the swim. Yeah. So what from start to finish leaving out the mashed up. That can include. Let's we'll, we'll, we'll revisit that. So yeah, it started off.

Um, and I think what was really interesting is it was my first river swim as well. So I was completely listening to the team. I think, um, I tried to swim it as hard as I could as a swimmer. Whereas what's very apparent, and I found this on the GB swim, is you need to treat it like a sailor, like a boat expert, like an adventurer. You need to treat your body like a vessel, like a ship. So I was trying to find the path of least resistance or the path of most assistance. So it was constantly weaving our way down the river. I think one of the biggest things as well was just the toll it took on the shoulders

as well with like the Yukon would ask so much from you. We were 24 hours in and we came to Five Finger Rapids. So you're 24 hours in and for anyone listening as well, it's kind of like, imagine sort of running a marathon and then at some point someone just turns around and says, whether you like it or not, you have to sprint. You know, it's just, I am fatigued, depleted of muscle glycogen. It's like, no, no, no, the river doesn't care. Sprint or you will drown.

So I think throwing curve balls in like that was pretty bad. Picked a fight with some rapids as well. Lost, started bleeding. I posted on Instagram a picture of my legs, which was a weird injury to pick up. And that was sort of a combination of the rocks and also chafing. But from that, what was really strange is there was then a direct correlation with that and the number of wildlife taking an interest in me. So the first one was this massive eagle and I've never seen them before. It was a pterodactyl. It was huge. And it's hopping

from tree to tree while looking at me. And I turned to the guys on the boat and I said, what's going on? And they said, oh, well, it knows you're too small to be a bear, too big to be a salmon. But what they typically do is wait for the salmon to exhaust themselves and stop flapping. And then it will come down. So it's, it's, it's waiting for you to stop flapping. Um, so sure enough, I never stopped laughing. Just carried on swimming. That was weird. Just being circled.

Because of being an Eagles dinner. Exactly. Um, saw a few black bears, some mooses crossing as well. Moose, moose are massive. Uh, did not realize that. And then also as well, what was amazing is, uh, just catching up with all the stories with the guys on the boat. They obviously had to go to the toilet in the woods with a bucket and quite often you'd see them sort of sheepishly running out of the woods having seen wolf tracks. So it was an interesting swimming pool basically

to say the least. Yeah. It was, it got a bit weird. Well, you're in the wilderness for sure. And you're surrounded by all of these different animals. And if you're bleeding, I mean, yeah, how much stuff bleeds for 300 miles and just spreads itself along the Yukon. Very few animals. Well, I didn't really think about it like that. It's a big, you know, like an ice cream truck going by. You're the like smell equivalent of that.

Just advertising your sweet British flesh to all of the animals around you. I'm glad we didn't have this conversation before. Yeah, that's that is true. I was an ice cream van, wasn't I? You were. Yeah. Just playing playing your tune as loud as possible through the through the scent. I just got back from Nashville this morning, and this was the bag that came with me, the Nomatic travel pack.

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That's nomatic.com slash modern wisdom and MW20 at checkout. Okay, so take me through each different, or do you think about the swim from a mental perspective? 60 hours, 60 hours exactly. That was total expedition time. So I can't see, I think it was maybe like 54, 55. I count that because we had to get into position as well. Understood. Okay.

So 54 hours of actual swimming. That's no sleep. That's not touching land. That's not touching a boat. Food is being. Lone at you launched at me used with a net. I saw the great British swim. Um, talk to me about how you think of the, uh, the fatigue part chunked.

Is it the first 24, 36? Like where does, how do you think about that? It changes so much. I think, um, one of the biggest things I've learned from all athletic adventures is you have to outsource common sense. Like you can't trust your own brain. And it's so weird. I know Tim Nokes talks about central governor theory, you know, this idea or psycho biological model of fatigue that, you know, you're so much more powerful than your own mind allows you to believe. And essentially what's happening is your brain is a hypochondriac and it's picking up all of these signals from the body going, oh Ross, you're kind of depleted muscle glycogen or neurotransmitters, chemicals, signals in the brain, not quite firing.

It's giving you all of this and it's basically trying to get you to pull that physiological handbrake. Again, people listening, they'll understand that if you know, if we ran a marathon or some 18 miles in, you hit the wall, you can't go on. Your legs are burning, your lungs are on fire, you can't go on. And then what happens all of a sudden at 24 miles, you see your family and friends, everyone starts cheering, you goose step and you're sprinting to the end. It's like, hang on, wait, you said you were done at 18 miles. And that's essentially the same.

It's the same principle, but just kind of extended over a longer period of time. And it's knowing that, that you can't trust your own brain. It's a hypochondriac. And then more to that point, your brain as well will find any weakness. And it's so strange speaking like this, cause it's almost like you're removing yourself from your brain. But if we were, if we were in the middle of the Yukon, we were doing this, all of a sudden it would be going, Oh, Chris, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be in the Yukon. Have you trained?

Have you trained enough? Did you eat enough? Didn't really sleep last night. How's that shoulder? You know, you've had that shoulder injury for a while. And all of a sudden you get these voices in your head. Isn't it funny how the way that the brain delivers these concerns is through a narrative, it's through a story.

It's personifying all of the worry and the concern because it could just be pain, right? The way that the brain delivers these concerns is through a narrative, is through a story. It's personifying all of the worry and the concern, because it could just be pain, right? It could just deliver just straight up pain to you, but it's being like a press secretary and it's creating this sort of weird narrative and it's spinning things at you and, well, you've gone far enough. That's far enough. Like, you know, what if you drown? What if you're, what would your parents think?

What would you, what about the bear of the father? What about that Eagle? That Eagle is still following you, you know, all of those different things. It's so funny how it uses the very competitive advantage that we have as brains to use theory of mind, to have an internal dialogue. It uses that as the, uh, the governor. It's exactly that. Yeah.

And I think it gets really straight. I mean, I, I read a lot of, uh, Eckhart Tolle as well. And I think my mind even goes to that sort of place sort of like identifying the ego, identifying these different voices in your head. And I think it's so interesting that when that happens, uh, a very good friend of mine, actually Benny Gordon, who's the, the drummer of a partway driver, rock band. Amazing. I was wearing that t-shirt only here a couple of them.

Ozzy guy. Yeah. Yeah. I was wearing that t-shirt only hear a couple of them. Ozzy guy. Yeah, yeah. Whereas Benny, I remember he essentially gave me this perspective on things and I love this. I've used it ever since, but a lot of people sometimes will, when that voice comes up, they'll shout back at it. They'll say, oh, man up, grit your teeth, get through this. And that can definitely work for a marathon.

I've found that can work for an Ironman as well. 12, 13, 14, 15 hours can work. It gets quite tiring. 54, 55 hours in. And so Benny always taught me it's almost like if you sort of sit there, shut your eyes. And he said, your thoughts are like clouds that come into this clear sky. And at the start of the swim, the sky is very clear. You know, the sun is shining in that head of yours.

And all of a sudden these dark clouds just coming and every cloud that comes across is just a new thought. And your job is just to observe it. Don't have to react to it. Just observe it. So as it comes in and it pops in your head, just like, Oh Ross, have you done enough training? Just go, yeah, I have. Thanks.

Yeah. Disappears. And then all of a sudden 12 hours pass. Whoa, Ross sun going down. Hyperthermia is going to set in. Remember, remember Loch Ness. Remember how bad that was? Whoa, I don't want to do that again.

No, no, no, I've got this and it just keeps going past every cloud. It's just your job is just to observe it. Not necessarily to react to it. It's very hard to do, especially when sleep deprived, but that's been one of the biggest things. It's very hard to do, especially when sleep deprived, but that's been one of the biggest things. It's like mindful resilience as opposed to the Goggins, Jocko sort of lean in, punch it in the face type approach. Very interesting. So what were you, are you sort of embodying a curiosity there?

Like, isn't that interesting? That's an interesting thought that comes through and goodbye. And it. Is exactly that. Yeah. I think however I respond to it, the main thing is just making sure that it doesn't alter my biochemistry. So it's exactly that, that a thought that is like punching it in the face or say, no,

you don't know me, you know, and shout it, that is going to do nothing but spike cortisol. Your biochemistry is going to be out of whack. It's fine. Again, you can do that, I think, for a marathon or 12 hours, but I've found personally, and it does work for some people. I mean, you know, Yoko Goggins incredibly successful. I found it doesn't work for me. And whether that is, um, sort of nature versus nurture, obviously they have

an incredible military background. I am a country. You're more sensitive to cortisol. Yeah. Yeah. And just a country bump You're more sensitive to cortisol. Yeah. Yeah. And just a country bumpkin, you know, sort of swims around Cheshire in the countryside. You know, I'm a hobbit, you know, whereas they are very much, you know,

they are Spartans, they are warriors. Uh, I am not, you know, so I found that, you know, maybe a bit more Courtney Dalwater, who I'm a massive fan of as well. I'm maybe more that, you know, you see her just in the pain cave, smashing sweets, having the best time. And I think I looked at her and I go, Oh, that's a bit more me. Yeah. You know, that, that I've found that approach works a bit more.

What is being awake and in water from a fatigue, tiredness standpoint? Like what happens when you get 24, 48, 54 hours in? Yeah. What's so interesting is it's not a steady decline. You know, it's, it's an absolutely drop off a cliff, you know, so from anywhere from 24 hours from then, um, perceptual distortions, hallucinations, just straight up. And that was something I was so familiar with, with the GB swim and. You just kind of become really comfortable with it.

So, um, Chris Morgan, really good friend of mine, Olympic coach, Olympic swim coach, he kayaked hundreds of miles in support of me on this and equally did not sleep. And I want to say, I think we were like, probably like 40 hours in, I remember Chris is just kayaking next to me and he just pulls up to my side. I'm eating a banana on a break and he just said, Ross, can I be honest with you? I said, yeah, no, please do mate. He goes, I am tripping. I went, Oh good.

This is what you see in. And he goes, seven dwarfs just over there. They're just chopping down trees. They seem happy enough. I went, cool. He goes, what about you? I went, Oh yeah. Let the show begin.

I just put my goggles on and started begin. And that's what it was. You just, again, rather than being like, no, get out of my head. I just put my goggles on and just went, Oh, it's going to be a fun night. The original app and VR, Apple VR pro. Exactly. Well, you had, um, I remember on the Loch Ness swim, you were dogs. When you asking like, who's are those dogs over there? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought dogs to this day, I swear dogs were swimming with me. Um, one of the main ones as well, again, actually how, uh, sort of encouraging it could be though, like for those who have seen Loch Ness, it's just a long sort of stretch of water and that's surrounded by trees and at night you just see the silhouette of these trees, these branches, huge trees. And I remember looking up at a banana break, I'm just eating a banana, everyone's checking on me. I'm like, you know, 45 hours in. And to this day, I swear it looked like a cruise ship because you can imagine the tree line looking like a cruise ship. I remember thinking,

that's so weird. Like why is there a cruise ship? Like the Titanic. I was like, why is there a cruise ship on Loch Ness? I said, regardless, I hugely appreciate them just stopping off and showing their support. So I start talking to the trees thinking it's a cruise ship. And then all of a sudden the branches start waving as well. And it looks like people have come to the side of the cruise ship to wave. And my girlfriend and my brother and my mum are watching as I'm there going, thank you so much for your support. I'm getting choked up. I'm going, thank you for your support. Don't forget we're protecting Marine ecosystems. And they're like, oh yeah, he's talking to the trees. But it was also on that note, I think what's really interesting

is they know it's going to happen. Like my girlfriend's amazing. I've been with her 12 years. She knows it's going to happen. Very my girlfriend's amazing. I've been with her 12 years. She knows it's going to happen. Uh, very good friends of mine, like Chris Morgan, like my brother, they're like, Oh, he's going to go a bit crazy. Let him. That's fine. But we know when to pull the plug. Oh, they've learned to not deny the delusion.

Exactly. Yeah. They know when to pull the plug, which is, you know, hypothermia, cellulitis and various other things. But if I'm talking to trees or seeing dogs, they're like, he's fine. Goldilocks zone. This is the exact, we've got him right where we want it. He's good. What's the longest you've been without sleep by the way? I mean, I think I've, there's certainly been a bunch of days I've done 24 hours, you know, back in the day when I was running nightclubs, it was one particular day I remember I flew, I got up at 4 a.m., flew to London, ran a Tough Mudder

for Purcell or Ariel, for like. I think I remember seeing that. Yeah, it was a bunch of influencers back in the day. So I did that and then got back on a plane, flew back to Newcastle and then ran one of our events and got in at four in the morning. So that was a full 24 hours, so that was busy. I don't know, man, I mean, I've been, uh, my energy, my capacity to be able to deal with sleep

deprivation now as I get into my thirties is just so poor. I do feel like I kind of tapped the tank driving back from Manchester at two 30 in the morning, after having run a club night. So I feel like all of my late nights, I just front loaded them into my 20s. I've gotten on left, you know, like I think Donald Trump believes that there's a number of heartbeats that you've got in your entire lifetime. And if you do too much exercise, they happen more quickly. So, um, it's kind of the same as that, but yeah, I, I dunno, man, thinking about you being in just being in water, just treading water, because while you're eating,

talk to me about that. Talk to, I was talking to a friend about this yesterday, the digestive discomfort that I have, even if I just lie down too quickly after I've had a meal, you know, because vertically being upright allows gravity to help the digestive tract to get things from mouth to esophagus down all the way through. Um, what, what are some of the unique challenges and how do you get around that? That it's strange that of all of, um of the tests that have been done on me at Liverpool John Mawes University and Loughborough University, that was one of the biggest things that they came away with that they were just like, when you look at like Michael Phelps, Cam McAvoy,

one of the fastest sprinters ever, Ben Proud, they all have amazing superpowers. Going back to that swimming superpower, whether that is hyper extension, Michael felt's ability to tolerate lactic, um, you know, can McAvoy crazy strong. It just feels that when they were handing out superpowers, they just went Ross can eat that was it genuinely. So when people say, you know, how, how do you eat and how do you, I'm like, that's literally all I do. I I've never.

And when you say I can eat, that means I can consume a good amount of food with minimal digestive discomfort and also absorb it and use it. Exactly that. Yeah. Yeah. And then not only that, actually, I think what became really interesting on this particular swim is eating became a way of making sure we sort of staved off hypothermia at the same time as well, because you just, thatic effect of feeding, just making sure just warm porridge oats, just so you

were being warm from the inside out. What were you eating? At that point, we just hammered the warm porridge oats. And what was really interesting actually about this is, and I hope no one ever finds themselves in this dilemma, we were so cold on the second morning. The sun wasn't coming up for ages. It was behind the mountains. Water was so cold. Like I said, it was eight, nine degrees and the team started to

increase my feeding as well. So it was rather than every 30, 35, 40 minutes was it was every 15 to 20 minutes just regularly. And it was piping hot porridge oats. And what was so interesting is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that sort of pyramid. At that point, all I wanted was warmth. That was it. You know, so as you go up Maslow's hierarchy at the base, you've got sleep, warmth, you know, food, shelter, as you move up, friends, family, as you move up, job security, as you move up, feelings of prestige, accomplishment, until you get to the very top, philanthropy, self-actualization. I was so low down on that

pyramid. In that moment, you could have offered me a brand new car, a million pounds. Just want a water bottle. Yeah. I'd want the sun to come up over that mountain. That is all I wanted. And I think what was so interesting is in that point, I knew I wasn't going to give up. I didn't want to end up in hospital and I didn't want to give up. So faced with that, the only option was basically just to swim like crazy to heat the body up. And during feeding strategies, they were basically saying, how hot do you want it? And I was like, it needs to be as hot as tolerable. So sat there in the middle of the Yukon, I am just there basically just drinking scalding

hot porridge oats as I can feel it burning the tissue as it goes down, but I would rather that than the hypothermia and it was a weird position to be in now sitting here in the comfort of the studio. I had me something like a burning hot cup of coffee. I'm like, Oh Chris, that's too warm. But in that moment, I think it shows like humans are really capable of amazing things. I mean, that was very small. I'm talking, you know, when you hear stories of Everest and you know, these incredible

stories, that was very small, but it gave me a glimpse into what humans could potentially do, what you can endure with a greater goal. Hot porridge. Bananas is one of your favorites. It really is. So what else are you doing in order to hit? And have you got any idea of macronutrient intake across the whole time or caloric intake? Not really.

I mean. You're sure that some, the dude that was throwing the bananas, reverse engineering. Yeah, yeah. We've got a long list. And then also as well, just shout out to my sponsors as well, PhD nutrition, because just gels, electrodes, have something called beta fuel, where it's just a really nice blend of sucrose and fructose. So you're basically not trying to throw one form of carbohydrate through the digestive tract. They have different digestive sort of speeds.

So that again, we made up a lot of that as well. And then things got a little bit more creative when the sun came up and I could actually enjoy it a little bit more. A lot of the guys were having bison burgers, moose soup, things got a little bit more creative and also I could then enjoy it a little bit more, but there were certain periods and especially as well in Canada and the Yukon, the sun never really goes down. So even like your circadian rhythm is all over the place. Is that good given that you're not supposed to sleep? I felt it was.

And then also as well, what's interesting is a lot of the team didn't sleep at all as well. My medic, Dr. Tom, was amazing. Chris Morgan, kayak, Joe Kennedy, as well, expedition leader, amazing. But in some ways, I'd say it was harder for them to not sleep because my face was constantly in water and it was 8 degrees. Like it hurt every time I put my face in in it was just pins and needles to the face. So what was really interesting is I actually found it easier to combat sleep deprivation. You being woken up with a splash of water in the face. Exactly. Yeah. Which is really weird. Like I said, yeah, sure. It was harder swimming, but I would say it was harder for them in the really nice warm sun on a boat. That's kind of like rock. It was harder for them to stay awake than it was me. The sleep deprivation. I didn't actually find that bad until immediately afterwards.

Um, there's video footage as well. We're going to release a whole YouTube series on it. It's amazing. Um, but the doctors talking to me, just how me and you were talking now, Chris, and literally I would just be in between sentences. They were asked, how'd you feel? I'm like, yeah, it's so bad. What about other supplementation caffeine, any nootropics, beta-alanine, any other spicy stuff? What do you use? So much caffeine.

We were just literally talking about this as well because we got into the grams, people dealing milligrams. I think the upper limit is 400 milligrams, you know, right? Yeah. So we would say that's a really strong pre-workout. Um, we were getting into the grams. Yeah. So over well over a thousand milligrams.

And then what was interesting, I'm glad you picked up on that because at a certain point, the body kind of goes, what more do you want from us? Like, you know, there's, there's no neurotransmitters left. You've completely depleted them. Um, alpha GPC I found really works quite well. Yeah, we've got an activated version of that in Newtonic. Cognizant is activated alpha GPC. Exactly. And I love that because, and I don't know if anyone else has used it when swimming,

but I found like it just makes you happier staring at the bottom of a river or a sea. And instead of swimming, and I don't know if this is true of running, but certainly for swimming, I found I'm happy for 10 hours. And as I'm pulling through the water, I'm like, how's my high elbow catch? Oh, that's a good feel for the water. As I'm swimming, I'm just more content with the process. Caffeine has always done that. I've always responded really well to caffeine, but Alpha GPC specifically, and I hammered it for these three days, usually, um, as per the teachings of Huberman, you know, I'll sort of go on and off and sort of cycle it. But for this, we just went all out for those three days and then immediately afterwards,

like, yeah, I mean the calm down. There's an awful lot of substances going through you. Okay. So you're using Alpha GPC, you're using caffeine. What else was in the mix? And that was pretty much it, to be fair, just because you didn't want to spike anything too much. You didn't want to, it was trying to make sure that the entire event was kept like this.

You didn't need any adaptogens. You didn't think that that would be useful or interesting? No, I'm not having trialed it in training. We always say no debuts come race day, you know, and we didn't have time, you know, to trial any of them. I think we're stating is, is this is just kind of ignited a curiosity in me for other debuts, uh, come race day, you know, and we, we didn't have time, you know, to trial any of them. I think we're stating is, is this is just kind of ignited a curiosity in me for other stuff.

And also as well, even Liverpool John Walls university, they were making some fantastic suggestions as well. They were talking about like even on swims where the sun does go down, just punching light into your retina, you know, literally as I'm, oh, how fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe a couple of little red light things on the back of the knee attached to the wetsuit, you know what I mean?

Like, that'd be so interesting. Yeah. It's, it's cool that you've done the whole thing, uh, from a supplementation pharmacological standpoint on, uh, caffeine and basically cytokolines. Like it just get a colon ojic into you. Make sure that you feel good in the brain, but you're not spiking anything too much. Yeah. I do think, you know, I've, I think the most I've had of, of new tonic is maybe five in a day when I've been doing just back to back to back to back to back to back episode somewhere.

And, um, the come down off the back of that is relatively gentle, but there are certain compounds that you could throw in that would just fucking destroy it. And I guess you're thinking as well about digestive discomfort. How is this mixing with the other things that I'm eating? That's a really good point. Yeah. That's why it was just trying to keep it like this the entire time. And also I think as well, um, as it went on, I found I was just metabolising it so quickly. So initially, um, half life caffeine, eight hours, uh, I would certainly feel the effects. If I had 200 milligrams in the early stages of the swim. I could probably feel that for four hours, you know, feel pretty good, uh, powerfully

pulling through the water, improving the ionic environment within the working muscles, neuro transmitters, chemicals in the brain, felt all of that. Going into the second day, two hours towards the end, you know, over that 48 hour period, it was just, yeah, it was just, yeah. Endless amount. Yeah. It was just like, yeah. So it was, it was just, I suppose if we were to draw a graph, it was like initially we, and then it just went like this. Doesn't matter how much more you put in the front.

Did not matter. You haven't mentioned much about protein. What is the role of protein intra-workout in an endurance event like this? I'm glad you asked because we didn't, I try to force so much through the digestive system. It was fats and carbs, you know, so it was really just trying to look at anything that would give you an energy substrate. So protein at that particular point, less important, like it, but on the GB swim when it was a stage swim, so much more important. You had to have your protein. So you're going to break everything down over. Exactly. Exactly. Whereas I think for this, it was almost like controlled, catabolic breakdown of

the body, you were just asking so much of the body, it was going to be a mess. You know, and immediately afterwards, shout out to the guys at Dawson hospital. You know, I rocked up, uh, kidneys were good actually, surprisingly, you know, we, we thought they would have taken a battering. What from? Um, just from, uh, well, dehydration, essentially thought they would have taken a battering. What from? Um, just from, well, dehydration essentially from not trying to get a much in, because it was weird. I touched upon that a little bit now. I got sunburn with hypothermia, which you mentioned. Rare blend.

They were excited. Oh, this is fantastic. We've never seen this before, but it was amazing how much I was sweating and my skin was taking a toll when they got me out. I was red. I was burning up despite being in eight degree water for what was 55, 54 hours. So it was weird how that was all kind of going on. Rabdo again, they couldn't test for that because they couldn't test for creatine kinase. I reckon it was through the roof. Were you taking creatine throughout this actually?

No, never used that. It was just, again, for what was going to be a 60 hour swim. It's not quite the same as a 50, 100 meter sprint. You know, I sort of sat there and was like, it's not going to be that useful. I think that was the thing. That was the thing stripping back all of my supplementation as well to know that when you're on the boat, whatever you're using is, is there. Do you know what I mean? So you have a very sort of narrow band. Okay. So you, you, you get to the hospital, a little bit of rhabdo or a lot of rhabdo. I think there's probably a lot of rhabdo.

Yeah. A lot of rhabdo. Hypothermia. With sunburn. Sunburn. Anything else? I think that was, oh, and then cuts to the back of the leg. Yeah. Explain that. Yeah. So that was? I think that was, oh, and then cuts to the back of the leg.

Oh yeah. Explain that. Yeah. So that was really weird. It was, um, we put, um, like Vaseline and I believe, I think it's called lanolin, I think. Yes. Yeah.

We put that. Breastfeeding women use that to fix their skin. Which is amazing. I put that all around my neck and that actually was, was pretty good. Um, even, I'm so sorry about this, even put it down my bum crack to make sure that was all okay as well. There was no shaving. Brilliant. Like completely, apart from the toilet mishap was perfect. But the one place was the back of the legs. Cause when treading water, so sort of like a breaststroke leg kick or egg beater leg kick for those who play water polo,

it was sort of riding up and in the crease of the back of the leg. Um, so that was the weirdest injury that I told, I just never thought. It looks deep. The image on Instagram is not, how is it now? It's pretty good. I mean, I'll take down my trousers if you want me to, but them down, let's have a look. Come on. Show me, show me.

This is what, this is what the people are here for. That does not look good. No, that's healed. Can we bring up a picture of before? Yeah, that's true. That's good. Oh, dude. Wow.

That's fucking gnarly. That's actually healed. I showed Rich, Rich Roller. He was like, yeah, that's pretty good. Okay. Well, still, what was that photo of your hand? Oh yeah. Well, I think it was like, one of the things that doctors were most

concerned with is the compression for so long. Like if you saw a picture of my face, my cheeks, I looked like a hamster. Yes. Cause that was the only thing that was kind of like protruding out of the wet suit. So that just kind of went like this. And then I think my hands, my hands were just damp and cold for what was a, well, eight degree water, you know, 55

hours. So the hands are just turned like sponge-like and yeah, that was, that was that, but they've recovered. Look, absolutely fine. Normal hands. Yeah. It looks like a weird prosthetic rubber glove in the image you put through. It was.

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You mentioned that sort of interesting perspective you have on resilience. You wrote a great book, Hard Resilience. Give me your overview of resilience and how you've come to think about it from a human standpoint. Yeah. I say in the book that resilience is suffering strategically managed. And what I mean by that is, you know, so often I think people think in terms of gritting your teeth, manning up, you know, and, and for me, it just wasn't quite.

Right. To sort of say that that's not, that's not an approach that I found works. It's like me and you go for a run right now. Um, if we have five K into the run and we're going to run a marathon, you turn to me and say, Ross, I've got a pebble in my shoe. I won't go more resilience, man up, run with it and wear it down. No, I'm like, just let's stop and take the pebble out. Chris, you know, it's, it's suffering strategically managed.

And I think, especially with the latest swim as well with the Yukon, it is really nice if people say, oh, Ross is really tough. He's really resilient. I'm like, no, no, it's just suffering strategically managed, you know, uh, neurotransmitters, chemicals in brain, caffeine, depleted and muscle glycogen, carbs. Uh, I need more than that MCTs. Uh, I'm getting cold.

Make sure that the porridge oats are turned up. Do you know me? It's anything that's going on, limiting limitations. And I think to go off on a little bit of a tangent, it's kind of what I love the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, you're with admins and Robert Falcon, Scott Shackleton. And when Robert Falcon, Scott and admins and the Norwegian, Falcons got being the British guy when they were racing to the South Pole. It was so interesting that Admanson with Norwegian efficiency, you know, turned up. His guys were trained Olympic skiers.

There was an Olympic skier in his team as well who led from the front. Everybody was made to practice in skis. Not only that as well, they turned up with dogs. This is something that you learn when going to the Arctic Circle as well from the indigenous people there. So he knew that if he got to the South Pole with this number of dogs, that on the way back he could eat a certain number of dogs for sustenance. And the British at the time were like, oh, that's ungentlemanly, like eating dogs, that's terrible. And then equally, when you look at the British expedition, they

brought ponies that ended up falling through the ice and they had to feed them to the to the orcas. They brought mechanical skis that just broke down, tins of food that were just completely useless and poisonous as soon as they arrived. And I think it was so interesting that learning from that, I was very much Scotty of the Antarctic when it came to Loch Ness and Tres Amino. I turned up and it was like, right, let's give this a good go. Whereas for the Yukon, I was very much trying to be Admanson, you know, this Norwegian efficiency. And that's one of the biggest things to come back. If I was to add a chapter to the art of resilience, it would probably be that story.

I read it. Uh, I think I messaged you about this, but I snapped, I ruptured my Achilles playing cricket, the most British way to do it. Um, four years ago, at the end of, uh, the end of COVID and I put together, and this is the same, if anybody is going through good for physical stuff, probably also all right for emotional stuff, uh, obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday, art of resilience by yourself on audible. I think I go, go audible cause that's cool.

Uh, and then, um, resurfaced the documentary about Andy Murray is a hip replacement where he gets a ball and socket. It's like a steel ball and a ceramic socket hip replacement. And those three, that's my stack. You know, yours was like caffeine, MCTs and cytokolines. Mine was those three. And that was the thing that really kind of set the tone for the rest of my recovery. But it is, it's such a unique perspective on resilience.

And I think that we are definitely in an age of glorification of the tough, heroic man. And the main reason being that it feels like something that's very absent. It feels revolutionary. It feels, um, counterculture in a world which is very convenient. And you go from air conditioned house to cooled office. Um, it feels traditional in a sort of wholesome way to talk about just gritting your teeth and getting through it. Um, but given the choice, I mean, what did you do for the swim? You didn't swim upstream. in a sort of wholesome way to talk about just gritting your teeth and getting through it.

But given the choice, I mean, what did you do for the swim? You didn't swim upstream when it came to what you were doing mentally, you didn't try and swim upstream. And it feels like that's kind of the philosophy that you've taken. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you said that. Yeah. I never actually never thought about it like that, but that, um, this is why I wanted to appreciate coming on here. Cause I'm still deconstructing the Yukon. So this is almost just like therapy. It's not podcast at all. Tell me about your answer. That's full

trauma. Yeah, no, but that is exactly it. I didn't really think about it, but yeah, figured it metaphorically. Yeah. It was very much trying to work with the river. This is going to sound so strange as well, but it really is like quite spiritual when you do. And that's the only way I can describe it for want of a better term. But with the Yukon, it just, it almost provided everything that we needed. So this is the glacial melt, the glacial lakes, they're melting, which made sure that we had like a stronger current. We had a brief window of those two days where the sun actually came out. It just felt like the Yukon was like, you know what?

Like if you're crazy enough to come and try this, we'll, we'll, we'll guide you. Well, after the first two attempts that you've done for this, you would, oh, something mother nature was, all right. I've kicked you in the dick twice. Here we go. I'll give you a nice little helping hand. Explain to me where your mind is. You know, you're doing six hours on six hours off. If it was great British swim, you're doing 15 minutes or half an hour of 45.

What are you doing with your mind for that long? I, the biggest thing that I've taken away is solely focusing on the process. And this is something I actually learned from the Royal Marines because, and anyone listening will be able to understand when you're focusing on the outcome, you're not actually focusing on the process. So if you are rowing, you're on a treadmill, something, whatever it is, if you're looking at the gym clock and being like, how much longer have I got? Oh my God, I've only done 15 minutes. No, no, no, you're focusing on the outcome. You're not focusing on the process. If you're running on a treadmill, focus on my forefoot striking, my heel striking, how's my cadence? That's what you should be focusing on. When I'm swimming, how's my high elbow catch? Am

I catching it? Am I finishing my stroke? What's my leg kick doing? That's the process. The moment I immediately turn to the boat and start saying, how much further have we got? How far have we gone? Those metrics are important, but if you keep on asking that, you're not focusing on the process. If you're not focusing on the process, you're not focusing on the outcome. But the weird thing is by just solely focusing on the process, the outcome becomes inevitable. How do you avoid tapping into dopamine is a hell of a drug and the, where am I? Where was I? How far have I gone? Oh, this is exciting.

That's something that fuels motivation. And for a lot of people, that's a temptation now. Is there a mantra that when that voice comes into your head, say, why don't we just ask, I'll just, and you know, that it's going to rip you out of this process driven mentality that you say is optimal. Is there something that you do to bring yourself back to that? Not necessarily. I think it's just really blindly and stubbornly thinking of the process.

It was actually, I love Huberman. He talked about, there was a study and I hope I don't butcher this, but he was talking about how he, there was a study where they had people on a treadmill and they had them run in kind of this kind of like corridor. And in this corridor, they said, you run as fast as you want. So they did. And as they're running in this corridor, the sort of pillars going past them were either sped up or slowed down. And what it was showing VR of some kind,

exactly that, exactly that. And he was sort of saying how they were manipulating the columns moving fast. So if the columns are going faster, they think they're running faster. If they go slow, they're like, Oh my God, is that as fast as I'm running? And that's one of the biggest things that I took away one from the GB swim and this certainly on the GB swim, because when you're swimming across like the Moray Firth, for instance, there's no land, there's no landmarks. You can't see anything. Also, not only that, say it was kind of like completely overcast. You've not even got the moon. So it is pitch, but you're swimming in a black hole and you're like, am I even moving? Like what is going on? And I've even seen that.

I remember in St. Lucia once I did a swim and got caught in a bad counter current and I swam as hard as I could for four hours. This was after an 18 hour swim and I did not move for those four hours. I was swimming as hard as I could to stay on the same spot. So that's like running a marathon, well, an ultra marathon for 18 hours and somebody just putting a treadmill in the middle of the road and going, I'll just an ultra marathon for 18 hours and somebody just putting a treadmill in the middle of the road and going, I'll just run on that for four hours. It was not. And then I remember stopping, turning to the captain and said, how are we doing? He said,

Ross, I'm so sorry. We've not made any progress for four hours. I remember turning. I won't repeat quite what I said. My language was quite colourful. I was like, what do you mean we've not moved? I was complaining for about 20 seconds and he just said, so sorry, Ross, can I just interrupt you there? I went, what? And he goes, the whole time that you've been complaining, you've gone back 200 metres. I like, and that in that moment really taught me the ocean does not care. But sorry, going back to that, that, uh, the experiment that I heard from Huberman, I thought that was so interesting as well, because I'm just literally like those columns going past.

Sometimes I'm like, don't, don't tell me because you might turn around and go, oh Ross, you're going really slow. And that day, bad day. Exactly. That'll crush me. Or you're doing really well. And it's a roller coaster. I'm almost like, I don't want to know because I'm solely focused on the process.

I don't want an outcome. How do you stop yourself from giving up? Oh, that is a really good question. One thing that I found going back to Maslow's hierarchy is sometimes you're at the base of that pyramid. So how you stop yourself from giving up is by looking after your primitive needs, water, hydration, food, warmth. That's it. So if you're running a, an ultra marathon in the Arctic or swimming down the Yukon river, it doesn't matter.

Look after those needs. But then one thing that I found, it gets really interesting is sometimes you almost flip Maslow's hierarchy because sometimes you almost forgo the base of the pyramid for a higher purpose. And I think that happened a few times in the Yukon where I just had to flip it. I was looking going, okay, hypothermia is now setting in. I wasn't just shivering from my sort of extremities. It was, it was in your core.

Anyone who has ever experienced that you are shaking from your side. I was like, all right, that's not good news. So I knew at that point that my base needs, those primitive needs weren't being catered for. So I just had to basically just flip and remind myself of the higher goal. And what's that? Which was a higher purpose, which was the record, which was contributing to sports science. It was all of those things that we all set out to do in the, in the, in the first place. And I think that's what gets really interesting that if you have that higher purpose, a bigger cause, then you can flip Maslow's hierarchy, but it takes a really big cause.

It's got to be important to you. If it's not, you can't flip Maslow's hierarchy. Have you thought or have you designed a framework where you maximize your intrinsic motivation? You're not thinking about the extrinsic stuff. Is this something you did in advance? Is there a mindfulness technique? Practically, how do you do this? That's a really good question. your intrinsic motivation. You're not thinking about the extrinsic stuff. Is this something you did in advance? Is there a mindfulness technique? Practically, how do you do this?

That's a really good question. I think I've become far more intrinsically motivated. I don't mind admitting that with the GB swim, I was very much inspired by Captain Web 1875. First guy to cross the English channel and he did it for records and accolades. That's what he did it for. He became a celebrity of his time. He was on matchboxes and everything. It was amazing. first guy to cross the English channel and he did it for records and accolades. That's what he did it for. He became a celebrity of his time. He was on matchboxes and everything.

It was amazing. And I still love the story. Did it with his brother and his cousin feeding him beef broth and brandy and he swum breaststroke all the way across because front crawl was ungentlemanly like at the time. Love that. But he did it for records because people said he couldn't, you know, and he made good money from it as well. You know, that, that was why he essentially did it for records because people said he couldn't, you know, and he made good money from it as well. You know, that was why he essentially did it.

And I think I've always said the GB swim was my captain web moment. But after that, again, looking at Maslow's hierarchy, that was, I suppose, feelings of accomplishment and prestige and things. I found like I don't need another one of those. And actually it would be a little bit weird. It would actually make me feel weird to just constantly go if they were solely for records and personal achievement because you'd be like, what are you doing? And so that's why I've become a joke. I've always become like a mercenary for charities. If there's a good cause, then

I'm like wicked. I'll put my goggles on, you know, so whether that is the Loch Ness swim with ocean conservation or more recently with the, um, with the shark documentary for Disney, which I know we'll come on to. It's just knowing that there's a higher purpose and also being intrinsically motivated for that as well. I think with Loch Ness and Tressamino, it was really interesting how back in my youth, I like to think I've matured a little bit, back in the youth, it was very black and white. Did I get a record? Did I not success and failure? Whereas after Loch Ness and Tressamina, I was really proud of those swims. So when a lot of people came over to me and they'd sort of go, Ross, are you okay?

I'm like, yeah. Oh, sorry. I'm like, don't be sorry. As a team, we had a great time. Got some great data, contributed that back to universities. Um, and I was personally really happy with what we achieved. I couldn't have said that previously. And I think that's maybe that's maturing.

There's a degree of completion and sort of validation that you got from the GB swim. Once that's done, it sort of opened you up to transcend that a little bit. I think exactly that. Yeah. Swims now are very much, uh, did I enjoy it? Uh, did, did it mean a lot to me? Did I push myself? Did I get something from it? And, um, whether that was in Tres Aminos, swimming through a heat wave or Loch

Ness and surviving 53 hours, uh, they were all achievements that I was like, Oh, that was, that was pretty good. Yeah. And alone in and of itself. That was impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't get any records, no achievements pretty good. Yeah. And alone in and of itself. That was impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't get any records, no achievements or anything like that, but personally,

there are, there's stories that I talk about quite fondly, I think, for intrinsic reasons, there's a question. I've always wanted to ask you. And I've been thinking about how to put it across for a long time, like yours, how I, how I can ask this without, without trying to create too much pressure. So I'm, I'm quite fascinated by your demeanor. You're very positive, even in the face of suffering, it seems, laughing and smiling and so on and so forth.

I've never seen, and it may just not make the edit or whatever, but I've never seen a darkness side of you. I've never seen agitation, I've never seen rage, I've never seen bitterness or resentment. I've never seen a lot of the things that typically drive very high performers and endurance athletes. And there's a degree of suspicion that I have

around anybody who I don't see that dark side to. Do you have a dark side? Yeah. You're not the first person to say that actually. A fair few people have said that as well. I definitely think it's a sliding scale. So to sit here and say, oh no, I'm smiley all the time.

No, no, no, no, no. And I can show you pictures actually of the Yukon when my face is swollen, you know, and I, yeah, I'm not having a great time. With that said, I think one of the nicest things that the team in Canada said was it was a great swim Ross, but what we were most impressed with is you were still saying thank you when we were throwing you bananas 50 hours in and like, Oh, I like, I can talk about it now and not get so choked up. But that would have made my dad so proud. And I think the thing is, if anyone had met my

dad, they would probably understand why. And it's, for those who don't know, I talk about it in the art of resilience and I can talk about it now and not cry. I hope, touch wood. When I was swimming around Cape Britain, it was going around Cape Roth and my dad was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And I was like, that's it, I'm done. I'm just going to go on land. I just want to give him a hug. I want to be with the family. And he said to me, no, no, no, Ross, you can come home and you can give me a hug, but it's got to be via Margate. You have to finish the swim. So that's why at the end of the GB swim, when people see you, you see my dad in a wheelchair

as well. Cause it was, it was sort of, the cancer was pretty bad at that time. The tumors were so bad. They couldn't walk and doctors said, there's no way you can be around crowds. Like you have no immune system, Richard, like you can't be there. And he's looked all the doctors dead in the eye and he was, he was always so polite, always handled himself like so well. He just said, I appreciate the medical advice. I really do.

I don't want to go against it, but I will be there on the beach when my son swims around Great Britain. And that's why he was there. And I think it was his just, I don't know what it's called, humility, grassy, whatever. But even when he was diagnosed with cancer and they got really bad, I remember we went to go and visit him in hospital and he'd cut up all of his face because he's a tennis coach and he cut up his face because he fell on the tennis court and he went for a point and we all went in, me, my brothers, my mum and he's there and his face is like all bloody and I was like, dad, what happened? And the tumours had got so bad he couldn't

run basically. And then he just goes, oh, I just had a bit of a fall. I was like, oh, dad. And he goes, no, no, I'm fine. Everyone's, you know, making too much of a fuss. And there was a silence. And then I went, did you win the point? Dad went, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone first started laughing.

That was very quickly followed by the doctor saying, Richard, you know, this is, this is terminal. You're not going to be able to walk again. And he said, that's absolutely fine. And the very next day he took to the tennis court in a wheelchair and just started teaching wheelchair tennis. You know, he just, growing up with that, that's one of the reasons I'll always say thank you if you give me a banana and I've got cellulitis and hypothermia and I'm 50 hours into a swim.

Because ultimately my dad, when faced with stage four cancer, did not batter an eyelid and just went, that's absolutely fine. I'll just coach from a wheelchair and just went straight back out there. And it's that, if you, if you understand that, that's the first time I've really told that story. And that's the biggest thing that I think, um, this is going off on a complete tangent. I'm sorry, but it's, you know, you know, they talk about, you just inherit certain genes and stuff and you, whether it's spiritual, psychological, genetic, whatever. Sometimes I just hear him, hear my dad as well. Yeah. I'm 50 hours in and then I'm like, if you do not say thank you for that banana, like I can just see my

dad's face just being like, you know, and that's what he'd be most proud of. So yeah, after that swim, it was, it was on father's day as well, the Yukon thing. So it was a, yeah, I've done pretty well there not to cry. It's impressive. It's a very, very meaningful story. Thanks for asking that. Yeah. Cause that I can talk about it now without like, it was three years ago, we lost him. So I can talk about it now. And, and yeah, it's, um, someone said something lovely because it was like, he was my guiding North star when he was here and every single swim I would speak to him.

Like I said, he was a tennis coach, taught wheelchair tennis, visually impaired tennis. Even when he was fine, he would just blindfold himself, go out there and just start playing tennis. So he would just play visually impaired tennis just to make tennis available to all. As a coach, I would be like, I'm going to swim around Great Britain. And he's just sat there at the dinner table, Sunday roast dinner. And he just started doing the calculations. It was like, Oh, you need to swim this. So he was my North star. And then what's, what's interesting is now he's not physically here, but he's still sort of that

North star because I always think what would he say? And, you know, you can actually, for anyone who's lost a parent or anyone close to them, they'll know probably what I'm saying. You just, you literally hear their voice, you know, that, yeah, it's just, I'm going to swim the Yukon. I can hear my dad. I can hear what he's saying right now. You know, it's just, yeah. Thanks for listening to that monologue, Chris. What a fantastic imprint, man. What a hero. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. I think when people go, it's not because I'm completely smiley and stuff, it's because my dad was

the most stoically strong person I've ever met. So polite. And yeah, in the latter stages, we still coach, he's carried on coaching. And even when he was completely bedridden, he was just doing paperwork and everything. I remember he rung up because he needed to sort his accounts. I'll never forget this conversation as well. He rung up the accounts and he was like, Oh, I'm going to file my accounts early. Cause he just didn't want to bother my mum with it. You know, so he wanted to make sure all the paperwork was sorted. And they went, Oh, Richard, you don't have to sort it for another six months. And he just went, no, no, I'm aware of that, but I will probably be dead.

And they were like, Oh yeah, just so, you know, and fact I'm so glad I'm talking about it because I can talk about it fondly now but even when we were sorting out his funeral and they said you can be buried in anything you want and he was like. Anything and they went yeah pretty much anything and he had a natural burial where they create a sort of coffin and it goes in the ground and it by degrades and you become one with the earth and stuff. And that was my dad. He was so sort of thoughtful like that. And then they said, yeah, you can pretty much have anything you want. And he looked at the designs and then eventually again, we're all on the phone. It just goes, can I be buried in a TARDIS? Cause he loved Doctor Who and he's just having these conversations. So I think that's it. You know, I love stoicism and you know, the last thing that you can choose is your attitude to things. I'm watching dad in that particular scenario and his attitude towards death and how he just completely agreed. I say,

my dad taught me how to live, but he also taught me how to die. And I don't want that to sound morbid because I think sometimes in the West, we have a bit of a, you know, yeah, don't want to talk about that as a bit of a weird relationship with death. Whereas dad just taught me just to, um, yeah, just, you know, I say, yeah, thanks for listening to that Chris. So that was a long answer. Not at all. Not at all.

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A checkout. That's one of the best bits of British culture at its best. I think, you know, the kind of stiff upper lip, Britishism that, you know, uh, keep calm and carry on. Like that's what it feels like it embodies. Uh, and I've been, since moving to America, I have been quite critical of, of British culture, because I don't think that we fully embrace the best bits as well, or as frequently as perhaps we should anymore. And yet you look back and Antarctic adventures, crossings of the channel,

exploration, Ralph finds, you know, we have such an illustrious history of people who were able to withstand suffering, take risks, be adventurous. And yeah, it feels like your dad is a individual from a bygone era, like a personality from a past time. Yeah, that's, yeah, that is exactly it. All those are now considered old fashioned ideals. You know, he just had in abundance. And then that's what me and my, my brothers and my mom, yeah, still have.

I love what you said there is what with, with, you know, Robert Falcon Scott as well, obviously perishing in the Antarctic. And I forget, it's going to annoy me now, but that particular part of his crew, and there was one guy who had gangrene on his foot and, you know, turned to the team. He knew that he was slowing them down. And so one night in a tent as a blizzard was just coming in, he just turned to his team and he just said, gentlemen, I will be going for a walk. I may be some time. And he just walked to his death knowing that he was holding up the team. You know, there was, I completely get what you mean. There was

an element of that that's quite proudly British, you know, that sort of, yeah. What's your favourite retelling or what's your favourite book of those crossings? I think Shackleton's hard to beat. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Evidence by Alfred Lansing. Oh, yeah.

One of my favourite. Oh, but what he did as well, what the entire team did, certainly from that navigation from the Antarctic peninsula through to the islands, it was just crazy how they talk about how they had like five seconds of coverage where the clouds cleared and they just looked and went, oh, okay, the navigator went bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. I think it's that way. And it's like, you miss, oh my God. Yeah. I get, honestly, I get chills and all of Shackleton stories as well and how he just instilled in his men. But equally to that point, Tom Kreen as well, the unsung hero, the unsung hero of Arctic and polar exploration, Tom Kreen and Irish explorer, what was really

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

amazing. And then Shackleton just keeping, you know, Christmas pudding in his sock and then just pulling it out of the opportune moment to rise spirits in the team. There's just like, yeah, there's stories like that, that, um, as, as a team going down the Yukon, we were very much like, what would Shackleton do? What would Admin do right now? Yeah. You mentioned your love for Stoicism. Ryan Holiday was sat in that seat not long ago. I'm always interested with people who have immersed themselves in a philosophy and a

worldview for a little while and then matured to see what they've retained and what it is that they still rely on. Because when something is new to you, everything's exciting. Everything's sexy. You know, you've got the dichotomy of control and, oh yeah, but it's interesting. But your thoughts are not thinking, believing makes them so. Like, you know, you've got this huge, big buffet of new insights. huge, big buffet of new insights. What have you held onto from Stoicism that even six years, five years after beginning to write a book on it, you still use?

I think it's the stories more than anything. I think so often people say, you remember not what people say, but what they do. And I think Marcus Aurelius is probably one of the biggest inspirations by all written accounts, not a very well man, you know, survived wars, assassinations, never complained, you know. And so this idea of like everything that he endured, I just so often just find myself being like, what would Marcus Aurelius be doing right now? Again, it's just that idea of admitting adversity with a smile, you know, just being like my dad, you know, I think it's that idea. So yeah, it's stories, it yeah it's it's stories it's people is what they embodied i was just love that Marcus Aurelius never wrote it to be a best selling book just is musings it was a diary and it's crazy that years and years later people are going oh my god.

That's so applicable now it was an operating system for the brain and that sounds so strange like because so often we don't know how to run our own brains. And that sounds really weird because it's not taught in school, but Marcus Aurelius did a pretty good job and it's essentially timeless what he produced. Yeah. I really do find myself going back to the lessons that I learned when I first started personal development and self-growth, that you keep on reinventing the wheel around things that you already know. And then you find something and you realize that's a very interesting, it's a rewording of an insight that I learned in 2018. And I'm just sort of bringing this same thing up over and over.

And yeah, I think that there's a really big argument for embedding what you already know after you've done a good bit of self work, uh, embedding what you already know, as opposed to trying to acquire more, the dopamine from trying to acquire more is exciting in some ways, but I think a lot of the time you've, you already have the answers after you've done it for long enough agreed. And do you find that was well that you think there's times where you go, I got it, sorted, life feels great. You go, I know how it all works. I am infallible. Nothing can touch me.

Something then happens. You go, Oh God. No, I have permanent imposter syndrome. So I'm on a perpetual treadmill of not knowing what I'm doing. It's all the way up to how high I climb. But yeah, I do know what you mean that you've, Josh Waitskin from the art of learning calls it tighter and tighter circles. And this is the guy that Seeking Bobby Fisher was written about.

So he's a chess prodigy and then lets that go and becomes a Chinese push hands world champion, lets that go and then takes's that go and becomes a Chinese push hands, a world champion, lets that go, and then takes up a combination of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and E-foiling and tries to become a world champion at that too. And I love the idea of tighter and tighter circles. He basically refers to the increasing resolution with which you look at the dexterity of anything,

any pursuit that you do as your capacity increases, as you become better at what you're doing, the way that you look at it and the grace and the bar that you try and get yourself over becomes ever higher, it becomes ever more deft. The way that you try and do this thing, the stroke is even more beautiful, there's even fewer ripples in the water.

And, um, that's a infinite game. It's a way that allows you to perpetually be improving. But I often think about tighter and tighter circles when you believe that you've reached mastery, but then you just look at the same pursuit with a sharper set of eyes, more close, better magnified, and you actually realize actually realize oh there's games within games here. Yeah yeah I'm sure I'm so glad you asked that just because. Well going off on a site can I talk about show to come into absolutely amazing okay so so for those who don't know what is this will probably be out when it airs. I was probably on TV now. How exciting. So for two years, I've been working on this documentary, Sharp versus Ross Edgeley.

So it appears on National Geographic and Disney Plus. And oh my God, it was the best thing I've done, like the best project to be involved in. Just essentially because I love what you said there. The realm of conventional sports science, I've been studying it for over two decades, you know, from Loughborough University right up until now started sports nutrition brands and everything. And I felt I fully understood a lot of things. You know, I was, I feel pretty good in this. The whole concept of, of shark versus Ross Edgeley is me trying to take four

sharks and compete against them. So national geographic came to me and they were like, Ross, you love a challenge. I was like, do you love a challenge? They said, cool. We want you to polaris out the water. So jump out the water like a white shark, the ones that hunt off South Africa and jump out and grab seals. We want you to eat as much as a tiger shark. We want you to withstand as many G-forces as you can. So agility is a hammerhead shark.

And we want you to swim as fast as a Mako shark. In my head, I was like, oh, I reckon I would do all right. Especially the eating, for instance. I was like, oh, you know, so let's take eating for an example. I was like, right, good. So tiger sharks can just basically migrate over like thousands of miles across oceans, just completely famine, and they're just able to just go for miles and miles and miles with no food. But then when they do find something because of the unique shape of their mouths, they can chow down on a whale carcass,

just like thousands of calories. So I had to do the same. So I basically went to Loughborough University under medical supervision, thousands of calories. So I had to do the same. So I basically went to Loughborough University under medical supervision, lost as much weight as I could, and then in 24 hours managed to put on 22 pounds. It was amazing Chris. I ate 40,000 calories. It was amazing. And I felt pretty good about that. I was like, that's good, right? 40,000 calories against the tiger shark. I reckon I'm competing. We went out to the Bahamas, Mike Hitehouse, world leading expert in Tiger Sharks. Amazing. We took a giant lollipop, the size of kind of this seat here, went down, fed it to a Tiger Shark. It bit the lollipop and then we were able to measure its

mouth and how many, if that was whale blubber, how many calories it could eat. In a single bite, did 20,000 calories. two bites and it's beating you It's exactly it so I became fascinated this went down a rabbit hole all of a sudden polarising out the waters using a monothin As well. So again, I've got to learn how to do that. Alison Towner world-leading expert in white shark She's amazing and I never forget feeling pretty good I've been training hard for this as well. Like basically that was why I cut all that weight. My power to weight ratio last year was amazing. I felt amazing. I was like, this is going to be brilliant. I'm going to impress Alison so much. She's watched white

sharks jump out of South Africa down five meters, Polaris as high as I can get. I look at her, her reaction underwhelmed. She said, Ross, that's really good for a naked shaven ape you know but you have this clumsy skeletal system your forty forty five percent muscle a white shark is up to sixty five percent muscle the cartilage is so flexible these propulsive forces just go all through this tale. So again, I was like, right, fair one, not very good. Then I thought, right, hammerheads, fine, I'll take on a hammerhead. When hammerheads, because of the unique shape of their heads, were able to just withstand so many G-forces as they spin. So they went, Ross, we're gonna send you up in an RAF fighter pilot plane.

Green as Greenfield, one of Europe's greatest RAF fighter pilots, sends me up, goes, Ross, this is one G, whoom, this is two Gs, whoom, three Gs. I am just decorating the inside of the place with my breakfast. Oh no. Yeah. Again. And he was just like, yeah, hammerheads, you know, 10 up to 10 G's just casually as they're

hunting just on the sea. What did you get up to in terms of G's? Honestly, I say two to three and I was tapping out. Green is Greenford. I hope I get this right. He says he's done up to nine to 10 more, I think. And what was amazing is I was like, am I just a massive wimp? Do people have a genetic sort of propensity or to, uh, predetermined to be good or bad? And he says, yeah, an element. And he was like, you're pretty bad. Yeah. But all of the capacity went to your stomach. Exactly. Exactly. And then, um,

Mako sharks as well. This one was amazing. You know, the fastest sharks in the world. Um, what was really interesting training at, uh, Loughborough university, the English Institute of sport hammering training as a sprinter, just trying to get faster and faster, faster over 25 meters. And then eventually we're like, look, we've got to think like a shark and over long migrations, they'll use water Collins, tidal we've got to think like a shark and over long migrations, they'll use water columns, tidal currents, everything to just move faster. So we found this amazing current basically just off the coast of Wales and jumped in and just absolutely gunned it.

Felt amazing. Still was woefully bad compared to a Mako. How fast did you go? Off the top of my head, I think it was over 10 miles per hour, but I believe a Mako is like 45. So I think I've got those metrics right. I was like a quarter. So you were defeated at each different stage by a shark?

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Explain what you did before. Explain what you did during the day. It was so good. So basically to deplete myself, this idea of a tiger shark going across an entire ocean, this famine period. Uh, I just basically had to exercise for 24 hours nonstop. Uh, but to sort of accelerate that. And obviously my physiology is very different to that of a shark, but it was

the same idea of just depleting energy reserves So there's this idea of exercising to deplete muscle glycogen, but at the same time as well in as humans I had to dehydrate myself as well. So Loughborough University have this this heat chamber an altitude chamber They just crank that up to basically Kona, you know the the famous triathlon, you know up those temperatures. And they just locked me in there for like 12 hours. Yeah. And I was just sweating, depleted and muscle. I started cramping void of electrolytes.

There's a, there's a clip as well. Like on my side of my entire stomach just went into cramp. Like my, my sort of, you know, uh, stomach around that, just the obliques, everything just went into contract. What are you feeling like at the time? Oh, horrendous. And I think that was it. I was trying to get into the psychology of a tiger shark.

And I think it's interesting because we humans have kind of lost that. I think I've posted some clips on social media and people were like, that's nuts. That's crazy. I'm like, is it because our ancestors would have just said that was Monday? Do you mean that's not a big deal? They would, they would have just done that. You know, disability to suffer, but we humans are actually really, really good at that. Um, so it felt disgusting. And then I think what was really interesting and what surprised me is afterwards I thought, Oh my God, like as soon as I have to put on

weight, I am going pizza, burgers, ice cream, I'm going cheesecake. The first thing I wanted was just to curl up in a corner with the biggest ice bottle of water. That's all I wanted. And again, going back to that primitive need, I think what was also really interesting is having depleted myself so much. For anyone sort of listening, they might experience this as well when you're dieting and you're not having crazy hyper palatable foods. Anything tastes amazing.

You know, you can give me a raw stick of broccoli and I'd have been like, Oh my God, that's unbelievable. So in that moment, not even flavored water, I just wanted ice cold water. And I saw liters of that off. But there's no calories in water. I just wanted water, ice cold water. And I saw liters of that off. But there's no calories in water. Exactly. Yeah. It was you did 40,000 calories plus all of the fluids that you needed to replace. It's exactly that.

Yeah. Yeah. So first off, it was just water. Cause that was just so easy. So you've done 24 hours around about 12 of it was in the hot altitude sauna. Yep. What else do you do for the 12 hours? Uh, swimming a lot and then running around the track at Loughborough in a sweatsuit as well.

Okay. Okay. So this was kind of a little bit mimicking a MMA fighters weight cut a little bit, but it's way more aggressive. It's exactly it actually. Yeah. Certainly with anyone who's doing mixed martial arts, they're trying to basically look after their body because they never got to fight the next day.

Whereas mine was just very much just like, yeah, ruin your body as much as possible. Do deplete it. Okay. And then did you sleep or did you immediately begin eating? Badly. Yeah. I was gonna say, yeah, I'm talking like, I probably got two hours.

My body was, it was incapable of sleep. I was so hungry, so dehydrated the body just wouldn't go to sleep. The body was at fight or flight. Cortisol was probably for biochemically. I would have loved to have seen what was happening then. Like they would have just gone't go to sleep. The body was at fight or flight. Cortisol was probably biochemically. I would have loved to have seen what was happening then. Like they would have just gone, this is disgusting. And then wake them up in the morning. Like I said, the very first thing it was just water, but then once your

body had basically gone, okay, we've had enough of that, then the hunger kicked in. And it just went crazy. But initially it was really interesting because the nutritionists at Loughborough university were like, Whoa, you got whoa, you got to hold your stomach is like this right now. It's just gone into a ball. Like we need to basically replenish muscle, um, muscle glycogen, but very slowly electrolytes. And then once we've done that, that was probably four hours of very carefully controlled in terms of like the micronutrients, the macronutrients and the volume. Uh, it just got silly. And then it's like that primitive instinct just

kicked in where I wanted you eat everything. I'm Mike. We honestly, we just had like deliveries on speed dial. So I started with pizza, uh, saw off like two burgers, fish and chips. Uh, and then it just started to get really weird as well. You know, the, the share and test cinnamon loaves. Yes. I've got like five of those and then eight litres of custard. And I was just basically just take and just dipping and putting that in ice cream. Then also became my best friend because it got to the point where I wanted calories, but I wanted to continue the hydration or something soft on my palette. And then that night when I slept, uh, again, I had six cinnamon loaves just stacked

next to the bed with what was eight litres of custard, but in a bucket. So I basically just had the cinnamon loaves. Sounds like a Nicocado avocado video. It was amazing. And I just, yeah, scooped, bang, put that away. And then because you're able to put away anywhere between, I hope I get these right, but you know, 600, 800 to a litre of water liquids every hour on the hour through the digestive. You can't have much more than that. So that's why my body was almost waking me up all the way through the night to just get, there was an hour I woke up and it was like, Oh, I just have a

little bit more. So we were just forcing as much as we could through the digestive system into the muscle glycogen. And you ended up consuming 40,000 calories in a day. Do you know what the world record is? I don't, do you know what? I don't actually know what it is. That'll be worth investigating. Imagine if you'd broken a record accidentally.

Yeah. It's really interesting when you just have to make up calories as though, because it just gets to the point. Like similarly, when I've been bulking for the Yukon, you start off with cereal in the morning, chocolate cereal, and then you have full fat milk and then you might add biscoff and Nutella chocolate spread. And then you just go from full fat milk to just double cream and custard. It just gets silly, which is, it was necessary with the amount of time we had for the Yukon

where you just can't make up those calories cleanly. It's not sustainable. I absolutely don't recommend it for anyone listening. And right now I'm in the phase where I'm being very kind to my body, but, um, yeah, the tiger shark bulk. Oh, it was amazing. It's so good.

That's wild. And just explain how it feels from a inflammation standpoint on the muscles, on the joints to consume that many calories in a day. Yeah. It was, it was strange how I think was so much was probably in pain at that point, cause my stomach was so, I've got to show you pictures afterwards. I've got a video as well. You can literally see the muscle glycogen being replenished. I'm so vascular as well. Cause at that time it's sort of also is exactly it. Yeah. So it was really weird. The sports scientist in me was fascinated by this almost physiological puppetry to see a video. I posted

a picture of it actually on my Instagram, but you would struggle to explain to someone that that's 48 hours apart. That's not the same person. And it just shows how crazy malleable the human body is. I love the UFC and Alex Pereira, you know, I love, you know, went from middle weight now light heavyweight talks of him eventually maybe going up to heavyweight, but Robert Whitaker when he was like, who let this guy in? What is going on? I'm just fine. I think, I think he puts on 24 pounds. I hope I'm not wrong there, but he puts on, Khabib used to put on an insane amount of weight as well. I heard.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, have you seen him now? Have you seen what his face looks like now? That was a fat man inside of a fighter's body. Just that was the biggest fight of his life. It wasn't McGregor. It wasn't winning the title. It wasn't going undefeated.

It was keeping that fat lad inside of himself for an entire UFC career. But what I love, there was a clip of him rolling with Luke Rockhold. I think it was DC, Daniel Cormier, who was talking and he's just like, now to your point, he's not cutting weight. And they said, it's just like wrestling a bear because now he's just pot on, he's not weight restricted. And there's that clip with Luke Rockhold and he's just holding him, just chilling.

He must be, he must be 200 pounds plus now, I think at least a little bit more. And I'm fascinated by the physiology of fighters like that and how, you know, at a certain point, a lot of them will move up weight because they can't quite cut the weight when they were younger. So sort of Conor McGregor. Training age. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you just accumulate it. That's interesting.

Just a by-product of training a lot. You just pick up little hypertrophy coins as you go and you're like, it's going to be so hard. I'm going to have to suffer so much in other areas to get rid of this muscle. I kind of just need to take it on the chin that maybe at 33, I'm just going to have to go up a weight class. Yeah. I think that's what it is. And cause you do see with younger again, it was actually James Morton at Liverpool,

John Moore's who I've been talking about. And there's a study, I believe it's published. Um, I think I'm, I think I can say his name because I'm pretty sure he is in the study, but it was Patty Pimla and it was just talking about the insane weight cut of him and his blood work was fascinating because it literally from the weight cut down, his testosterone just went, nope. And then the day before and then he just refeeds and it goes, okay. And just goes back. It was crazy. So I think that's a whole area in sports science, especially with fighters, cause they are so tough going back to resilience, you know, suffering strategically managed, something

just lock themselves in saunas and just go, I'm just going to be here for four hours and it's like, you're going to lose the weight, but you're frying your central nervous system, you know, come fight day. So I find that interesting as well. So although it was Tiger sharks, it certainly gave me an insight. Cause if you'd have said the next day, Ross go and fight, I was full of custard. Sorry, sorry. It's too many cinnamon rolls. If you'd have said the next day, Ross, go and fight. I was full of custard. Sorry. Sorry.

It's too many cinnamon rolls. I want to try and dig back into what we were talking about before that. The degrees removed that you are from the way that your mind feels by saying, I understand what's going on. There's an amount of norepinephrine. There's some cortisol. There's some adrenaline going through me. I'm depleted.

My, I've got my colonergic system. I like cytokoline is down. I've tried to sort of ramp my adenosine up as much as possible, but all of those receptors, what that is to you as a secret nerd sports scientist is a bunch of knobs and levers and parameters. And that's actually what's happening, right? What's happening underneath any mental state, physiological process, feeling good today, feeling bad today, feeling well rested,

not feeling well rested, got lots of power in the muscles. Oh, I'm feeling a little bit weak. All of those things are knobs and levers and dials that have been turned in one form or another by your physiology. The story that a normal person tells themselves about what that means, about who they are, about their capacities as a person, about their resilience, their willpower, their worth, their validation in the world. I'm fascinated by the, your capacity to split apart those two things.

And to not get dragged into the personification, the narrative that that side wants to convince you of, and to see it with more perspective and equanimity. For the people who don't maybe understand physiology in the same way as you, how would you, how would you advise people that want a little bit more resilience to see what signals their body gives them during mental or physical tough times? Yeah. I didn't that I'm so glad you asked this just because well, there's two things there. One, there was a meta study.

So a study of lots of studies that looked at, um, successful ultra marathon athletes. I think it was running and cycling. It might've been swimming as well, but what was really fascinating is the age at which they were competing at elite level. So winning these aren't people just these people are winning. Who were the victors? What were their ages was 35 to sort of 45, maybe upwards. I found that so interesting because it's one of very few sports where when you look at sprinting weightlifting, there's all these arguments that elasticity of tendons, fast twitch fibers, reaction speed, all of these things, testosterone growth hormone, all of these things are better when you're younger.

when you're younger. Whereas with ultra marathon running, it just feels like as you get older, that you're getting as a better athlete. Now, whether that is capillary density, mitochondrial efficiency, I personally think it's just experience. You just bank so many ideas of how to suffer. You've been here before a million times. Now, if I competed against a 21 year old, Ross Edgeley, and we both went down the Yukon, I'd against a 21 year old Ross Edgeley and we both went down the Yukon, I'd back the 38 year old. Even though the third 21 year old would be so much fitter, I'd back the 38 year old. Cause I know we're going to be 36, 40 hours in and the 21 year old be like, Whoa, God, I'm tired. You know, the 38 year old like, Oh, I've been here before. I think that's really interesting. And then also to that point, I think sometimes knowing too much can be bad.

Knowing too much can actually hurt you. I think going back to those voices in your head, if you're really educated, that voice all of a sudden is Ross, you know, how are we doing there? Are you cramping in your left leg a little bit? Ah, have you had enough sodium? Oh God, your electrolytes must be so out of balance. But the fact that you've educated yourself, that voice is then saying that. And I find it really interesting. Friends of mine at the Royal Marines down in Limpston, they talk about the benefit of being a 18 year old turning up, saying to mum and dad,

I'm going to go and get my green beret. You turn up at Limpston with nothing. You just told all your family and friends that you're going to become a Royal Marine. You got 32 weeks to do it. If you turn around and you say, oh, I didn't do it, you're going to look kind of foolish. So these people, they turn up these kids and they are so naive. It's such a superpower. They don't know enough to know that they should struggle and they just crush it. I've seen it. It's just like unbelievable times.

When I go down to Limpson on bottom field, there's an obstacle course and I never forget they put a full kit on me and I was just running seen it. It's just like unbelievable times. When I go down to Limpstone on bottom field, there's an obstacle course and I never forget they put a full kit on me and I was just running through it and I ran the bottom field. I felt it was pretty good. To this day I look back and go I couldn't have done much more. I didn't stumble, didn't hesitate. I was fairly quick and they were like yeah yeah Ross you'd have passed fair play but I was well rested. I turned up.

I hadn't done 32 weeks training but I never forget they then turned around out of curiosity I said what's the record? Cause I felt pretty good about myself. I'm not exaggerating. The record I swear was it might've been a minute, might've been two minutes faster than me. And I'm like, how do you make up a minute on what I just did? It was crazy.

So there's some absolute specimens down at Limston. But one of the things that friends of mine who were the PTI said, oh yeah, but there's some young kids who just throw themselves over that wall. Whereas I was maybe tiptoeing. Little bits of hesitation. Exactly. And I've heard cyclists, pro cyclists talk about it a lot as well. You know, they're like, I hate going up against younger guys who haven't got a family and things. I'm like, why? And they're like, they do not touch the brake downhill. No risk. Yeah, it's almost like cultivated naivety or educated stupidity.

I love that. That's exactly what it is. But that's the problem, I guess, you know, as you, as you begin to learn more things, as you get a little bit older, you accumulate this, you can't not know what you know. So you actually have to somehow educate yourself back into stupidity or cultivate this naivety. Have you been watching Tour de France Unchained on Netflix? No, I need to. You're the second person who said that in any way.

Fucking evicted. The first season came out last year and I loved it. And then I just saw it just appeared on my feed season two. And I thought, this is bruh. It's so great. And what I particularly love about Tour de France, the suffering is so protracted. on my feed season two and I thought this is brilliant. It's so great. And what I particularly love about Tour de France, the suffering is so protracted.

You know, my housemate, Zach is a weightlifter. He's competed at the top flight of weightlifting and weightlifting is great, but it's over and done with within five seconds. Even a really long clean and jerk with someone re-racking a failed jerk is maybe 10, 12 seconds. This, the Tour de France ride, some of them are three, four hours,

and it's over multiple days. It's a multiple weeks. And that's what I really love. I love being able to see the machinations of these different athletes and where they're putting themselves. And there was a time trial. I won't spoil it too much, but there's a time trial and it's the kind of golf

that you're talking about where this guy fucking nails it and he's top time and all the rest of it. And there's one guy left to go. And he comes in with a time that immediately gets in PED accusations. There's no way that he can take this much time off a guy that is world, world, world class. And he does.

And yeah, I mean, for you to just sit and, and chill out a well-deserved chill after the last couple of, uh, download it for the flight home, uh, bro, it's, it's phenomenal. And there's two seasons of it and it's really well done. And now I care what's happening in Tour de France, but I genuinely care what's happening. It's the same thing that we've seen with the golf, was it top spin or full swing? Base point, whatever the tennis one was, where Nick Kirios was the first episode, drive to survive that Man City thing for football. Getting to see behind the scenes and creating these narratives has just really,

I think, revitalized sport in a different way. The UFC does it with their embedded series in the buildup. You know, they understand this. You need to get some buy-in. You need to be invested in these fighters beyond just I like him because he's got a cool style or he fights Southpaw or he's from my country. It's more than that. You know, their family and their dog and where they live and the car that they

drive and that kind of investment to me is awesome. And yeah, the tour de France and Shane series is just out of this world. On that note, last dance, Michael Jordan, I don't know or didn't know too much about basketball, I still don't, but oh my God, I blitzed that series. And what I loved about that as well is that that whole idea of motivation, Michael Jordan, oh my God, like the way that one of my favorite bits is when a reporter just sort of said to him, Oh, I forget the name of the guy now. He said he's seen the new young kid. He's the new Michael Jordan. He went, no one is the new me. And he marks this poor kid just dunks on you. And then

equally what I also found fascinating was Dennis Rodman. And I love how was it Peter Jackson, the head coach, and was sort of like, look, that's what works for him. We need to let him go to Vegas. We need to let him go out. And Michael Jordan was like, you do not let him go. He will never come back. And he's like, no, no, no, you need to. And I've known athletes like that as well, that I find so interesting.

I was talking about this recently, that if aliens came down to this world, there are certain sports that you'd have a really hard job explaining, that you have two athletes who are world class, but their approaches are so different. So one of the best examples is Khabib and McGregor, you know, that you're sitting there going devout Muslim, you know, it says I only need a bed, water and bread for training camp. That's all I need. You know, I don't need anything else. And then the whole time you've got McGregor smashing whiskey. And so, but it's like, that's what got him to the dance. You know, McGregor famously was like, oh, I'd never see a morning. You know, I'm such a night person.

Oh, you'd never catch me, you know, early in the morning, a training session. And then others being like, oh, I'm up at five AM in the morning. But how? So I think with regards to the McGregor point, I think that what got him here is not currently what he's doing to try and get him there. I think that he's leading a very different life to the one that he had on the come up. I completely agree with you that having a one size fits all best practice just

does not seem to work. And this is something I really need to spend a little bit more time thinking about it, but, um, I'm becoming more disillusioned with advice giving, which is blanket coverage. And what's easier is to basically say, this is what worked for me. And a little sort of brief overview, 30,000 foot of my particular constitution and saying, if you are constructed mentally or physically in a similar way to me, you may find some success with this particular type of approach.

If you were to say to David Goggins, stop using the chip on your shoulder, stop using the fire that's been lit under you from your childhood and from the people that didn't like you and from the doubters and all the rest of it. He's going to say, that's, that's not my fuel. I'm going to try it. Putting diesel into a petrol car, right? It's not going to work. Such a good analogy.

Whereas for other people, the Goggins approach is precisely what they need. And I'm becoming, I think, a little bit more gentle with my proclamations about this is the right way to do something. I've never been too much of an evangelist about any one point of view, but even more so sort of caveating and realizing that there's sort of delicate areas here. But yeah, when it comes to the Khabib, the MacGregor approach thing, I found it so interesting to watch that come up. And I do think that that was the point where McGregor really kind of turned

from fake heel to actual heel when he threw that trolley through the window. And, you know, I don't know, I really do hope that he is able to come back and do something sort of special, but him at his best for me was when he was working with Ida Portal and, you know, he was, he'd almost become this, he'd transcended the sport. He was this savant of movement and he was using capoeira and sort of free movement style things. He's walking along hand railings in like, uh, the parks in LA and it's so cool. That to me was him at his best.

You're so right. And on that, I'm glad you said, cause Dan Hardy is a good friend of mine and Dan, I remember when he knocked out Aldo and then went on to become double champ with Eddie Alvarez. Dan is incredible. His IQ, not just, I mean, I love MMA, but people who really know MMA go, Dan's another level. And he was just explaining exactly what you said. You're like, he's on another level. His movement, his understanding of spatial awareness. And he was just explaining exactly what you said. You're like, he's on another level. His movement, his understanding of spatial awareness. And he was explaining what he was doing. And I was like, I had no idea he was even doing that. And so you're so right. I think that version of it was special. It was, it was advancing our understanding. He then started to believe his own hype, which was dangerous. You know, what it is that gets you there is sleeping in the attic of your

parents' house and rolling the same sequences and fighting and punching the same combinations and doing it. You know, there's a really great, my two favorite videos, three favorite videos from McGregor, which I'm a massive fan of and it's a shame that I find him so cringe now because I find it hard. I look, I almost look back on old McGregor as a different person. I don't see him as the same guy now, the Lambo, the road house movie, that your wife's in me DMs.

Like all that stuff just makes me think, oh God, it's all the bad bits of Irish culture. Do you know what I mean? He's, Conor McGregor is all of the good bits of Irish culture and all of the bad bits of Irish culture. And my three favorite, first one is when he said, I went crazy for this game. He's basically talking about how he lost his mind doing that thing. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a really nice analogy and actually maybe is a bit, it's prophetic for where he ends up going in

future. The second one is when he has beaten Aldo and the journalist is so good for doing this, he brings up the quote that he was going to talk about. I will create vacuums. He will think I'm there. I'm not going to be there. I noticed a subtle tell of him. He's going to unload that hand and blah, blah, blah. And then you cut that to the shot of him backstage in the warmup room, throwing that left hook

that he ends up knocking him out with. Phenomenal. And then my favourite one, which I rely on a lot for myself is, um, when he first won the interim title against Chad Mendez. Um, and then someone asks him, well, you've kind of fought for this title twice. What are you going to do the second time that you didn't do the first time? And he says, I'm actually going to remember it because he was so focused and so scared and obsessed about the victory that at no point was he

basically present. And I've heard this story from high performers before Olympic athletes and world champions and stuff that basically when they try and think back to the performance that they did that got them the achievement that is their crowning glory, they can't actually really remember being there. They were in this odd sort of mental fever dream where everything was just performance. And I don't know, it's such a, it's such a strange duality to think maybe the price that you need to pay to succeed at the thing that you want to do is being

so un-present in it that you basically weren't there to win your own title. Very interesting. That's a rich, do you know, not, I don't, that was so insightful. I don't want to talk about myself and bring it back to me at all, but I've had to wait six years fucking talking about yourself. It was the same with the Yukon. So we, with the Yukon, we didn't go out on social media. With that, it was the first swim that I didn't mainly because we didn't have any signal when we were going down. So if I'd have announced that I was doing it, there'd have been just been a period of 60 hours of people going, well, what's going on? Cause we had no signal. But I don't, I wouldn't change it for the world, but when we finished the GB swim, I'm

not comparing myself at all. Cause what Conor McGregor did was amazing, but I came back onto the, to the beach and was immediately speaking to media and everything. And it was amazing. But all I wanted to do was hug my dad. And I wanted to be there with the people who had made this impossible. Whereas I ended up getting whisked away. And then I went to America on a US tour. It was a whirlwind.

I would have still done the same. It was amazing. I just wanted a different, to Conor McGregor's point, I just wanted a different experience this time. And being out in the Yukon in the complete wilderness we finished and I got that moment. I'm not saying it was better or worse. I still, the GB swim needed to have that. And it was amazing because we ended up swimming in with 200 people. It was incredible. People still come up to me with the GB swim hat and I see them. And I'm like, you were part of the 200 and we hug and we're like, oh my God, how could it?

And it was amazing. I just wanted something different with the Yukon and, and, and at the finish, you know, I sort of collapse. I'm sitting there and then you see me in the boat. I was just like, this is amazing. How did they decide when you finished? Did you just say I've had enough? Did you get pulled medically?

What happened? Well, it got, it got pretty ropey towards the end actually, because, um, the river really picked up, uh, we, we broke the record. So we were like, right at any point now you can just head to a beach. So the rules dictate you have to leave from a beach and then you have to walk unassisted onto a beach as well. So that they're the rules. So it was like, right at any point, any logical place now you need to get on, but it got really ropey because, um because the river we went down this particular part and there's sort of trees that are diagonal so you can't

see them they call them sleepers because they're just under the water. If you get caught on one of those and you're being pushed by the water you'll essentially just be jammed under a tree under water. So at that point I think everyone was like look everyone's sleep deprived we've got the record. I think what was really interesting as well is, um, again, 38 years old, I'm maturing. That I was like, this has been amazing. You know, it's enough. I think that's what's so interesting. Like at 21, nothing was enough. I would have just gone, no, no, no, I want more. I want more. Let's go. Whereas the swim was perfect. Everyone was safe. It was the sun had come up. It was a nice end and I could enjoy it without being in hospital. Certainly from Tres Amino, where

I was out for a few weeks afterwards with Rabdo. Same with Loch Ness as well. I was like, I don't want that. I want to be able to go and sit with Chris. Barbecue. Exactly. Exactly. Genuinely. That was all going through my head. I was like, this is enough. And you know what? You know, I've already thought, I've forgotten who said it now, but when they said, um, uh, no man who steps in the river is ever the same man, it's never the same river. I've butchered that quote, but I think it's something like that. Thank you. Thank you. But I'm like, look, I could revisit this in a few years. What's

to say in your 10, 20 years, you know, when I'm 70 years old, I'll put my wetsuit on, hopefully with the toilet flat working this time and I'll go again. Um, but at that particular moment, it felt so right. And I was coherent. I was conscious that I could go guys, we are done. And, and, and so, sorry, going back to what you said about Conor McGregor, it was just so nice and we all had bison burgers and moose burgers and we all sat down afterwards and we all just reminisced because what they had on the boat was a very different experience of what

I had because I was just literally staring under the water. What happened that you didn't see? Loads. There's a whole other story and I can't wait. Like I said, we're putting a YouTube series together, but it's amazing. Their boats, we had four boats essentially and there was one that went up ahead to make sure that there was no moose, bear, log jams and also finding the path of most assistance, least resistance. And then there was one that was constantly feeding me, so it was constantly by my side.

And then there was another one which was the mothership which kind of had, it was slightly larger that had a bed on it so people could sleep and then there was one behind that was making all of the hot water basically and that just worked in like this perfect unison of just coming around. And, but then there was sometimes when I was swimming, I was like, hang on, there's only one boat. And it was because they'd basically just like hit rocks, come to a log jam. And there's just stories and guys have got it on camera of like my girlfriend and my older brother just deadlifting a boat off the rocks. My brother talks about it as well. There was a time where it went onto the rocks and they

are like Ross is heading to some rapids. We need to get there. This is, this is really bad. And my older brother Scott just quickly like looked around. I was like, there's five of us. I can sled drag 250 deadlift 220. What can Hester his girlfriend? And he did the math. So I was like, we've got this and they did. They managed to deadlift it off the rocks. He's going to be the, yeah, the whole series on YouTube is going to be nuts.

That's very exciting. Yeah. Mission critical, uh, uh, roles like that. I find so fucking funny. Yeah. Yeah. What have you learned from training Chris Hemsworth? I'm with him and the guys in Australia.

Not a lot. His genetics take care of most things. He's honestly his, I said it before his genetics, that family genetics need to be studied. Um, it was crazy. Limitless was amazing, but I was, like I said, I was basically brought in with my niche skillset, which was ice swimming and climbing ropes.

It was just, it was unbelievable. I still maintain that. I don't think anyone's done what he did, which was to go from the Australian summer, take him and then just drop him in the Arctic circle. No, no one does that. And I think like limitless was amazing. It was, it was brilliant to be part of it. But one thing that for obvious reasons, because they only had a certain amount of time, but

what he did made no sense in terms of like an athlete periodized calendar. So he was Thor size. So Marvel were going, get massive. And he was like, okay, done. And then extraction, they were like, right, we need you extraction size. And then also as well, we had limitless going, we need you to climb a rope dangling from the blue mountains and then also go into ice swim. It was nuts what he did.

Um, but, but equally, like I said, I think, uh, the, the family as a whole, Liam, who is the new Witcher as well. I've I've, I think he was 110 kilos. I've still never seen anyone do 20 bar muscle ups at his size. His back's ridiculous. And then equally sled drags with Luke. Like his legs are just like, you know, those people who just have silly. Yeah. He's one of them.

And then you only have to look at Leonie and Craig's their parents. Craig, I don't know how old he is now. He's just coming out the water with a beer and one hand surfboard and I'm just chiseled. So it's a family of genetic freaks. Oh, it really is. And then, yeah. And then Elsa as well, Chrissie's wife.

And then you look at the kids as well. So they're, um, Sasha and Tristan twins, they're doing Jiu-Jitsu at the moment. And they are like tearing through kids, like literally just like pulling limbs off. And then India as well, I tried to sort of coach her, it reminded me so much of Chris, because I tried to coach her in swimming. She had a swimming gala sort of coming up, gave her a few pointers and she just went, yeah, yeah, cheers Ross. Just gunned it and just smoked everyone with no technique. And then Elsa as well, like she's an absolute specimen, like the entire family, it just needs to be studied. It's yeah, they're ridiculous.

What's Chris's mindset like? Do you know what? I think he doesn't quite, I think, get enough credit that he probably deserves because this can sound so strange because he's such a good actor. You sort of forget that he's an amazing athlete. If you look at what he did in Limitless alone, any other athlete, and you said they did that, it would be great. If you took someone who was, I think he was, I hope I'm getting this right. I think he was about 112 kilos. Olympic gymnasts are maybe 55, 60. So it's like taking a rope dangling a hundred foot from the blue mountains. And I believe it was, I can't remember the distance.

It might have been 50 meters. I'm not sure now, but it was a long rope and taking two Olympic gymnasts, fusing them together and telling them to climb up a rope. Like when you actually break down the metrics, it was obscene what he did. And then with ice swimming as well, ice swimming, you need body fat, body fat is insulating. He had none of it because he needed to look like Thor. So the only way you're really going to get through that is just pure resilience. Like there's, cause, cause physiologically like the rope climb, you're completely handicapped.

So I think that was one of the biggest things that I saw that, um, yeah, he just, he has a mindset of an elite athlete, but that's kind of not really talked about because he's Chris Hemsworth, the actor. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Yeah. I think it's the same as Liam and Luke as well. And all of it, they're just like, when I train with them, they don't, they're proper Australians in that like when they turn up, I'll go, right, what we training? And they'll be like, Oh, I don't know. We'll throw up a, do a powerlifting centric workout.

I'll be like, have you trained today? They'll go, no, no, no, no, we're fresh. But then I'll find out they've surfed for six hours, but they don't count that as training. What is going on? Yeah. They're absolute specimens. Yeah. All of them.

What's next for you? Hmm. Well, we've got, we've got a few ideas, but ultimately, um, shark versus Ross Edgeley airs. I love doing that. It was amazing. There's so many different species of sharks. So should it go well?

I'm already speaking to National Geographic. I'm like, look, I've got to run it back. Oh, I've got two, three and four in my head already. So there's, yeah, there's loads of those. But then also as well, like I said about the, the longest swims, um, the river swim was amazing. But I said at the start of the year that, uh, it's, it's kind of this infinite goal, you know, that that was a river swim. I want to get back into lakes. I want to get back into the ocean. Um, just to sort of like touch upon that, I was sort of speaking to

friends of mine about this and I know you'll be aware of the myth of Sisyphus. You know, Sisyphus in Greek mythology, one of the cleverest humans ever to exist and he outsmarted the gods numerous times, including death. And the gods were really pissed at him and was just like, oh, you know, we can't have a human just outsmart us. So when he eventually came to the underworld, they were like, right, we're going to punish you and the Greek gods were renowned for their punishment. So we are going to make you roll a boulder up a hill for

eternity. And just when it gets to the top of the hill, it's going to roll back down. You've got to do that for eternity. Sisyphus was like, oh, fine, I'll do it. So he started doing it. But then it was Albert Camus, the French philosopher who just said, you know what? Sisyphus was able to outsmart the gods one more time. If you imagine that he was smiling. And what I love about this is Albert Camus said, the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart. And I love that. That really stuck with me. And I think the river swim was amazing. But when people say what's next, just like another long swim, because ultimately, you know, that's, that's my bolder. You know, the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart. And I know, you're a good friend of yours, Jordan Peterson. I love his work when he starts talking about, you know, the purpose of life is to pick up

the heaviest load and carry it simple. You know, Victor Frankl as well. The meaning of life is to give life meaning. There's this whole idea of just purpose. You know, I think for me, when people say what's next, it's like, I'm probably going to pick up that proverbial boulder and go for another long swim somewhere. Hell yeah. Ross Edgeley, ladies and gentlemen, Ross, I really appreciate it. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all of the bits and pieces. another long swim somewhere. Hell yeah. For us, actually, ladies and gentlemen, for us, I really appreciate it.

Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all of the bits and pieces. Oh, bless you. Yeah. I social media, I suppose we've got Instagram, all of the usual channels, the YouTube series for the longest swim will be on there, uh, posting more pictures of a poof lats and chafing skin. It's been six years.

Well, wait, I appreciate it.