The Rich Roll Podcast - Freeze Solo: Colin O’Brady Is The First to Cross Antarctica Alone & Unassisted

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

Life has taught me one essential truth: the human spirit is boundless. Just when you think we’ve reached the absolute pinnacle of what’s physically possible, someone performs a feat so utterly mind-bending you're left breathless. The skies of perception part. Blanketed in awe, we’re compelled to re-evaluate our own personal capabilities. And humanity is left just a little bit better than it was before. This is the sensation I experience when I spend time with Colin O'Brady – a former Yale swimmer turned professional triathlete turned elite adventure athlete with 4 breathtaking world records to his name. Colin's latest jaw-dropping feat of athletic prowess, stunning endurance and sheer human will was becoming the first person in history to cross the continent of Antarctica solo, unsupported and unaided. Under nothing but his own power, Colin pulled a 300lb sled 932 miles in just 54 days across the coldest, windiest, most remote continent on earth from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the South Pole. Colin first appeared on the podcast in December of 2015 (RRP 207) — a deep dive into his unique upbringing on a commune; how he survived an almost lethal burn accident that left him unlikely to walk again; his phoenix like transformation into a professional ITU triathlete and Olympic hopeful; and how he morphed into a mountaineer with the audacity to attempt incomprehensible feats of adventure athleticism. After conquering the Explorer’s Grand Slam, a challenge that encompassed scaling the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and treks to both the North and South Poles, Colin returned to the podcast in June of 2016 (RRP 235). Among the 44 who have completed the EGS, only 2 have done it under a year. Not only was Colin the youngest person to successfully complete this most prestigious undertaking, he crushed the world record by a stunning 53-day margin, completing it in a mere 139 days. Along the way, he simultaneously broke the 7 Summits world record by two days. Today he returns to share his most remarkable achievement to date, a freeze solo adventure he dubbed the Impossible First. It’s a jaw-dropping story you might have seen unfold in real time on Colin’s Instagram (@colinobrady) or in the stellar 360-degree New York Times coverage penned by my friend (and former podcast guest) Adam Skolnick. Uncovering the why behind the expedition, we explore how he dealt with the gear, solitude, -80F temps, and 30 mph headwinds. He explains why to sweat is to die. We discuss his battle against the elements and British Army Captain Louis Rudd — the legendary explorer who also set off the same day with the same goal in his heart. We talk about Colin’s final day 77-mile, 32-hour superhuman push to the finish. And Colin explains how a phone call with a certain musician changed his entire perception on who he is. But mostly this is about a man who uses endurance and adventure as art that speaks to the heart and soul of the human experience. The visually inclined can watch our entire conversation on YouTube at bit.ly/colinobrady439 (please subscribe!)  Enjoy! Rich

Look at what we are capable of. You know, I do these interviews and things and people want to say like, Colin, like, are you superhuman? And I'm like, yeah, I'm superhuman. And so are you. So are all of us. What we can do with our minds is extraordinary

and how we can all be connected and uplifting of each other in that sense. And so for me in Antarctica, the lessons learned were, yes, about my own potential, but really were resonant, you know, across humanity of what we are all capable when we set our minds to things. And again, I don't think that necessarily anyone

wants to walk across Antarctica solo and unsupported and unaided. I don't blame you for not wanting to do that. But we have dreams, we have goals, and it's so easy to get in our own ways of stopping the progress towards that. It's about tapping into these sort of universal truths that we all face and encounter, which is like facing obstacles, stepping outside of our comfort zone to grow and having to persevere and push through

that. That's Colin O'Brady. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How are you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. And one thing that has become abundantly clear to me along this path that I've been treading is that the human mind, the human machine,

the human spirit is essentially boundless. Just when you think that we've reached the pinnacle of what's possible, that we've peaked as a species, somebody goes out and does something so utterly mind-bending and incomprehensible that you can't help but be left breathless. And I think what happens with that is that we experience awe. We experience wonder. The skies of perception kind of part and we're compelled to rethink, to reexamine our own personal limits and capabilities. And humanity is left just a little bit better than it was before.

This is the sensation that I experienced spending time with this week's guest, a former collegiate swimmer from Yale turned professional triathlete, turned elite mountaineer and adventure athlete with four breathtaking world records in the bank. His name is Colin O'Brady and his latest jaw-dropping feat of athletic prowess, stunning endurance, and just sheer human will was becoming the first person in history to cross Antarctica solo, unsupported and unaided. In other words, under his own power, Colin covered 932 miles pulling a 300-pound-plus sled in just 54 days across the coldest, windiest, most remote continent on Earth from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the South Pole. Let that sink in for a minute.

And if you do, and if you're like me, you're going to start to feel a little bit uncomfortable. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of

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I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple.

Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one,

again, go to recovery.com. And once again, if you are driving in your car or you're juggling a number of different things while you're listening to this and you forget any of these special URLs or discount codes, all you gotta do is go to my website, richroll.com, click on the resources tab on the top menu, then the sponsors sub menu,

and you'll find in alphabetical order all of the sponsors there and all the discount codes to make it easy for you guys. Okay, Colin O'Brady. So this is Colin's third appearance on the podcast. We first sat down back in December of 2015, and that was on the eve of his Explorers Grand Slam world record attempt. If you missed it, it's RRP 207. And it's a great place to start because in that exchange, we'll go deep into his very unique unique upbringing growing up in a commune,

his experience swimming for Yale, how he survived an almost lethal burn accident that left him unlikely to even walk again, let alone do the things that he does today. And this Phoenix-like transformation into becoming a professional triathlete and Olympic hopeful and how he eventually morphed into this mountaineer with the audacity to attempt such incomprehensible feats of adventure athleticism. And then in June of 2016, that was RRP 235. He came back on the show after he conquered the Explorer's Grand Slam, the challenge that basically encompassed scaling the highest mountain on each of the seven continents and treks to both the North and South Poles.

And of 44 people that have done this, only two have done it in under a year. And not only was he the youngest person to conquer this very prestigious undertaking, he absolutely crushed it. He broke the world record by an incredible 53-day margin, completing it in only 139 days, which is just insane. And along the way, he also simultaneously broke the Seven Summits world record by two days. Well, in any event, today he returns, and this time I'll say it again, And this time, I'll say it again, as the first person in history to cross Antarctica solo, unsupported, and unaided.

It is an absolutely incredible story. It's a story you might have seen unfold in real time on Colin's Instagram or in the many beautiful and amazing long-form pieces in the New York Times where my friend and DK, your friend as well, you've known Adam Skolnick for like 20 years, right? It's crazy how that guy is in both of our lives. It's amazing. In any event, Adam Skolnick was the writer and the journalist who covered this story for the New York Times in several long form pieces with beautiful photography. He did an incredible job chronicling that undertaking from day one to completion. And I have links to every single article that Adam wrote about the adventure in the show notes. So when you're done listening to this, please go there and you can read up further. In any event, today, you're going to hear all about it firsthand

from the young man himself. We talk about the why behind the expedition, how he dealt with solitude, the minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures, the 30 mile an hour headwinds, the gear, never taking a day off, the pressure, the incredible pressure of battling, not just the elements, but also the fact that another explorer, British Army Captain Lewis Redd, had also set off on the same day, one mile from Colin with the very same goal of becoming the first person to achieve this feat, which is kind of amazing. It added this additional element of competitiveness into the equation, as well as Colin's incredible final day, 77-mile, 32 32 hour push to the finish. It's an extraordinary tale of an extraordinary human. Colin is an inspiration to millions and somebody I'm proud to call friends. So with that said, be prepared to be blown away. Here's Colin.

So first of all, thank you for bringing the freaking Portland weather. I know, it's like a rainstorm here in LA today. What's going on? It has not stopped raining. There was lightning storms last night. It was crazy. Did you get in this morning or last night? Yeah, it was a very bumpy ride in this morning from San Jose. So super wet out here today, very Oregon. And then right after you have Jesse Thomas coming in, so a lot of Oregon energy. Exactly. Influencing the Exactly. Oregon rainy vibes coming in today. Right. Get ready. Super excited to talk to you. This is your third time on the podcast. It's an honor. I can't believe it. Every time you go knock out some crazy thing, you come by and tell me about it. But what's interesting, I was

reflecting on our relationship a little bit. I mean. I think you emailed me or reached out to me years ago, maybe when we were living in Kauai because your dad has a farm there. Yes. And you tried to connect at that point when you were still racing triathlon. Exactly. I think it was your first podcast is from Kauai, right? That's right. Exactly. So right in that same moment, yeah, my dad has lived on Kauai for almost 20 years now. He's an organic farmer out there in Kilauea. And I got

made aware of you by a friend of mine, Casey McGraw, who is a guy I think like wrote a couple segments of the Epic Five maybe with you. He was like, he was my dad's first woofer on his organic farm, moved out for a surf trip from Florida and ended up, he's still living there, married my next door neighbor and they've got a kid who lives on Kauai. So he got bit by the bug. But yeah, I think that's how I got first introduced to you. What was that? 2010, 11? No, it was, that was 2012. 2012. Okay. 2012. And then yeah, I was racing triathlon professionally at that point. And I think we did, we connected over Twitter or something like that.

We never hooked up though. Yeah, exactly. But we did hook up in New York City. Yes. Like, what was that, like two months ago or something like that? We were staying in the same hotel. You would literally, it was like two days after you completed this journey and you went straight to New York City.

Like, I think you had your sled with you still. I did. I still have my sled with me. You hadn't even been home yet. And we were texting. You're like, hey, I see you in your New York. I'm in New York. Let's try to get together. I'm like, great. I'm bouncing around pretty busy, but where are you in the city? We both text each other the same address. We realize we're sitting in the same hotel. Two floors away from each other, yeah. And then we ran into each other in the elevator. My favorite part of this

story is I was going out to some fancy dinner and I was all dressed up in a blazer. And then I come out of the elevator and there you are in like a nice coat, like, you know, like a scar, like, oh, you know, good Yale grad. And I was like, where are you going? And you're going, you're on your way to CNN, which our hotel was literally two blocks away from. And I was like, oh, great. You can just walk down the street. That's awesome. And I was like, yeah, but they sent a car because they're worried that if it got a little snowy, I couldn't handle it. That's hilarious. It was pretty hilarious. But yeah, two, you and I, a couple of West Coast guys trying to look all fancy

for the New York City folks. I know. That's a rare occasion. Yes, very rare. And you've just been on a tear. You're in like a new city every single day. If you watch your Instagram stories, it has been nonstop since you've been back. Yeah, it's been a blessing. But it's funny, when I saw you in New York, I got back from Antarctica on January 3rd. Spent a few days. Jenna came down and met me down there of course My lovely wife and business partner And she came and met me down there We took a couple days in Chile Before going back

But she was like Hey we're not flying back to Portland actually Back home We need you in New York City To be on the Today Show So going from 54 days alone In a tent in Antarctica With nobody else

To the bright lights of New York City Was a little bit jarring But like I said It's been a blessing and I'm really humbled by all the press and media attention around this. Yeah, crazy attention. It's been amazing. Adam Skolnick did an unbelievable job of chronicling this from day one and keeping everybody riveted. I mean, there was just piece after piece after piece in the New York Times. Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah. And the Adam connection actually originally comes via you because I think when he wrote that article about you doing Otillo, Otillo or however you pronounce that, he had reached out or you had reached out to me to see how he wants to interview a couple of people who've been on the podcast and him and I became friends from there. And he did such an extraordinary job with the New York Times

pieces. It was incredible to see. And it was originally supposed to be one or two pieces, but I guess they liked it so much, I think they ended up doing seven or eight or something like that and building this whole tracker around it. I didn't get to see all this in real time, of course, but it was happening kind of as a back here when I was out on the ice.

Not only was the coverage riveting, they did an incredible job of displaying it graphically, like in a very artistic way that was immersive. That was very cool. Yeah, yeah. So here you are, man. The last time we spoke, you had just completed the Explorers Grand Slam, setting the world record on that.

Like you just go from one thing to the next. And then right before this Antarctica expedition, you did the 50 tallest summits in the United States in like 21 days. 21 days, 50 points. I tried to get you to come out and come out with me. I know. You emailed me and you're like, at least come and do this one. I was like, dude, it'll be a blast. That is one of my big regrets, not doing that.

Yeah, it was a good time. Yeah, that journey was a wild one. For me, creating these projects, setting these world records is kind of a fun piece of this, but it's been fun to really start to think of myself less as an athlete and more of as an artist. and also how can I get people to participate and collaborate with them? The Antarctica Project, being alone in Antarctica, of course, didn't in person have a lot of collaboration potential, but the 50 high points was a blast. With that project, Jenna and I kind of created this concept that we called the Forrest Gump Effect. And so we invited anyone else that was racing across the United States to come out and join us, climb a mountain with us,

climb a peak. Of course, on the East Coast, some of these are little hills. In Florida, it's a 325-foot hill on the side of the road, but we had a whole bunch of teachers come join us out there, school kids on various paths. And so that project was so fun to see all 50 states in that period of time, but also meet all these incredible people in all these different locations was really, really fun. But to do it in 21 days, I mean, I can understand 50 days, but 21 days, you're doing at least two a day. Yes, yes.

Logistically, that must have been super tricky. Yeah, Jenna is a logistic mastermind, that's for sure. But yeah, the way that project worked is basically the world record clock starts ticking when you reach the summit of the first peak. And so in this case, Denali was very first because of course that's the longest to get up. So I went out there

with a climbing partner, a really good friend of mine, a guy named Dr. John Kradowski out of Colorado. So he climbed that peak with me and we strapped skis on from the summit and got back down as quickly as we could. So we literally summited Denali, got our skis, packed up our camp, skied all the way back down to the little airport, not it's not airport, but a landing strip out there, and a bush plane picks us up, flies us back to Anchorage. John stays there and packs up our stuff, but I get in a car and drive straight down to the Anchorage airport, and Alaska is like closing there.

The airport door is closing. We get the last person on the plane that flies us straight to Hawaii, and it just starts from there. So we go Alaska, Hawaii, fly back to the mainland United States and kind of work our way East to West and have kind of two modes of transport. We've got an RV, uh, had this amazing cruise America RV, but we just lived in out of my whole crew. There's about five or six of us filmmaker, Jenna, my friend Blake, a couple other folks, um, were there with us, which was amazing.

Um, and then we kind of drove our way up and down the East Coast from place to place. But then also, one of my main sponsors, a company called Standard Process, who played a huge role in Antarctica as well. We can talk about that from the food standpoint. But they let us use, they were like, hey, do you want to borrow our time machine? And I was like, I like time machines. What are we talking? Like, what's this? And they let me use the company plane for a few of the segments. So on some of the really hard to get to places, we got to hop in a private plane, which was a very first for me. And I think that probably saved two or three days off.

It didn't save quite as much time. It didn't save like 10 days or something off it, but a few really crucial flight segments were huge in there. But basically, we did about 10,000 miles in this RV, constant motion. So either the RV's driving, I'm sleeping. And if we get there, we get to a place at one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning. It's like, all right, Colin, get out. You got to go, go climb.

And it's each peak for, there's a different peak in each state. Yeah. So like, what's the peak in Nebraska? Yeah. Or like Kansas. Yeah. So there's, I mean, obviously some of these are these, you know, smaller peaks. I think in Kansas, it was called Sunflower Mountain, Mount Sunflower. Actually, that one was incredible though.

We arrived and we had gotten a little bit delayed that day. I was coming from, actually, so Mount Whitney got closed. We get there to Mount Whitney and a huge lightning strike had happened right at the trailhead. So I'm about to climb it. My dad actually had trained. It was his 60th birthday that day, July 11th of this past year. And he was going to climb it with me. He's been- That's the one that I was going to join you for. Exactly. Exactly. And that actually got disrupted because of this lightning strike.

They're like, we're not letting anyone in there right now. And I'm on this world record clock. I'm like, wait, what should we do? Fortunately, we realized we still had to hit Arizona. So we popped over to Arizona that morning with me and my dad climbed Arizona Humphreys Peak, and then needed to get Nebraska and Kansas before going to Colorado. And so we fly out there. We're a little bit delayed. We hit Nebraska, which is just a drive up, basically take a quick photo op, you know, tag the, you know, 1000 feet above sea level or whatever. And then we get to Kansas at like two in the morning. At this point, we're thinking no one's going to join us for this one. Obviously we're trying to get people to join us, this Forrest Gump effect. But we're like, you know, like it's two o'clock in the morning, middle of nowhere in Western Kansas. It's very rural. It's not near

any of the cities. And sure enough, we get into this parking lot and these lights flash. And there's this kid, this incredible guy who had seen on Instagram that we were coming out there, was at work that morning and said, sorry to his boss, I got to go do this and drove eight and a half hours from the farther side of Kansas to join us at the top of Mount Sunflower. Which is what, like 2000 feet? It's not even a climb.

It's like basically a parking lot and like a little plaque. And he gets out of his car. He's like, oh my God, you're here. This is amazing. Like he was like so psyched. And I was just like, you know, just humbled that he was so excited. And the best part of it was like, he's like, dude, I've been sitting here, but I didn't have any food or any water. So we had like given food and water to him.

And I was like, so what are you going to do? Are you going to like just grab a hotel and then drive back in the morning? He's like, he's like, no, man, I got to clock in for work at 8am. So he was literally getting back in his car, driving all the way back home and going to work. So massive shout out to him for joining us out there. It was incredible. And so when does the original idea for the Antarctica expedition pop into your head? Because you didn't announce it until super late in the game. Yeah. So even while we were working on the 50 high points, which was a blast, we've been working on Antarctica kind of in my mind for about two years. At the end

of 2016, Jenna and I, you know, we've kind of built these projects, you know, really kind of from nothing. There's a little bit more infrastructure around us these days. But, you know, when we started out, it was just literally a one-bedroom apartment and a whiteboard with some ideas like, hey, should we try this? And it was like, we don't have any sponsors. We don't have any marketing background. We know nothing about how to pull these things together. I didn't even have that much background in, you know, mountaineering, um, at that point. And, uh, you know, we kind of just pulled it together on a shoe screen, but, um, that's where these ideas kind of were created. It's just the two of us just ideating. And that one, this, I have a whiteboard that says, you know, the race

across Antarctica in 2016, the reason that had come to my mind, wasn't just out of nowhere. Of course, um, you know, going back as far as Ernest Shackleton in 1914, you know, he attempted to do a traverse of Antarctica with his whole team. And, of course, that was an ill-fated expedition, but one of the greatest, like, adventure stories, in my opinion, of all time, where everyone, his crew, you know, survived incredible leadership principles. principles but then in the modern era um you know what said this as part as a world first is important to kind of distinguish which is you know no one had crossed the landmass of antarctica solo unsupported which means no resupplies of food and then unaided so not no use of kites or dogs or vehicles or anything like that um but people of course over the past hundred years have figured out how to do that you know using kites and things some really extraordinary expeditions have happened but this sort of really pure form of just man hauling hadn't been accomplished. And in 2015,

right at the same time that I was starting the Explorers Grand Slam world record in Antarctica as well, a guy named Henry Worsley was attempting this crossing. And so I was just fascinated by his project following along because I was in Antarctica for my very first time doing a much shorter expedition across the last degree of latitude and climbing Mount Vincent as part of the Explorers Grand Slam. And Henry and I arrived to the South Pole about, I don't know what exactly, a few days apart from each other. He was there just before me. So I never met him, but was just aware of this kind of really epic expedition taking place. And unfortunately, you know, about a month later, 71 days into his expedition, he fell ill and then ultimately passed away as a result of

complications of the sickness that happened with him out there, which was, you know, terribly sad. And, you know, also received a lot of media attention that sort of kind of people started asking in the media, like, is this crossing even possible? You know, can humans carry enough, you know, food without being resupplied and the weight of the sleds too heavy and kind of all these sort of, you know, armchair questions, you know, kind of kept happening. But, you know, food without being resupplied and the weight of the sleds too heavy and kind of all these sort of, you know, armchair questions, you know, kind of kept happening. But, you know, in the zeitgeist of exploration, there was a curiosity there. So the following year or two years later, a guy named Ben Saunders attempted the project as well. A prolific, you know, polar explorer out of the UK as well. And he's done some really pioneering stuff in the North

Pole, South Pole, really amazing expedition, somebody I've looked up to. And I thought for sure when he was going to attempt it, I was like, oh, wow, like Ben's doing this. If anyone's going to do this project, it's going to be him. And Jenna and I, you know, had this idea in the back of our mind to try it, but we weren't in place to do it this year and was just kind of cheering him along and following his blog. And then sure enough on about, you know, day 50 or 51 of his expedition, he arrived at the South Pole and made the call that he was running too low on supplies and wasn't going to be able to complete the full traverse. And so he had to get picked up at the South Pole, which kind of opened the doorway for me to give it a shot the following year. Right. And at what point did you become aware that Lewis Rudd was going to make this

attempt also? Yeah, of course. That's the big factor here. So Antarctica, for those who don't have general context on it, which is pretty much everyone understandably, um, cause it's frozen desolate place in the bottom of the world. Polar bears, right? Exactly. No polar bears even. That's a common misconception as well. Like we talked about before, but no, um, the, the, you know, there's only one season really where you can do a crossing of Antarctica. Um, and it's the Antarctic summer basically. And then the logistics are very, very limited down there. There's really only, you know, one company that services a couple of planes that supports expeditions and scientific research. And it's a really, really specific set of kind of window. And so if you're going to try this project, you

basically need to be down there at the very beginning of the season with the same guy who owns like the one plane who can drop you off on the edge of the continent. And so Lou Rudd announced that he was going to attempt this in March of this past year. I had already been working on it quietly in the background, but I wasn't super surprised, to be honest, to know that somebody else was going to be attempting this given sort of the fanfare that this project had been getting. And Lou was an expedition partner of Henry Worsley's

on a previous expedition. So they were, you know, dear friends. And he kind of devoted his expedition to him, right? Yeah, and super, I mean, super noble. Like I said, Henry was an inspiration of mine from afar, but I never actually met him. But Lou, of course, is, you know, really involved and they'd done a 68-day expedition together in Antarctica

and are close friends from the military and all this kind of stuff. And so Lou announced his project, which didn't really change my, you change my decisions or tactic in any ways. But I didn't actually publicly announce my project, as you mentioned, until about a week before leaving for Antarctica, even though I'd been working on it for well over a year. Right. And I would imagine part of the impetus is looking at these other people

who have attempted it and had been unsuccessful and thinking like, nobody's done this. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Maybe I can give this a crack, right? Yeah, I mean, for me, I always admired the pioneering explorers of yesteryear, like reading Ernest Shackleton's book or Teddy Roosevelt floating down through the Amazon

or of course Sir Edmund Hillary being the first to climb Everest and stuff like this. Just these iconic people that, you know, to me are still just in this amazing pantheon of exploration. And I've kind of felt like, wow, I was born too late for this. I was born in 1985. You know, we've got, you know, a lot more modern technology there, satellite mapping, like, you know, is it, you know, is there a difference between exploration nowadays, certainly than it was back then? You know, these iconic, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. I don't want to interrupt you.

But, you know, I have this vision of, like, a place like the Yale Club in New York, like wood-paneled walls with, like, you know, paintings of dogs hunting where these old adventurers sit and, you know, regale people with their stories. Yes. You know, the Sir Randolph Fiennes. Exactly. You know, regale people with their stories. He's like, you know, the Serenoff finds, you know, tradition of exploration. Exactly. And for me, like, I've just been fascinated by that for so long. And, you know, even now having completed this crossing, I don't necessarily, you know, put myself right up beside them in my mind. They're still just my heroes in a different category. But they, you know, for me, I was like, wow, like there is this iconic first that remains undone in Antarctica, which is this solo unsupported unaided traverse. And so

for that reason, it was fascinating to me. And again, just as a way of one exploring the own kind of unlocking the own potential inside my own body as an athlete and endurance athlete, but also this sort of curiosity. It's one thing, you know, these other world records I had set, you know, being the fastest person to complete certain things was unique. No one had ever done it as fast. The seven summits or Explorers Grand Slam or the 50 high points,

but people have completed those things. And so it was different to step into this kind of unknown of like, wow, people have attempted this and no one has done it. Like, why? Like, where did they get it wrong? Like, how can I kind of try to figure it out better? Is it even possible?

And that's why Jenna and I ultimately named the project The Impossible First. And at this kind of nod at, you know, not poking fun and not being cocky or anything, of actually literally going like, is this possible? Let's try and find it out. And there was no, you know, there's a good possibility in our minds

that it wasn't going to be possible or that we would fail, but I wanted to give it my best shot. So being a student of that legacy and kind of trying to deconstruct these past expeditions, was there something out what you would do differently so that you wouldn't befall the same fate? Yeah. You know, one of the things, and it's apropos to be on your podcast talking about this, but really was the nutrition. You know, I looked at some of these other expeditions, and there's kind of been this, you know, old school polar expression, which is like, get super fat because you're going to lose a lot of weight. Eat a bunch of cheese and salami

and, you know, pemmican, you know, whatever, bacon or whatever, frozen bacon, you know, this kind of stuff. And I've, you know, as you know, I, you know,

I run a small nonprofit that's, you know, around inspiring kids to get outside, move their bodies and live active, healthy lives, really focus on health and wellness with young people and just being a product of a father

who is an organic farmer and a mother who's, you know, in the natural foods industry in the Pacific Northwest, you know, to have this deep curiosity around whole food, health, and nutrition. And so I was like, okay, I wonder if you could get the nutrition piece of this really right. How much of a difference would that make? Because it's ultimately this massive math equation where it's unsupported, right? So you can't put any extra things in your sled. Every ounce you put in your sled is super important.

And Ben Saunders, unfortunately, didn't quite take enough. Henry's Worthly Bodies broke down because maybe he wasn't getting the right nutrition and calories. I don't know for sure, but that was sort of a question that I had. And so I found this amazing sponsor, this company called Standard Process. You might be familiar with them, but it's a whole food supplement company out of Wisconsin. Incredible operation, you know, a thousand acre organic farm, vertically integrated, you know, all work with, you know, chiropractors

and acupuncturists. I mean, just an incredible, you know, sort of high ethic company. And I said to them, I presented this idea. I said, hey, I want to try this. And people are calling this project impossible. I mean, I think there's a quote from Wired Magazine that says, it's humanly impossible to carry enough calories to get your body across Antarctica. And I said, you know, hey, I knew that they were opening this Nutrition Innovation Center this year in Charlotte, where they basically assembled some of the top doctors, you know, food scientists, just really smart people around sort of food, health, and nutrition, and they could figure out, could we figure this out? And so we spent a year with them. I did, you know, several hundred blood tests. I was in their endurance lab, you know, running VO2 max

testing, body fat, all this kind of stuff. And ultimately the by-product of that was to come up with a custom food solution that would fuel me, which was ultimately all plant-based. Um, and it was whole food. It was basically, they created what they called the column bars, which is kind of a funny name. You had a chance to try them, right, in New York when I saw you? I like them. Yeah, they're not too bad. They're quite good. So it's basically solving this equation of trying to pack the most amount of calories and nutritional density into the least amount of net weight that you're going to have to pull.

Yes. And so when you underwent all of these studies, the VO2 max and the blood work, what was it that they figured out from your specific genetic makeup or predisposition that informed how they came up with that formula? So they started out by doing food sensitivity testing just to find out where the inflammatory markers were around food.

Some of them were obvious to me because things that I've just known in my past, which is, you know, like peanuts, I just never really grew with me super well. What else? There was, you know, red meat, something I've eaten a lot of throughout my life. I was kind of raised on a more pescatarian diet, just in general with the way my parents ate as a kid. That wasn't a huge surprise to me. But then there were some weird ones. It was like ginger. Bad or good? Bad for me. Not bad in general, but just inflammatory markers for me. Anything that's going to promote inflammation. Yeah. Because your body is under so much stress out there. Even in day-to-day life, probably a little ginger for me is totally fine. But in this sense, we're trying to minimize inflammation because my body is going to be under so much

stress. So we're trying to find what would burn the absolute cleanest in my body. And then from there, we kind of have to figure out what the macronutrient blend is, like how much fats, how much carbs, how much protein, of course, that was super important. It needed to be basically pretty high fat and ultimately solved for that, mostly using coconut oil and then also nuts and seeds and veggie protein and things like that. But the real, I think, difference maker, in addition to figuring out that macronutrient blends, was these phytonutrients. So they were able to find in my body, like, what am I deficient in? What do I need more of? And what's going to break down over time? So the bar was a combination of the right macronutrient blend using fats, proteins, et cetera. But then also they were able to grind up their whole food or

whole organic supplements into this bar. So I wasn't having to take a million different pills or things like that, but it was, you know, ground up, you know, it was like, you know, magnesium and, you know, you know, probiotics and things like that, promoting gut health. The gut health was the biggest thing that I kind of came in and they were like, look, like your, you know, your, your gut health is not as dialed as it needs to be. And we think over time, if you're not digesting and absorbing these calories properly, you know, you are going to fall apart out here. Yeah. So what, so what was the nutritional profile then? So you have coconut oil, what else was in it? Dates? Yeah. So it was like dried cranberries, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, veggie protein. It's like a pea powder, a pea protein powder that they have. And then there's

actually one of their products is also a protein, but it was mixed with this like a slow burning carbohydrate blend, basically. I don't know exactly all the various parts of it. So again, all organics, you know, ingredients in there. But that was amazing because instead of kind of these spikes, these kind of sugar spikes, it was this longer burn. Like lower glycemic. Exactly, lower glycemic stuff. And that's perfect because I'm zone one, low heart rate the entire time and dragging this heavy sled. But it's slowly and methodically.

There's not these like anaerobic bursts. So I wasn't like burning those like fast stores of glycogen in that way. Right. Yeah. Are they going to package this thing? You know, it's funny. There's of course – Here's how you get fat, actually. Yeah. But it's so specific to you.

Yeah. Well, exactly. It's a funny thing. You know, I think it's really cool. They, you know, right when I got back, you know, Hoda tried them on the Today Show and then Bryant Gumbel, we just did HBO Real Sports with him and he's in my living room trying them. So, like, I mean, it's gotten some sort of like high profile. I know you've got like a lead here. Exactly. And so a lot of people have been reaching out. Of course, the standard process,

they're like, you know, when can we get these column bars? And there's kind of two responses. One is, you know, that bar was really specifically tailored. It's called a column bar for a reason. And it also, you know, I was burning about 10,000 calories when I was out there. And, you know, these bars put in about,

these bars plus what I had kind of on either ends of it in the day, I was eating about 7,000 calories. That's about as much as I could carry. And I was still losing weight. Now, if you ate 7,000 calories in a day-to-day life, we all know that that's probably not, unless you're training super, super hard, the perfect makeup. But what it has asked, begged the question. And I think, you know, there's something that, that, you know, we are exploring a little bit, which is a custom food solution. The idea of like, you know, why are we not fueling our bodies in these custom ways? And of course there's some barriers to that,

but is there a way to do something that isn't quite a year long study of all this blood work and all this this, but in a more simple way to understand some sort of genetic makeups of our bodies and what cleans the burnest, burns the cleanest in our bodies and fuels it. That's the future of nutrition or at least performance nutrition, I think.

I mean, this Colin bar would be ideal for you in an Ironman, I would imagine, with some electrolyte element to it as well, some hydration strategy. But if you're an elite high-performance athlete and you have the resources to be able to get that kind of information that you can drill down on to figure out and solve your nutritional dilemma,

I think would be a massive competitive advantage, especially when, look, as a professional triathlete, look at Ironman, look at these guys that are at the absolute tip of the spear, the best, most highly trained, and they're still running into problems with nutrition when they hit mile 10, mile 16, and they start to throw up.

On the Kona course. It's like, there's a lot that still can be figured out and learned to solve those kinds of problems. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And I think that it was fun to have this incredible company behind me with all the support that they threw my way to create what we did.

But what I'm really excited about and what I kind of said to them a year ago when I presented them was, how amazing would it be to come back from this? Hopefully it's successful. Hopefully there's some media buzz around it year ago when I presented them was, how amazing would it be to come back from this? Hopefully it's successful. Hopefully there's some media buzz around it. And when I get asked questions like this conversation we're having right now,

like, how did you do that? To be like, we solved this with whole food, health, and nutrition. And by the way, we collected all the data and science on it. So in the next several months, we're planning to publish a medical white paper, peer-reviewed, and proper science turned on that

to actually just show open source, like, here's how we did it. Now, that doesn't trickle down to the retail product tomorrow, but that is the beginning of this sort of iteration, or at least, you know, adding our sort of research to the larger bucket of people looking at custom health and nutrition. And hopefully, you know, that can build to scale at some point in a way that really can reach a lot of other people or certainly high-performing athletes at first. And I think there are the future of health in some ways is finding this out and actually dictating our health

and nutrition around that. In a business context, it's a case study on the perfect relationship between athlete and sponsor too. Yes, oh my God. You know what I mean? Because it so seamlessly integrates with your mission and what you're doing. And now here you are

talking about it still. You know what I mean? Like that's the way all those kinds of relationships should function. I mean, it's been an absolute blessing having been a professional athlete now for nearly a decade. I've been fortunate to have, you know, some great partners and great sponsors along the way. But, you know, nothing has been, you know, this for me is like, it's not like a commercial for standard process right now. You just asked me how did this happen? I was like, this is what I did. I had this incredible partner and we did this amazing thing. And I'm so excited to talk about it because I'm just passionate about what we did from the most authentic level of the whole food, healthy

nutrition and solving this high performance question, not with some weird chemical derivative or isolate, but actually being like, yeah, like it's whole food nutrition around my genetic profile with a bunch of smart people in a room solving this math equation. Like we did it and it was successful. And we did something that literally no one in history has ever done with the human body. And it's just a really fun, you know, fun to be able to reflect on that in the way that's sort of the most meaningful to me

and my background. And you did it plant-based. Exactly, exactly. You know what I mean? Not only the first person to cross Antarctica unaided, but you did it as the first plant-based person as well here. That's right. We can celebrate that.

Let's talk about the preparation for this in terms of fitness training, because I think what's also interesting is that kind of know, kind of hearkening back to this tradition of great explorers, these people come from a very different kind of background and lineage. They tend to be people from the military, like Lou came from special forces, right? I mean, the guy had done like seven tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Exactly. That's a more traditional kind of background for this kind

of thing. What's unique about you is you're coming from a professional athlete background. And in the way that you approached nutrition more scientifically and differently than what had been done historically, your athletic preparation for this was also like finely tuned and pretty unique and interesting. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's, I agree with you, you know, exploration and, you know, whatever you want to call them, action sports and, you know, or mountaineering, things like that haven't necessarily always been in the more traditional athlete category. And it's been fun to see, you know, some athletes that I really admire kind of crossing over into this, you know,

a guy like Achillean Jornet, who's obviously one of the greatest athletes in the world, but also has all the technical mountaineering skills to do incredible things, or certainly what Alex Honnold just did, you know, or even Steve House, you know, publishing books about like how to actually train for the new alpinism, how to be, you know, think of yourself as an athlete to think about climbing mountains or doing some of these things. So it's fun to see that building, but you're absolutely right, which is the traditional background in these types of things hasn't been necessarily professional athletes taking them on, or even a training protocol that is of the similarity of a professional athlete. And so for me, you know, approaching it with that mindset, having been a professional triathlete

for a number of years and really approach things in that way, it was fun to look at this problem, but also it was completely unique to me. You know, I, you know, when I was racing triathlon, you know, I'm six foot tall. My race weight was probably about 158 pounds, something like that, you know, maybe low one sixties at times. Um, and that was clearly not going to cut it. Like that lean build was not going to cut it for Antarctica. Um, it was very clear to me after sitting down with standard process, like I needed to put some mass on my body, not only to be stronger, to pull this 375 pound sled out the gate, but literally because we knew I was going to be, you know, withering away and losing. Yeah. I needed something in the bank to lose a hundred percent. So we targeted putting me up

to about 185 pounds, which we ultimately did get me there. It felt weird to be that I'd never been that big in my life. Um, but to get my sort of body weight up that high. Um, and so I was like, who can coach me? I've had some incredible coaches along the way in my life, of course, through my swimming career, triathlon, et cetera. I kind of wanted a different take on this. And so via, I don't know, just a couple of people making some introductions, I got introduced to this guy named Mike McCassell, who's based out of Portland where I'm from. And he's an incredible guy. He himself has four world records, but in things very different than what I've done. There's these very strength-oriented guy. He himself has four world records, but in things very different than what I've done. Those are these very strength-oriented things. He's done 5,804 pull-ups

in 24 hours or something like that, the world record in that. He pulled an F-150 truck 20 miles across Death Valley or something like that. And he's this soft-spoken, has a background. He was a Navy guy, not Navy SEAL background. He was a Navy guy, not Navy SEAL, but he was a Navy guy for a long time, air traffic controller there. And he's a young guy. He's in his early thirties. And he trains and trains athletes out of this gym called Evolution Fitness by my house that has this altitude chamber. It's a cool place to train. But anyways, I got connected with him and immediately we just kind of synced. Not only because I was like, well, this guy knows how to pull heavy things far, clearly. And he's down the street from you. He's just down the street from me. But he also is this high-performing athlete that really looks at things from the mental side as well.

And ultimately, my curiosity with Antarctica, as much as it was physical and that there's some serious physical demands out there, which are obvious, the mental side was my deep curiosity. You know, what happens to the brain, you know, 54 days alone, this expansive white landscape, nothing to see on the horizon, the sun never setting, you know, can you, can you harness the power of that? Or is that going to completely defeat you? That seemed like that was going to be the make or break. So Mike really designed this training protocol for me that really encapsulated both of those things. Yes, we got me stronger. I did a lot of, you know, squats and deadlifts and bench press and, you know, getting like bigger and stronger muscle mass, more weightlifting than I've probably done since I was a collegiate swimmer, really. You know, I haven't

done that kind of work in a long time, but then a lot of body weight slough, a lot of plyometrics, but ultimately the kind of crux of this was this combination of this hardcore fitness, you know, weight training with the mental side. So he started doing these circuits for me where he'd get my heart rate jacked up really high by doing all this sort of, you know, running on this treadmill uphill, you know, lifting weights, all this kind of stuff. And then he'd have me put my feet in ice buckets, sit against the wall, do a wall squat. But then he would start yelling like, you know, fractions at me to math problems, or he'd hand me a Lego set and be like, solve this Lego set. Or my hands would be in these ice buckets in a plank position, and then I have to pull them out and tie knots with ropes.

And there's this idea of in Antarctica, completely alone, no one else to rely on myself. I had to be completely locked in, both mentally being able to calm my mind with my heart rate jacked up, with the storm literally raging around me. But if I tied a knot wrong, or if I let go of my tent and that blew away, I'm in the middle of Antarctica alone with no tent. Exactly. Yeah. For lack of a better word. Absolutely. So it was intense, but the training was amazing. And it was one of those moments when I found myself in Antarctica several times in these

brutal storms, you know, setting up my tent and a minus 80 degree wind chill when it's minus 30 out and 50, 60 mile per hour winds, just brutal conditions. And I'm going, oh, if I freak out right now, or if my mind is not calm, or I'm not executing like properly, or I'm exhausted at the end of this, you know, 15 hour day or whatever it is like, you know, this is how you lose your life or this is how you get into big trouble. And so that training with Mike, both combining that physical and the mental and these intense environments was just an incredible way to train and prepare for this, you know, hat tip to Mike for sure for what he did there. Yeah. It's those little things and something like that,

like some tiny little thing that you overlooked or that you screwed up because you didn't have your mindset right that end up like upending the entire thing. For 100%. And the Antarctica, you know, the crazy thing when I compare, you know, polar expeditions to, you know, Himalayan mountaineering,

you know, climbing Everest or other bigger expeditions I've done in the mountains is, you know, there's in the mountains, there's probably more objective hazard, meaning of course there's, there's avalanche risk. You could, you know, fall down a big cliff. Um, both Antarctica and mountains of course have crevasses, um, but in varying degrees. Um, and so there's that kind of that heightened intensity in a mountain, but even in, you know, Himalayan mountaineering, you might climb up to a couple of high camps, but then you might sit there for four or five days, relax in a base camp, go down the mountain,

rest and recover and wait for that kind of epic, one epic summit push. Whereas in Antarctica, it's 54 days and it's nonstop every single day. So I didn't have enough food. And of course I'm racing Lou. And so I didn't have enough time to basically take a day off.

In 54 days, I didn't take a single rest day. So that meant if it was, you know, like I said, 50, 60 mile per hour winds, I was out of my tent and not going, oh, I should take a shortened day. It's a full day. It's a 12 hour, 13 hour day of pulling my sled. But then on either end of it, it's two hours of melting snow to create water, you know, putting my boots on, you know, packing everything up, which is not easy when the wind's blowing and everything, and then setting the tent up and doing all this, as well as, of course, trying to share this story with the world. So I'm posting, you know, on Instagram every single night, I'm carrying this satellite modem that is, you know, posting the sides. It's a whole sort of process of the days in which, I mean, maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but there was no day

that wasn't 17 hours long for 54 days in a row, completely by myself having to do every task, shoveling snow. And so every sequence of the day, one little misstep in any of those, you know, hundreds of details throughout the day could, you know, begin a sudden disaster for sure. Yeah, no question about it. All right. So just to be clear, you have this sled that you're going to be pulling and it ends up weighing 375, right? Yeah, yeah. 375 pounds, not an ounce more or less after basically analyzing this thing six ways to Tuesday to try to figure out like, what are the essential things that I need and not one thing more?

Yep, exactly. And so how much of that is, so it's your food, obviously. How much did the food weigh? So the food weighed, I think it came in around 220, something like that. Right, 220. So that's a significant portion of it. And that's obviously going to decline over time.

Then you have your tent. Yeah. You have your stove. Yeah. You have your sleeping bag. Yeah. You have extra gear, I would imagine. A little bit.

You didn't bring a lot of backup gear in case stuff broke. Yeah, so kind of once you started weighing all the components of the sled and realizing, you know, 375 was a stretch for me to even be able to pull at all. And definitely couldn't have been any heavier than that. And it was pretty much on my limit right at the gate. And so I realized I couldn't bring

any kind of extra anything. So the other big weight component that you didn't mention there, which was fuel. So the way that you get water, of course, is by melting snow. And so that of course is white gas. I took about 15 liters of that. And so that weighed, you know, another 20 or so pounds there. But, you know, food and fuel were the main things, but there was not enough. And it was like extra ski. Nope. Can't bring that like extra tent. Nope. Can't bring that. I mean, I literally didn't bring an extra pair of underwear. I didn't change my clothes the entire time for 54 days

so that I could get an extra like 100 calories of food in my sled. And, you know, I was right down to it at the end there. I was down to my last bag or so of food. So it was, I mean, the calculation is very tight on being able to do this crossing without being resupplied. So every, you know, little ounce mattered. But, I mean, honestly, that first day I, uh, I get, I get dropped off, you know, Lou and I get dropped off actually a mile apart from each other. We're equidistant from the first way point,

the first kind of GPS marker on the map. And, uh, you know, we had been, we'd built a sort of a bit of a camaraderie, but there's clearly a little bit of tension and, you know, we're both wanting to be first at this thing, but we're still on the same plane and we're realizing we're both attempting this thing. So it's not like we wish ill on each other. We give each other a hug and say, hey, I hope you make a safe and successful crossing. But I think in the back of both minds,

it's like, but I hope I'm first. But I'm looking at his gear and I'm like, man, this guy knows his stuff. Not only does he have this military background, but he's actually done more miles in Antarctica manhauling a sled than any person in history. So he's done at this point about, you know, 2000 plus miles now after this expedition, more than 3000 miles in Antarctica. And I've done 69 miles in Antarctica on this much smaller expedition on the last degree of latitude, the Explorer's Grand Slam. I'm just like young,

you know, upstart American kid coming in. Of course, I've done climbed a lot more mountains and done stuff than him. And so it's not like I don't have a background. He's the dude when it comes to Antarctica. And he brought an extra pair of skis. And he did bring an extra pair of skis. What did his weigh out at his sled? So his sled ended up being about 40 pounds lighter than mine to start because he was eating less calories per day. He was eating 5,500 calories per day, which ultimately in the end, he lost about 40 or 50 pounds and I lost only 20 pounds. I think that was a big difference in the end. But he had more food left over at the end. He did. So it's very interesting the way that like we kind of, we definitely had different

strategies, a hundred percent. And I'm not, and I will say on the very first day I get dropped off, I've got my sled, I'm packing it up. Before I take even a single step, I'm actually securing stuff in my sled. And I actually used a secondhand sled. Believe it or not, I solve for all these things. But I found a sled of another guy who I knew in the UK and he let me, you know, use this sled, which he had taken to the South Pole before. So I'm figuring, oh, like this actually is a, you know, battle tested sled. So it's good in that sense. But I reached down and I pulled the strap tight on the sled the first time. I haven't taken a single step and ping, the strap breaks. I'm like, oh, God, this is going to be a long trip, a thousand miles to go. And so, I strap everything down.

I get going and I go for about an hour or two and I am just suffering. I'm actually, there's a video clip of me, but I'm crying. I'm actually crying underneath my goggles and I now have frost on my nose because the tears are literally freezing to my face. And I pick up my satellite phone. I call him to Jenna. I'm like, so Jenna, I think we may have named our project the right thing. It appears that this is impossible. And I see Lou like disappear on the horizon, just like strong and steady, like in this sort of like, like I said, military march. And he clearly, I was like, wow, he maybe had a better strategy than I did here. And so that was a tough moment for sure right out the gate. So just to back it up a little bit,

because I want to track through this in a logical manner. So Lou had been public about doing this much earlier than you. Yes. So I would imagine when suddenly at the last minute was like October when you announced that you're doing this and you guys ultimately end up pushing off like when, like early November? November 3rd, yeah, exactly. So this is like just weeks beforehand. He must've been like, the fuck is this guy?

Yes. What's he doing, right? So what happened the first time? And I think people are confused, like why are you guys on the same plane? Like why is this happening? Because you have this window, right? It's the only way this is going to happen.

So the first moment that you meet him, it must've been awkward. He must've been like, what is this guy doing? Yes, yes. This is my thing. So certainly, you know, I think that he was, he wasn't thrilled and he certainly wasn't happy that I announced so late.

I certainly, you know, that was a strategic advantage to kind of wait until the last minute. Although I didn't kind of make up that strategy. Here's the thing with you. You're like a smiling, friendly, very affable guy, but underneath the surface, you're a competitive beast, man. Like, I don't trust you. Oh man, don't trust me. That's tough. No, like you got, there's something like really competitive underneath this like friendly veneer. You know, I mean? Trust me, that's tough. No, like you got, there's like, there's something like really competitive underneath this like friendly veneer. You know, I absolutely.

It would have to be in order for you to go and do these things. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, I was, you know, passionate about trying to be the first in this case. And that was, it's interesting because two things happened. One, I felt very competitive with Lou.

And for me, it was like, absolutely. Like, not only am I racing history here, but I'm racing Lou head to head. But at the same time, I also have this like great respect for anyone who's putting themselves out in this environment. And so it was this weird kind of interplay in my mind being this competitive athlete that clearly is a big part of me, but also somebody who generally like resonates love and compassion and empathy. And so I actually found myself every single day was kind of a gratitude practice that I just generally have of sending love and positivity towards Lou, as well as being like, I'm waking up early this morning so I can go more miles than you. And so it's this interesting interplay, but yeah, absolutely.

So you meet him, it was weird at first, right? So how do you get over that? So we met in Punta Reynos, which is southern Chile, where you take the cargo plane that ultimately takes you to Antarctica. And at this point, Adam Skolnick, the New York Times, he had come down to cover this story. He wasn't going to be able to come to Antarctica because it's ridiculously, prohibitively expensive to go to Antarctica that way. But the Times sent him down to Punta Arenas. And so they set up like a dinner or meet and greet for Lou and I a day before we're both flying down to Antarctica. And you hadn't met him yet.

Never met him yet. I had sent him one email just to say, actually the day before I announced, just say, hey, by the way, tomorrow I'm announcing this project. I'm also doing this, wishing you all the best luck. We should probably talk because we're going to be doing this at the same time,

maybe make some coordinations, but nothing else. Just want to introduce myself and say hello. And I got back a somewhat- A terse. What did he say? Yeah. For me- Good luck, buddy. It was just kind of like, you could read between the lines of like, oh, this young American who doesn't understand the history and respect. It's this interesting dichotomy. There's a protocol. Yeah. Like you have to put your time in before you step up to something like this. Yeah. And, um, but, you know, but I will say, uh, although that, you know, that first email wasn't the most pleasant to receive

from him. And the first time we met, you know, there was, there was, although kind of below it, you know, some, maybe, you know, some competitive nature. It was generally pretty affable. I mean, we met and it was a little bit awkward and all these reporters are looking at us. They want to take a picture of us like shaking hands before this duel across Antarctica. But also, you know, like I said, you know, his friend died three years ago trying this thing. You know, he's doing this for an incredibly honorable cause. He's raising money for these military charities, things like that. And, you know, I think once he got to know me a little

bit better, he realized like, oh, like this, you know, this is a guy, like you just said, like, yes, he's a competitor. Yes. He's trying to do this. But at the same time, like, it wasn't like, I was like, don't look at me. It wasn't like some, like, uh, like I picture like a M&M, MMA, like Conor McGregor, like, you know, press conference or his trash talk is like, it couldn't have been, I mean, you know, we had a drink, we chatted, he told me about his story. I told him a little of my background, you know, we weren't like giving up our like exact strategies or anything like that, but like it was friendly. Um, although I'll be at a little bit awkward, but yes, there's only one logistics operator. So we literally ended up on the same, um, the same

place. We actually, he originally was going to take a different route than I was going to take. And so we didn't know we were going to be dropped off at the exact same point. But the day before we get dropped off, he actually came to me and said, hey, I'm actually being dropped off at the same point as you

based on some of the other logistics and weather in the area and things like that. And so in that moment, it was like, all right, this is not just a race from different points of this. This is like actually dropped off, same point, same moment, same day, ready, go. So they drop you off, but ultimately you start like a mile apart from each other on a parallel track, right? So it's not like you're standing right next to the guy. No, no.

And it's like, go. I mean, I guess it could have been, right? It could have been. They actually, they were like, they sort of suggested that. And we were kind of like, that would be like pretty weird. And you're like, these sleds are so heavy that like you're going at a snail's pace. It's like inching forward.

So fortunately, you know, a parallel plan, like you said, equidistant from the first waypoint, but one mile apart from one another to begin. But I mean, a mile in Antarctica, you can see on a clear day and it was a beautifully clear day when we got dropped off. I mean, you can see forever. I mean, you literally, I mean, some miles, you're like, oh, he's just like right there. And like I said, a mile in Antarctica, you can see on a clear day, and it was a beautifully clear day when he got dropped off. And you can see forever.

I mean, you literally, I mean, some miles, you're like, oh, he's just like right there. And like I said, I'm struggling. I'm crying in my ski goggles. You told that story at that little gathering I went to in New York, like taking that first pull and just being like, this thing's not moving at all. Like, what have I got myself into? I mean, it was brutal. And like I said, picking up that phone call, not one of the proudest phone calls I've ever made,

but to tell Jenna after we spent a year of our life planning and doing every little detail with standard process with the food and trying to get everything perfectly right to like come out on that first day and go like, oh, maybe we didn't get it right. But you must have taken the sled out on ice to test it. But the thing is, it's really hard to tell.

And this was something that I kind of know more now. Of course, I didn't have as much of experience as Lou did. But really what dictates the friction more than anything, of course, is the snow conditions. And of course, academically or logically in my mind, I understand that. But it's very different to be like, oh, if it's loose and unconsolidated snow,

a 375-pound sled feels like a 600-pound sled. But if it's this icy, sheer veneer surface, it's going to feel like a 100-pound sled. I mean, so the same sled on different snow conditions. And this had been an El Nino year, and it just turned out that actually it was one of the most difficult expedition years that Antarctica has seen in a long time. In fact, Lou and I were the first expeditions to be dropped off that season. No one else was attempting this full traverse, but people were attempting various, you know, coastal pool crossings, or there's some smaller, you know, group trips down there and several expeditions, big expeditions from some guys who are really talented, a British guy who has a world record, one of the other bigger pool

explorers in the U.S. all had to abandon their projects about halfway through because they got stuck in such deep snow, they couldn't move their sled. And so Lou and I encountered that straight out of the gate. And that was me going like, oh, like, it's not just how heavy my sled is that I proved I could pull it in a gym or in a test situation, but being out here. And also that first day, it was overwhelming. Like, I'm not going to lie. Like, I get dropped off. I'm in the middle of Antarctica by myself. It's minus 25 degrees. I know I'm not going to lie. I get dropped off. I'm in the middle of Antarctica by myself. It's minus 25 degrees. I know I'm not going to speak to anybody for months. I'm afraid that some bad weather is going to come in before I kind of hit my stride. I'm just overwhelmed by the entire emotion and the vastness of this entire situation. It was just one of those tough moments of fear,

doubt, all of the things kind of creeping up in your mind and having to persevere and push through that. So that first day you wanted to get to that way, Jenna's like, just get to this way station. So how, what was the distance? So actually it was actually the first way point is actually the start. So you get dropped off on the ice shelf. So you're at basically, you know, frozen sea, frozen ocean, essentially that you're standing on. You can't really visually tell the difference between where the continent starts and the ice shelf because it's very, you know, deep ice at that point there. But the plane dropped us off

so that we could be equidistant to the first way point further out on the ice shelf, about three miles, like adding three miles to a thousand mile journey. It didn't seem like that big of a thing so that we could be separated at the start. But that first way point is really like the starting point. And I'm already failing before that. So I'm like, Jenna's like, how far are you from the first way point? When I call and I'm like, I'm like, 0.63 miles. Like I might as well say I was a million miles, but I'm saying it's like, you know, half a mile, basically. She's like, okay, look, like get to that first waypoint, set your tent up. You'll feel like you made some project progress and we can kind of, you know,

recalibrate from there. And so I finally make it to that first waypoint. It was brutal. I get in the tent. I'm exhausted. I've only been outside for three hours cause we got dropped off later in the day. And so it wasn't like a full day of pulling. Um, and so I get in that tent, I call Jen again that night. So we had planned to have a safety call every single evening. Um, just to ensure she could kind of check in on my mental acuity and just kind of check in on how I'm doing. Um, you know, it's not like inexpensive to like, it's not like I was chit chatting on the phone, check in on how I'm doing. You know, it's not like inexpensive to like, it's not like I was chit-chatting on the phone, but you know, important to make those phone call to her. And she's like, look, tomorrow is going to be really hard, obviously. But I had been really

curious about these flow states and kind of these meditative places that I wanted to find in my mind. And so I've been telling her that all in my training. And she was like, she said to me, try to find the flow tomorrow, even if for 30 seconds, even if for a minute, just try to find that inner peace. It's going to be hard out there. And so I remember the next morning I woke up and it was kind of a pivotal moment for me, which is kind of embarking on my first full day. And I'm a big believer that we are the stories we tell ourselves. There have been various mantras with me throughout different times, but this mantra just kind of came to me in that moment. I woke up on that first full day and I said out loud to myself, I said,

Colin, you are strong, you are capable. You are strong, you are capable. And that kind of became like my mantra every morning from then on out. And like getting out in the conditions that day, Lou was long gone on the horizon. I was just focusing. He blew way ahead of you. Yeah, I was focused just on my own,

like just making progress some way. And that next day was brutal. I think I made it eight and a half miles is one of my slowest, slowest making progress some way. And you know, that next day was brutal. I think I made it, you know, eight and a half miles is one of my, you know, slowest, slowest, most challenging days. But I remember late in that day, kind of eight and a half, nine hours into that day, I tapped into this flow state for a minute. Like I just found this like minute of calm in this 10 hour day of just brutal, like suffering. And it was just that first glimmer of hope of like, oh, like if I can figure out how to get my systems right, if I can just kind of calm my mind a little bit, I mean, imagine as a swimmer, as triathletes, long things you've done, you've tapped into that place from time to time

where you're like, oh, like there is a way to kind of calm this down, but my body can actually function at a pretty high level. But when your mind is racing, it's too heavy, I can't do this, all these things, you wind yourself up. Yeah. It takes time. You know, the body, it's like there, there has to be this merging of, of body and mind where it finally syncs up and it's like, oh, okay, now I understand what you're doing here and I can like accommodate this. But at first it's a manic, chaotic thing until you kind of settle into, okay, there's a rhythm here. Absolutely. And for me, it's funny

because I feel like I'm confronting the opposite of this coming from all the solitude and being back out in the world and doing interviews and things like this. Now, it's the opposite. Like I was unwinding from being in that digital world, planning my project, all the last little logistics,

flying on planes and all this kind of stuff to all of a sudden, like I'm alone. It's quiet. It's still. And I hadn't found that stillness within yet. Um, cause I was still, like you said, in this sort of manic phase. Um, but getting that glimmer of hope on that first day was really important to me to give me that confidence that if I continued with this process day after day, that hopefully I would find that on a more regular basis. So you had this strategy of breaking this up into like an interval workout, right?

Like eight times 90 minutes. Yeah, so my original strategy, and I had kind of played with this, the other expedition I'd done in training is I did a crossing of Greenland, not alone with a group of other people, but I tried to kind of operate autonomously as much as I can to sort of simulate the alone.

But this was just two months before Antarctica. I went and did that. It was 400 miles. And there I kind of found this rhythm of going for 90 minutes and being able to take a quick break. The most important thing over a long duration, I was going to pull my sled for about 12 hours plus per day, is I'd have breakfast inside the tent in the morning and then dinner at night. But in between, I'm just eating these column bars. And I realized it's not like you're going to have like one big lunch and

like pour 4,000 calories into your stomach. It's more like an endurance event where you're getting, you know, this kind of steady dole of a hundred, 200 calories at a pretty, you know, steady rhythm. And so I found that every 90 minutes I could, you know, take a break, pretty short break where I could drink some water and eat some column bars and refuel and kind of keep my sort of glycogen stores, you know, on an even keel throughout the day. But it's crazy. In Antarctica, you know, you actually get pretty warm pulling a sled. There's this phrase, which is, you know, you sweat, you die.

You really like don't. I want to talk about this. You know, you can't sweat when you're out there because, you know, the second you sweat, it's fine for the moment you're sweating. But the second you stop, I mean, your body temperature and the clothes on your body will literally freeze to you. You go hypothermic within a matter of minutes. And so it's this kind of this comfortably cool of like pushing hard enough to keep your body warm and get warmed up, but not hard enough that you're sweating.

It's just this weird thing. But the second you stop. So as a result of that, sometimes I'd have relatively thin layers on. But to stop and take a drink of water, I would need to put my huge puffy jacket on within a matter of, you know, 10, 15 seconds. So in the front of my sled, I'd have my thermos, which is how the water didn't freeze. Um, and then a big puffy jacket. And so I would stop after 90 minutes, put this huge puffy jacket on, even if I was only going to stop for two or three minutes, put the jacket on and then drink this warm water. My thermos, eat some column bars and put it all back in the sled and take off again before I got too cold.

Right, so when you're moving, you're basically stripping down to like base layers, right? And what is the ambient temperature? Yeah, so the average ambient temperature throughout the journey was about minus 25 degrees, which- So it seems crazy to be in- It's crazy, I mean, it's insane. How could you be moving and like not be absolutely freezing

no matter how much clothes you were wearing? Yeah. I've, I've tried to like describe that cold in different ways of like, you know, it's like, Oh, we understand that's really cold. But I realized like the best way I can describe it way of understanding that is there's a, there's a photo that I actually used in my TED talk a couple of years ago to try to describe this cold. And I took a cup of boiling water on that expedition in the South Pole in 2016, and I threw it in the air and it immediately turns to ice, like in this puff of smoke.

So boiling water to ice in an instant, that kind of gives you a sense of how cold this is. And that's with no wind. And of course the wind chill can ratchet down, like I said, minus 50, minus 60, minus 70 degrees very commonly, but it's a bizarre thing. Our bodies are capable of keeping themselves pretty darn warm when we're moving. But the second we're stopped, that just completely changes

because that heart rate, you know, drops. And so, yeah, there were days, particularly when there wasn't wind, when there was wind, I pretty much always had to have at least like my Gore-Tex, like jacket windproof, like layer on. But a lot of the time, you know, there were, there were days when it was still in common, minus 20, minus 25 degrees out where I would literally be down to a base layer, like just a base layer, you know, hat, goggles, gloves, like all of that, always pretty much. But you know, you could get warm, but it would also be like, you'd be like, okay, I need to, it was more like I was changing at all times. Like I'd be like, okay, I need to be down for this jacket for 20 minutes. Okay. Now I'm a little bit too cool. Put the jacket back on

and switching and this. And that's when it's really easy to go like, oh, it's such a pain in the ass. So like change my gloves again, or like put this jacket on. That's when you can just really kind of like let your guard down. But that's when you go like, oh, but now I'm sweating or, oh, but now I'm too cold. Um, and my body's shutting down or whatnot. And so it was kind of, I think of it as like a, an airplane pilot, you know, with this constant checklist of like the safety check, like how are your feet? How are your hands? Is your nose okay? How are your feet? How are your hands? Is your nose okay? How's your body temperature? How's your food supply? How's your this? And kind of just constantly running this checklist

in my mind, which became second nature eventually, but seemed like a lot to keep up with at first of kind of, it's almost like, you know, a Vipassana meditation or an awareness practice. We're just constantly being aware of each inch of your body and how it needs to either change or how you need to make an adjustment to stay in this kind of homeostasis or kind of calm, kind of quiet temperature. There must have been days where the conditions were really good and the snow conditions were smooth where you felt like you could just haul some ass. Yeah. Right? And you have to hold back. Oh, yeah.

Because you can't sweat. Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's, you know, there's the epic storms and the battles I had out there are maybe more exciting to talk about. But, yeah, there were days where it was calm. It's blue skies. You could see forever. You know, the ground conditions were good. But in those days, yeah, it's like you just said, like, okay, now you're tempted to be like, okay,

I want to push like super hard, but like, you can't, it's not like you can just like run around out there. I mean, the sled's still super heavy. And so, yeah, it was like, it was a lot of patience required day by day. And it really required just being in this methodic process. It was, you know, incremental gains. And those 90 minute sections, one of the reasons that I started breaking my days up into that, because even a whole day just seemed too long at first. Like it was just like, so it was like, okay, I wake up, I say my mantra, you're strong, you're capable. Then the next thing I do is I light my stove. You say it out loud? Yeah, out loud to myself. Why not? Yeah, exactly. Shout it out. The next thing, light my match,

light my stove. Okay. That's the next part of the day. Okay. On that point, while the water's boiling, I'm putting my socks back on. So I'm putting, I basically, stuff would get wet throughout the day with ice and snow, the condensation of my breath on my mask and things. And the only way to dry that inside the tent really is to put it inside of your sleeping bag or against your body. And so all this stuff would be inside my sleeping bag. There was actually a couple of times when I was having trouble with the skins on the bottom of my skis. And I literally had to put it inside of your sleeping bag or against your body. And so all this stuff would be inside my sleeping bag. There was actually a couple of times when I was having trouble with the skins on the bottom of my skis.

And I literally had to put my skis inside my sleeping bag as well to thaw them out. So were you barefoot in the sleeping bag when you were sleeping? I actually was. I actually found that I slept the best barefoot and allowed my, I would put my socks down my base layer pants so that they would dry against my skin.

And actually there's an interesting thing that you do with your feet or that I did with my feet anyways. I know some other guys that do this in really cool places, but I would have a thin base layer sock on like a really, really thin sock. And then I would put a plastic bag next over my feet. And so literally from my oatmeal in the morning, there'd be a bag that I would use every single day. And I would put that over my feet. And then over top of that, I would put a thick wool sock. And then of course my boot, which is really warm. And the reason I would do that is it would create a vapor barrier inside of my socks. So if my feet did get a little sweaty, which of course I didn't want them to at all, but if they did, it would

just be that one sock on the inside, because on a long expedition, if you start sweating inside of your boots, of course your socks get wet and your feet get cold. But what actually happens is the boots, no, the boots themselves start to collect snow and condensation in them. So keeping the inner soles of your boot. And they're never going to dry. There's no way to really get them as dry as you would socks. But putting a plastic bag on your foot is going to cause your foot to sweat, right? Because there's no breathability. So that's like the one exception to the rule.

You're not going to wrap your body in plastic. But in this case, to keep the boots dry, it was almost better to have this kind of hot plastic bag around your feet essentially at the end of the day. So my feet were moist at the end of the day, not like dripping in sweat or anything, but they would build up a little bit of condensation there. But yeah, that all came out of my sleeping bag.

And it was just these incremental parts of the day. It was like, okay, then I take them out of the sleeping bag. Then I pour the water in my thermos. Then I do, I mean, it was like that sequence of the days. And it was almost like just looking at these little incremental steps throughout the day. Then the totality of the day or certainly the week or the months that I was out there was way too vast.

It was just having to break it down into these compartmentalized things and see if I could repeat the same day over and over and over again in this strange sort of meditative monotony. Right, without like losing your mind. Yes. So you have this great story about overtaking Lou.

So you're about seven days in. Yeah. Or you start, you realize you're gaining on him, right? And there's a little bit of like tit for tat where you guys are passing each other a little bit and your tents are, it's like this sort of dueling thing. You can see him in the distance. So walk me through that experience because I think psychologically, it's super interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's an intense moment for sure because after that,

like I said, that first day I see him disappear and I think, you know what, I just got to execute my plan. And you know, this will be what it will be. The competitive juices are still flowing, but I'm also like, I got to survive out here. I got to prove that I can move this sled. I got to, you know, so I almost forget about him for the first little bit. But then sure enough, on the sixth day, at the end of the fifth day, I see, you know, his tent far on the horizon. So I push a little extra far that day to get kind of within striking distance of his tent. I set up my tent only probably about 15 minutes away from his tent and the closest we

ever camped to one another. And then I wake up early the following morning thinking, you know what, maybe I can kind of get a little bit of a jump on the day. And I wake up and it's a white out day, complete white out. And when it's white out, you know, as expansive as Antarctica can be when the sun's out, I mean, the sun's always up 24 hours a day, but when there's no clouds, it's the opposite. It's like this myopic, like insular experience. It's just white on white. You can barely see one step in front of you. And I've got my compass strapped to my chest and I'm looking down at my compass, you know, navigating in this whiteout. And, you know, I see Lou, Lou's tent, and I try to kind of go around him a little bit just to give him a little bit of distance but it's like

you can't really go extra distance we're trying to go in the same direction and as I'm passing his tent I hear this kind of cough and this unzipping of the tent and Lou kind of pops his head out of this tent and gives me this sort of surreal wave and it's just this bizarre moment of these like two competitors but also out

in the middle of nowhere this whiteout in Antarctica. Was this in the morning or at the end of the day? It was early it also out in the middle of nowhere, this whiteout in Antarctica. Was this in the morning or at the end of day? It was early. It was early in the day. Right. So you got to jump on him. You started your days a little bit earlier than he did. A little bit earlier than he did. And yeah, so I end up passing him and I'm continuing on, you know, kind of trying to stay focused on my progress. And it's really challenging to navigate in the whiteout. And this is one of the first major whiteout. There ended up being tons throughout the entire project, but it's day six. And this was the first like really bad whiteout

that I'd have. So I'm kind of just kind of getting my bearings quite literally with my compass, trying to find my way. And it's tough. And I look back and, you know, Lou's taking his tent down and here he comes. And I was like, oh, like it's a whiteout.

I'm in front of him on the same path that he's trying to do. You know, whether he's trying to do you know whether he's doing it and purposely or not doesn't matter it's like he can see the bearing in me so it's probably easier for him to navigate and I'm thinking wow did I just get like taken by another veteran yeah he's like yeah I'll let you kind of go in the way yeah that's a total sensei move yeah and I'm not I'm certainly not saying that he was like, you know, going in my tracks to like go faster, nothing like that.

It was just like, it's white out. You can see nothing, but you can see me up in front of him and he's fine. It's like, it's just easier. Like it just is. Yeah. The mental duress is much less. And, um, so sure enough, it, you know what, it didn't go on like that for very long. Um, and he pulls up, he pulls up beside me.

Um, and, uh, you know, we, we, he kind of And he kind of just strikes, it's really, it's just this bizarre moment. And he pulls up beside me and kind of strikes up a pretty casual conversation. He's like, hey, good morning, mate. Like, you know, everything all right with your harness? Because the way I pull my harness is actually, it looks like it's kind of messed up visually,

but it's just the specific way that I pull it. And I know that it's fine, but I can see why he's like looking at me like, and I'm like, is this guy going to like critique my like pulling technique? Or is he like trying to get in your head? Is he trying to get in my head? Is he this and that? And so I just say to him, I cut him short and I just say, I say, Hey, Lou, look, we both know the stakes out here. We both know there's a ton of pressure on us. You know, this is a really intense moment. We're both meant to be out here solo, unsupported. Like, let this be the last time that we speak to one another.

And it wasn't, I wouldn't say it in like a rough or mean way. It was like, yo, like I'm sending you love, but like we're both out here on these solo expeditions. Of course, we might tit for tat cross each other's paths in some weird way like this. But you know, let this be, you know, we're not going to be out here like chit-chatting to one another. Because it could be a reason that people would say

that that constitutes support. Absolutely. I mean, certainly if the continuation of the expedition, I mean, like I said, we were, you know, beside each other for 15 seconds or something. We had like the most briefest of all conversations. But yeah, of course, if we were beside each other for the next week or

two weeks, it'd be like, well, that's not a solo expedition. That's you guys like out here together and whatever. So, you know, we crossed each other's paths in this moment. And like I said, we had, had given each other a hug, you know, at the starting line and kind of, you know, at this moment, just kind of like look each other in his eyes. I remember him kind of putting his goggles up and I can see his eyes and he's like, all right. Like, it was just kind of this like coy smile. I couldn't read into it. I was like, is he messing with me? Is he not? Or is he just like being a normal person? Or was he annoyed by you saying that? Yeah. He didn't really know. But it was super brief and it was just like, kind of like, okay. Like both of us just like kind of looked at each other again, not in this like rough or combative way, certainly in

a competitive way, but in a way that was like, okay, because we both know how hard the journey is in front of both of us. And we like, we, there's 7 billion people on the planet. Like there's one other person like going through this other thing. So you can't help, but have some like love and compassion towards that. We're day six, you know, we think it's going to take 50, 60, 70 days. And so it's like, Hey man, like best of luck to you. And so we split up, but it's of course funny when you try to split up in an article. Like you said, it's like two tortoises racing each other. It's not like we're separated. See you later.

It's like that thing where you say goodbye to someone and then you both turn the same way outside the door and walk next to each other. You're down the same elevator and you're like, oh, hey, yeah, a little chit chat. So anyways, yeah, we spoke, like I said, a few sentences to one another. We split up. And I decided in my mind that day, I was like, wow, like clearly I think Lou probably got his gear a little more dialed than me. He's definitely

got a lighter sled. He's got more experience than me. Um, but I was like, I'm going to stay out here longer than him. So I kind of got it in my mind that day. And I was like, okay, if Lou goes for 10 hours today, I'm going for 11 hours. If Lou goes for 11 hours, I'm going for 12 hours. You know, I'm really going to try to just go further than him that day. And so he eventually, we, you know, we weren't right beside each other. We were probably divided by, you know, as much as a quarter mile or half a mile, you know, one, maybe a little bit in front of the other, then someone would take break and, you know, eat lunch or whatever that was. And it was kind of, you know, back and forth. And then eventually, you know, I did see him set up his tent and I decided to, you know, push on and, you know, set up my tent and I pushed on

another hour and ended up about two miles in front of him. I didn't really know this at the time, but, you know, Jenna would relay me from time to time, you know, blogs or things written. And, you know, the next morning his blog, you know, it says the race is on. So he'd been calling home and, you know, reporting his status, you know, totally normal. New York times had been reporting on it and all this kind of stuff. And his blog was like, the race is on acknowledging that I had passed him and I was in front of him, but also being like, it's a long way to go. Like we got a long time out here. I'm not too worried about this kind of two mile gap that's opened up with, you know, 900 some miles still to go or whatever it was. But on that point forwards,

I decided to wake up early the following morning as well. Get out of my tent to get- There it is. That's the eye of the tiger. So I worked the extra hour and then I woke up. You're like, oh yeah, the race is on. Okay. But the thing is, is that what mostly got to me in that moment, the intensity of that moment was it was going to be really challenging to be with an eyesight of each other. I mean, first of all, the intention was to do this thing solo. So both of us wanted that anyways, for just like the, the, the nobility of this challenge was to be completely alone.

And so we both recognize that. And I think, you know, realize that for one another, but also it was just, I mean, if it was going to be, I mean, day six, we started doing it at seven, eight, nine, we start doing that for the next like three, four, five weeks, like back and forth. Like you're a mile ahead. No, no, now I'm a mile ahead. Oh no, now this thing happens. Like it was going to like, I think it was going to wear us both down in a pretty insane way. So I tried to get up early the next morning, stayed ahead and ultimately, you know, kept,

kept my distance out front for the remainder of the time. And that was it. So undeniably though, the fact that you two were doing it, you know, in tandem in this way, pushed both of you. Absolutely. You know, not, not to say that you wouldn't have finished otherwise, but I doubt that it would have been 54 days. No, absolutely. It would have been a whole different ball game. No, I mean, you know, I think that, you know, both of us had planned to take longer. I think both of us, you know, and we've had him and I've had conversations with this afterwards. Um, both of us had, you know, thought that on the worst stormy days, like those really brutal days where you'd be like, okay, I'm going to stay in my tent.

Granted, you're going to run out of food if you do that a bunch of times, but maybe I'm going to eat, I'm going to take the gamble to eat less, but wait out this storm or something like that. But you had like a five or six day buffer on food, right? I did. I did. You know, ultimately I had about 60 days worth of food. But it, you know, you start doing the math and you're going, okay, I can't really wait out that many more of these days. But I think, you know, him and I have both said to one another, like, had it been this way, had it been that, we would have both, it probably would have done 60 or 65 days. Instead, I finished in 54. And it was just really, you know, that pushed us, you know, I don't, I'm certainly no Roger Bannister, but to

make the comparison between, you know, breaking the four minute mile, like, you know, people say this thing's impossible. Roger Bannister, you know, breaks the four minute mile. And I think it's incredible testament that within the next 12 months, you know, several other people break that mark. And so I think it is similar, which is this thing had been said, it's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible. And there was something about two people out there pushing each other to a higher degree to ultimately finish this thing. And yeah, I finished in 54 days and I'm getting ahead of myself. We can backtrack, but you know, I got to the finish line and had that one pair of underwear on desperately wanted to get out of there, wanted to eat some proper food, all these things. But I

elected to not have the plane pick me up right away because I realized Lou's a couple of days behind me. He's about to finish this extraordinary crossing. Like I want to be the first one there to congratulate him on a historic crossing as well. And that's where this, you know, like I said, that competitor inside of me and both of us trying to push ourselves to be the first Lou doing it 56 days is extraordinary. I mean, it's an amazing thing. It's something that we both thought would take much longer. Um, and for us both to do it and him to come in just, you know, two, two and a half days behind me was amazing. And certainly something he should be extraordinarily proud of. Yeah. It was super cool and gentlemanly for you to stay behind and wait for him to arrive, but it also would have been a dick move if you weren't

there. You know what I mean? Right? I mean, yeah. It kind of just, it wasn't even, you know, of course in the back of my mind it's like, oh God, it would be great to be out of here or whatever. But like to celebrate the entirety of this thing and our lives, like I said, you know, 7 billion people on the planet.

And, you know, we've both done this one kind of rich random niche thing, but we've both done this thing. And, you know, I didn't want to be out in the world being like, yeah, I got him. I'd be in it because that's not how I feel. I mean, what he did was extraordinary. He honored his friend, Henry Worsley, in such an extraordinary way, you know, to bring that back to the UK. The first British person to do this after this long lineage of British explorers failing at doing this for him to be the successful one and to be the

person that's done, like I said, more miles than anyone in Antarctica. I mean, he's a true legend. He's a national hero there as, you know, as the veterans of all these wars. I mean, really, you know, extraordinary person. And I think it should be very proud. And it was great to just be able to, you know, honestly kind of learn from him and be out there with him and have the shared experience. And it was a really nice moment, honestly, when he did get to the finish that day and, you know, he had set up his tent and we went and had like a 20 or 30 minute chat. Neither of us had a face-to-face chat with another human being, you know, you know, however long and to be able to just kind of, you know, before the media and all these things kind of got a hold of this

project for us to just sit there and be like, wow, like, like soak it in amazing. Like that was crazy and talk about the hardships. And, you know, he had some really, you know, challenging moments out there as well. He got caught out in a whiteout and almost got separated from his sled. I mean, he had some really rough moments out there that he persevered through. Yeah, he had one moment where he decided to leave some of his gear behind, pull forward and then go back and get it.

And then it was buried in the snow. Exactly. I guess that's something that he's done in the past when there's been some really tough conditions and we hit this really deep snow. And him, this is one of those weird moments where I actually think my naivete helped me out. It's kind of like this Zen beginner's mind. Like I, the snow got deep and my sled got super heavy as a result, but I was like, I guess Antarctica is really hard. You know, like I didn't

really know the difference, whereas he had actually covered this section of the route on a previous expedition that he did with six guys. And so he is, has a journal that he's comparing it off of and going like, wait, I was on this section before with this heavy of a sled moving this many miles, like what's going on. And so I think he made the decision like, oh, this must just be like a couple of mile weird section with this like weird snow drift. I'm going to ferry my sled because it's too heavy. Take half of the weight out, ferry my sled ahead and go back. And he did that a couple of times successfully. And then all of a sudden the weather can change in Antarctica really quickly. And he turns around to go back and his tracks have been blown over and he's separated from where his tent is and where his

food supply is and all this kind of stuff. And I mean, gosh, even imagining that for me, like sends shivers down my spine. I can only imagine how scary that would have been. If he could have recovered it, it would have been game over. Yeah, and so he, you know, fortunately was able to find his sled. And then, you know, he quickly put up his tent and kind of took a breather for the second half that day, understandably so. Because that happened to me actually one time when I got a little bit turned around and confused and I was tripping over some sastrugi. I actually was like, okay, the sastrugi is these big, huge kind of like— Yeah, we were getting to it.

Yeah, go for it. No, tell me. So Sastrugi, basically a lot of people picture Antarctica being this flat, blank, white landscape, right? And first of all, the South Pole is at 9,310 feet. I started at sea level, so I'm pulling this sled uphill all the way to the South Pole, which I arrived to on the 40th day. But also these snow drifts, Antarctica know, Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. So it actually doesn't get that much precipitation. And so you've got these big kind of wind drifts, kind of almost like frozen waves of ocean, you know, just sitting there. And so you're pulling your sled over thousands of speed bumps essentially per day to Sastrugi. And when

it's whiteout and Sastrugi, it's really hard to make progress because you can't see where your feet are. I was tripping and falling, you know, a number of times. And there was one time, you know, it's on the second half of the project when I was pretty beaten down. I'd been in a long, you know, multi-day storm and I was tripping through the Sastrugi and I'm going like, wow, like maybe if I go a little bit East or a little bit West or where I am, I can find a path. Cause sometimes it would be like really bad Sastrugi in an area, but then it would be a little bit less based on like where the winds were. And so I actually did unclip from my sled just for a second to kind of like go explore like maybe a quarter mile one direction or the other.

And I take about 200 steps to the right of my sled. I remember this. And I look back and I can't even see my sled anymore. And it's the same thing. Nothing as intense as what Lou went through because I had only gone about 200 steps. I was like, oh, wait, wait, wait, no. Okay. That's my lifeline. Yep. I need to like go and tie back in immediately to that. So I pretty much imagine if you couldn't find it, it's just like, I mean, it's so disorienting out there. I mean, it's white on

white on white on white. Um, and so it's just this, you know, it's only a momentary thing where I couldn't, I couldn't see it. And then like the wind blew and I could see it again. I was like, you know, your heart, you know, just covers, but you're going like, okay. You could be walking around for hours and it's right there and you can't find it. Yeah. And so, um, but that's, you know, that's one differentiating factor between, you know, polar exploration, mountaineering, mountaineering, you are typically separated from your tent and your supplies very commonly up on, you know, mountains. Cause you can't carry everything with you, but in the polar environment, you've kind of always got your tent right there

unless you do something silly and disconnect from your sled, which I did in this case. The thing with the Sastrugi is you just can't get any momentum going. It's just constantly hacking it forward. Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing with pulling a sled that heavy is the inertia,

the initial sort of force to get it moving forwards, right? And when it's moving, you can just cruise. Yeah, you can kind of glide. I mean, it's still a very slow, methodic process, but the most energy is basically taken from a stead stop to momentum. And so once you can carry a little momentum and get the skis going, it's still, like I said, very, very slow in the grand scheme of things. But you can get momentum going. But in Sastrugi, basically, you're going up over these two-foot speed bumps, so your sled, over and over again,

you have to pull it up over the sled, and then it crashes down. Up over the sled, it crashes down. Up over the thing, it's crashed down. You can't get any rhythm. You can't get your feet to sort of step, be stable, because you've got skis on the bottom of your feet. Sometimes I say skis, people are like,

oh, so you were downhill skiing? It's like, no, no, no. I was wearing skis, basically as glorified snowshoes so that your weight is dispersed across the weight of the snow. And there's skins on the bottom of them that provide friction to allow you to basically pull against the weight of that. So there's no, there's no skiing involved in this. It's, it's basically walking, not even really like, you know, proper Nordic skiing. I mean, a little bit, but not even really. It's mostly just like this long trudge, but the skis give you a little bit more grip on the snow.

And the elevation gain, man. Yeah, I mean, and so it's- It's literally like you're, it's, I mean, 9,000 feet of gain, right? Yes. Isn't the highest point like 10,200 or something? Yeah, there's somewhere like 10,000, or the highest, well, the highest mountain in Antarctica

is Mount Vincent, which is 16,000 feet, which I climbed on the Seven Summits Project, Explorers Grand Slam. But the highest point up on the polar plateau is called the Titan Dome, and that's over 10,000 feet. We kind of skirted around the edge of that, but actually from the South Pole still had to go up to about 9,800 feet. So that was my highest point was roughly 9,800 feet. And what's weird is that, you know, we think of altitude in terms of, you know, losing our breath at high altitudes, you know, near the equator. You know, I'm not a scientist, so I might not get this perfectly right, but basically the atmospheric pressure is a little bit different at the North and South poles. And so 9,000 feet actually feels more like 12 or 13,000 feet out here. So it's basically like pulling a 300 some pound sled uphill, you know, up in the high Sierras or the Rockies or something like that.

Yeah, I mean, at the end of days when I'd be shoveling snow, I'd have to shovel snow to like put it on the edge of my tent for wind blocks and things like that. I'd be like super, super out of breath and have to like sit there and catch my breath and kind of, you know, catch my breath to be able to move forward. What's the lowest moment? Was there a moment where you're like, I just can't keep going? Yeah. You know, it's so hard to pick one because there were many, many, many dark moments. But, you know, one of the darkest moments for me, you know, after the South Pole, I arrived at the South Pole on day 40. And, you know, there's been a lot of ups and downs at that point. I think I'm about, you know, maybe 30 miles ahead of Lou at this point, or about a day ahead of day, day and a half ahead of him. But I'm just, you know, trying to find my rhythm. And that day

actually for me ended up being this beautiful day. So I get to the South Pole and it's a weird place because there's actually a scientific research base there. There's other scientists and things based out of there. So it's the one kind of like look at the human world, but I can't really touch it. If someone really hands me a cup of coffee or a cookie, it's unsupported. There are people there and it's the middle of it. When I arrived, I'm on Chilean time, but they stay on New Zealand time, the US base does, because they fly from Christchurch. And so it's this weird thing, like it's 10 a.m. for me, but it's like 2 a.m. the following day for them, even though we're in literally the same location, which is just like a bizarre thing. Depending upon which part of the planet you would like drive up on. Yeah. So a

couple of scientists actually did walk out of the base and, you know, they had been following along and kind of waved and took a couple of pictures. But of course they can't give me anything or anything like that. But I knew that, you know, and that's understood in the polar community that like, you know, you don't have a lot of control over that. But if you take any support from them, that's a whole different thing. And so not wanting to be, not that I would be tempted, but not just to be in this environment for very long. I planned to only be there for 30 minutes. So I arrived, took a couple pictures in front of the South Pole sign and continued on. And it was this beautiful sunny day, actually, this kind of calm day where I, you know, had these tears of joy rolling down

my face. It was actually one of my best moments. It was kind of like, oh, like I made it only 23 people I think have ever done solo unsupported and unassisted from the coast to the South Pole, 23, 24 in history. And so just doing that was like an amazing accomplishment. And all the elevation gain is in your rear view then, right? And so you're up on the plateau. So it's not like immediately going downhill, but yeah, you're like on the other side of this thing. Now you're going to hopefully be descending somewhere. It's like, it's a big milestone. And the second half, the way that the route was, it's actually a further distance on the front half. It was about 600 and some miles to get to

the pole, but only 300 and some to get to the other ice shelf on the other side. And so like, it's a big moment for me. And I'm like, oh, I've kind of, you know, I'm feeling good about this. And then the next day I just get lit up in this storm and the next seven or eight days, like the storms had lasted previous to this about one or two days. And then all of a sudden this storm got seven, you know, six days, seven days, eight days. I find myself, you know, kind of picking through this Sastrugi, you know, day 48, eight days in this battle with this storm. The wind hasn't been any lower than 40, 50 mile per hour. It's just brutal conditions. And I find myself falling like really bad. So I actually fall on the ground, hit the ground super hard. And I remember this one moment I fall into this big hole and my rope on my harness pulls tight. And then

my sled starts sliding towards me and I'm in this kind of four foot hole. And I see this sled like going to like maybe kind of fall down on top of me. It's like, I'm looking where my leg is, but like, I can't move it because the skis are on the ground. I'm like, wow. Like, and it's like teetering. It's like this sled falls on me. It's like broken leg, broken ski in a Sastrugi storm. And then I look down and my skins have ripped off the bottom of one of my skis, which is impossibly hard to get back on in this storm. And I've only gone for one hour. And so I'm like, okay, the only way to get my skins back on is to set up my tent. So I think to myself, okay, like I should set up my tent right now and then like maybe regroup, but I like can't just waste the day. Cause I am starting to run or lower on food and certainly, you know,

trying to stay in the front of this race. And so I set up my tent and there's this video clip of me where I did, you know, I filmed a lot of this stuff. Obviously, I filmed it all myself, but I filmed a lot through time. And I'm looking in the camera and I'm just going like, I'm sobbing and I'm like, I'm not doing good. Like, I just want to give up. Like, I'm like so beat down in this. And it was just kind of in this moment, you know, two things for me happened in that moment to get out of that headspace, which is another one of my favorite mantras. It's the simple one that a lot of us have, which is this too shall pass, remembering sort of the impermanence of this moment.

But also I had this satellite device that I was pinging to the satellites every 10 minutes that people could track me in real time. That's how the New York Times and family and friends and all these school kids through a nonprofit were following along. And they see that I've stopped. And a friend of mine, Blake Brinker,

he saw that I stopped and was like, wow, something must not be going well for you. And I was checking in. You could send these rudimentary text messages to the satellite device. And he sent a text message, and it's a passage from one of my favorite books, which is The Alchemist. And he says, remember the allegory from The Alchemist that you're being tested by all the lessons you have to go through before finally achieving the ultimate success. And he goes, don't forget when passing, you know, the alchemist of course is about the desert, but in order, cause its own kind of desert. And he says more often than not, people die of thirst when crossing the desert a few minutes before seeing the palm trees on the horizon. And so it was just this reminder of like, yo,

like you're in it, like you are getting tested right now. But if you can manage to get back out of this tent, out of this tent, remember that this too shall pass, then you will hopefully get to the other side of this. And sure enough on that day, it was tough, but you know, just taking my tent up and down in the storm takes an hour, hour and a half. And I, so I do that, but instead of getting my sleeping bag out, I take my tent down again, fix my skins, and get back out and battle through this storm and manage 20 miles that day, which was a pretty solid mileage for me on any given day. And I think to me, that was both the lowest moment,

but also a crux moment where I'm being tested by all of these things. And it would have been, there was a million reasons to quit in that moment. At least maybe not quit the whole project, but quit in that moment. Be like, I'm falling. I'm gonna get hurt.

My sled's gonna fall on me. My skins are falling off. The storms lasted a week. I'm starting to get frostbite on my nose and my cheeks. Like I'm beat up. And I still managed to, you know, with the strength of sort of others and that vibration from family and friends and supporters is able to kind of draw some strength and inspiration to keep going. That's incredible, man. How many days, I think it was like halfway, you're about halfway in when during your evening call with Jen, she's like, I need you to be around between this time and this time

to make sure to answer the phone. Yeah. Right? Yes. It was hilarious. I see where you're going with this. This is one of my favorite stories for this whole adventure.

So I actually spent most of the time in silence. I actually brought very little with me via me at media on my phone and stuff because I actually was really curious about these flow states and kind of exploring that in my mind and didn't want to have kind of this crutch of listening to a bunch of music or podcasts. However, side note to the tangent of the story, I did listen to the Rich Roll podcast quite a few times out there. It was actually one of the few podcasts that I had with me. And there was one moment, and I'll get back to the other story in a second, but there was one moment in particular that was so apropos, which was your interview with Desiree right after she won the Boston Marathon. And her whole thing, she, you know, she, her whole thing is

keep showing up. And that was kind of her mantra. And it was like, I was just at the right time that I heard that. Like, first of all, like your energy on this podcast is so just resonant and positive and beautiful. And I just couldn't allow any kind of even kind of negative voices in my head. So your voice to me, this is a weird to say to you in front of you. It's like, it's so soothing and calming. I'm a big fan. And so that was amazing. But that conversation you had with her in particular, it was this moment where I was hitting that deep snow and like, was like, why am I going so much slower? And why is this? And I hear her whole story about persevering and ultimately winning the Boston marathon or whatever 12th year of being a

professional. And she's like, just keep showing up, just keep showing up. And so that, that really hit me. But about around about this similar time, and I had been a lot of times in silence, but your podcast was uplifting and I also needed just an uplifting moment. So I put up one album that I brought with me was Paul Simon's Graceland. And I cranked that up on the 16th day. I played it start to finish about, you know, six or seven times. And it's one of those albums, just looping it. And it's one of those albums, you know, my parents played it a ton when I was a kid. I think it came out in the early nineties. So I was, you know, maybe seven, eight years old when that came out. And it was an album that I just absolutely love, like the drumming and the collaboration, just a beautiful album. And so I have this like solo dance party by myself on the 17th day, just bumping Paul Simon's Graceland. And my evening post on Instagram that night was like, tough day for me out here in the deep snow. You know, I've been in the silence for a long time, but decided to just listen to something. And I put that out there just like,

no big deal. And so day 35, a couple of weeks later, as you mentioned, Jenna says to me, and I'm getting pretty tired. I'm up on the polar plateau. I'm about five days out from the South Pole, trying to stay really focused on that, you know, getting to that way point. And she says, hey, you know, I know you're exhausted. I know it's been a long day. You've already done all your steps. And this is usually we'd get on the phone and I would go to sleep. And she goes, I need you to call this one other number. And I'm like, like, what? Like, why? And she's like, I'm just like, just trust me, like call the number. And I'm like, well, she's like, just do it, you know, and like, fine. And so I'm thinking it's like a reporter. I'm not really sure what it is. And I call this number and this voice answers, this guy answers the phone. I'm like, fine. And so I'm thinking it's like a reporter. I'm not really sure what it is. And I call this number and this voice answers.

This guy answers the phone. He's like, I'm like, hi, this is Colin from Antarctica. And he's like, oh, hello. Hi, this is Paul. And I'm like, Paul. And he's like, yeah, Paul Simon. And I was like, wait, what? And it's like 35 days in.

I haven't talked to anyone. I'm like, am I hallucinating? Like, am I actually sitting in the middle of Antarctica on my satellite phone talking to Paul Simon? Like, have I completely lost my mind? But sure enough, it was him. And it was, you know, of course I was just like, you know, kind of stunned and shocked by this conversation. My, you know, you know, probably social skills are pretty limited given how much solitude I've been in, but we aren't start having this conversation. You know, he asked me about Antarctica, some of the, you know, how cold is it? The basic questions you might ask. And then we ended up having this conversation, which is like stuck with me in such a deep way. As I had kind of,

like I said, started to explore this idea of being an artist more so than an athlete. And just like I said, this sort of canvas being the endurance sports. And so we ended up having this conversation about like his album Graceland and how he created it and how he went to South Africa during apartheid, which was really controversial. But to get these beautiful drum tracks from these local tribes and the process of this creation that ultimately for him was his art piece of this beautiful masterpiece album that has inspired millions of people through dance and play and love and laughter and all these things. And we ended up talking for, you know, 30 or 40 minutes, a very expensive satellite phone call from the bottom of the world. But it was just like, it hit me at just the right time to just kind of keep me going and really connect me back to this larger purpose, which was, yes, I was doing this. Yes. I wanted to be the first person as a competitive athlete. And, you know, the curiosity about challenging my body, but really the larger purpose of this

entire project was to put something into the world that people would say like, wow, like I am paid. I face impossible goals in my life. I face challenges. I face obstacles. And yes, I might not want to walk across Antarctica, but we all have our equivalent of an Antarctica or an impossible challenge or an audacious goal. And we also have a million reasons not to do this. I can't, I don't, I want, I, you know, you know, all these doubts and these. And so for me to put this out in the world in this way and connecting with Paul on this sort of idea of creation and art and this positivity resonating from that, it was just amazing to have that conversation

and also just wildly surreal to be chatting with Paul in the middle of an article. Being in an article. So obviously somebody saw that post or he saw it or it got to him. Yeah, apparently. He reached out, somehow the wires got connected. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they reached out and said, Paul saw that Colin had been listening to his

album. Is there any way to connect with him and whatnot? And they connected the dots. And so, Jenna knew who I was calling, of course, when she gave me that phone number. That's why she was like, trust me. And I trust you. And it's like, she wouldn't normally, like she knows how exhausted and, you know, she kept me pretty protected. I mean, I was talking to her and then, you know, checked in with Adam Skolnick, New York Times a couple of times. It's not like I was talking to pretty much anybody. You're just on the phone all day. Yeah, no, I'm like, that's not what was happening.

And even the conversations with her, although very uplifting at times, were like very like, it was like, okay, like how much food did you eat today? How much water? How are your supplies? How's this? You know, just like kind of safety checks more than anything. And of course, there's an emotional booth to be able to talk to my incredible wife during that time. And she's the unsung hero in all of this. You're always going out of your way to make sure that she gets the credit that's due her. But the more I kind of dive into this and learn about how this whole thing went down, I mean, she's running the tight

shift. Yeah. And you say unsung. Hopefully, I try to sing the praises as much as possible. And again, that's not just a shout out from a loving husband to an amazing wife, but as somebody who is really the backbone of this entire operation from the strategy around how to build it, the logistics, the media and social media strategy, the nonprofit with the kids. I mean, she is an incredibly savvy businesswoman. This artwork, this creativity that we put into the world does not exist without tremendous hard work from her. But then she's balancing that with the emotions of a loving wife who's, of course, worried about their spouse and this challenging conditions. And so she somehow has this incredible way of being able to balance both this strength of this savvy businesswoman about the love and compassion towards me as well as not holding me back

and encouraging and pushing me when I need it. You know, one of my, you know, we've gone through many, you know, fortunately we met, you know, 12 years ago, met relatively young and have gone through, you know, very kind of waves of life together. And it's amazing to be able to do this collaboration full-time together, you know, for years and years.

But, you know, there's moments where, you know, she's known how to push me. I think I probably told this story once on your podcast before, but, you know, being up on the summit of Everest and coming back down and I've, you know, there's moments where, you know, she's known how to push me. I think I probably told this story once on your podcast before, but, you know, being up on the summit of Everest and coming back down and I've, you know, I've got Denali left to set the Explorers Grand Slam world record. And I call her from camp four in the death zone. I'm exhausted. And I'm like, Jenna, I'm exhausted. You know, I, you know, summit at Everest, you know, if we can get up to Denali in the next two months, I'm going to set this record. So give me a couple of days to rest,

whatever. And she goes, she says to me, she goes, actually, I need you to put your boots back on right now. And I'm like, excuse me? She's like, yeah, we've been doing some calculating. It just so happens if you can get off Everest right now, get in a helicopter, fly to Kathmandu, fly all the way to Alaska and climb to Nali, not in three weeks, but in three days, you can set not one, but two world records, like ready, go. So it's like, I say that story to illuminate, you know, she's not only, she's like, heck yeah, celebrating the accomplishments, running all these things in the background, but she's also like, yeah, you're at Camp Foreign Everest, like put those boots back on, like get down that mountain. Like we got stuff to keep doing. So, I mean, it's just, it's just this amazing partnership. I feel so, so, so blessed.

And this is, you know, you know, it's, this is, you know, if anything, it's 50-50 us. If more so, sometimes I feel like I've got the easy job, which is the linear task of actually doing the physical demands of this. And she's juggling, you know. You just have like one thing that you need to do. Exactly. She's juggling a hundred balls in orbit and keeping them all in the air as well as keeping me safe and alive and healthy and well mentally and physically. So, you know, Jenna is just such an extraordinary person. I'm so blessed. That's the only way this all happens.

Well, one of the amazing things about this expedition was that everybody could share it online because every day you would upload a photo and a post kind of chronicling this in real time, which was like, that's one of the insanely cool things about social media. You know, there's a lot of problems with it, but like, it was amazing to like every day, like, okay, where's Colin? How's he

doing? Where is he? And you would like have these photos. So I have so many questions. I'm like, first of all, like, how does this even work? Like he's, how is he even taking pictures? And then how are those pictures getting from where he is to ending up on Instagram. Like, how is he writing these posts? Like, what is the backstory there? Yeah, so, you know, Jenna and I really made this commitment to share these stories in real time. You know, as much as I admire the polar explorers or the explorers of decades or centuries ago,

and sort of the purity of that, of going off into this great unknown for several years at times sometimes and coming back and sharing this story, we of going off into this great unknown for several years at times, sometimes, and coming back and sharing this story. We of course live in this world where the technology exists with some crazy loopholes to do it in Antarctica, but where you can share these stories in real time. And I think the real, like I said, the passion for me is this resonance of positivity with other people. You know, I'm not so interested in being the athlete in the arena of people watching me like, oh, good

job. You set another world record, but it's more so like, Whoa, like I get these tons of messages now that just like, you know, mean the world to me where people write to me on Instagram. They go like, I heard your story and I'm a single mother, you know, dealing with this hard thing in my life. Like, thank you for encouraging me to keep putting one foot in front of the other in my life or that. And so we really have this commitment to sharing these stories in real time as much as possible. We started that a couple of years ago. I was actually the first person in history to Snapchat from the summit of Mount Everest back in 2016. You know, some fun things we've done there, but the how and why, you know, that's the why. The how is, you know, I carry this little satellite modem with me.

You know, like I said, no extra pair of underwear, but we committed to carrying the weight for this and it's solar powered. So in Antarctica, you've got 24 hours of daylight. And so one of the benefits of that, of course, is I have these small solar panels that can charge electronics. But it's not really that straightforward and simple. It's not like I'm browsing Instagram or have a proper internet connection. It takes me about sometimes an hour, between 30 minutes, an hour to upload one single image to Jenna's inbox in like relatively low res. And then she reposted, but all the words, everything I wrote were mine. And so at the end of every single day, there were times when I didn't necessarily want to, you know, I was just

like exhausted with all the things I was doing. I just wanted to go to sleep, but I had made this commitment to really share this story. And I knew that there were, you know, 30,000 school kids on six continents following along and tuning on, you know, along and tuning on, hundreds of thousands of people, I guess ultimately millions of people tuning in and following this thing, which was incredibly humbling to realize. And I just been committed to sharing it like exactly how it was happening.

Like the good days were great. The tough days were tough. The things going on in my mind, the doubts, the fears, the ups and downs. And so I would just sit down and it was actually in the end, a beautiful process of a moment to reflect on the end of each day and kind of put it to words. And it's nice, you know, I've been an avid journaler throughout my life, but it's nice to be able to look back on those

posts and being like, oh, like this is how I was feeling. But the photos, it's hilarious. If you were following my Instagram feed during this time, almost every day, I didn't, of course, I didn't know this because I couldn't see the comments. I couldn't see Instagram. You know, I was just, I would write a text email and send this via the satellite. And I didn't even know, like I would leave comments thinking like, well, maybe he does have a, an iPhone that connects and he can actually be on this platform. Like, I don't know. From time to time, you know, you know, Jenna would send me like, oh, you know, actually she told me you had commented a couple of times, which was super cool. And, and various folks, she passed some comments on, but no, I can't open Instagram. Like I can't open any of

these things, but you know, she's taking the image and taking the text that I write in this email and post putting them together. But it was funny. Um, she was like, she was like literally every single day, like 10 people comment, like, well, you're not really alone. Cause you've got this camera crew out there obviously taking these photos of you. Um, and, and so it's hilarious because of course that is not the case. I took all the photos of myself. Did you just have a GoPro or what were you doing? Yeah, so what's really tough when it's that cold is that cameras, the battery dies in like 30 seconds. And also if you take your gloves off

and you have bare hands on electronics, your fingers can get frostbit pretty quickly. And so it was challenging to take all those images. It's funny now to watch back some of the video footage because we've cut it into some beautiful pieces of me walking off into the distance in Antarctica or whatever. But of course, the video continues, and I turn around and come all the way back to the camera

and pick it back up. It's not as glamorous. But yeah, the one thing that worked really well for me to get a lot of those shots, a lot of them are stills. I mean, I could only share stills from Antarctica. I certainly couldn't send video files. But the videos we've now uploaded now.

But I use a GoPro mostly and I would let it run and I would be able to take a single frame sort of screenshot off of it. Like a screenshot of a video. Of a video, exactly. And so that worked the best because it was really, I mean, it was almost impossible to capture motion.

Set it up and walk by. Yeah, and I had a little impossible to capture like motion. Set it up and like walk by. Yeah. And I had a little tripod with me. I'd like set it up and walk by and be like, oh, like that one frame is where I'm setting up my tent and I want to like show that or I want to like show this crazy storm or this, you know. I did my best, you know, with what I had. Doing it for the gram. Yeah. Doing the whole thing for the gram.

Oh, exactly. That was the entire purpose. No, not at all. But it was a fun one. It was amazing. Like you said, I think that I have the same feeling about social media, which is there's a lot of things wrong with it. And we think are all guilty at times of being sucked into that world. And I try to not get my brain too foggy with that. But it's also incredible to be able to actually like

in real time share this journey. And what was amazing for me, and I didn't really realize at the time, again, Jenna was kept me in a pretty productive bubble, which was necessary to the high-performance element of this. But the amount of people that started following along, the amount of people that were interested, the amount of people commenting, the amount of people, again, sending these messages of positivity about their own lives or overcoming their obstacles, fears they're going through, it definitely became something that I'm proud of in that way. And it's weird to say, although I think maybe on your podcast is one place where I don't sound like a weirdo saying this, but I really started to feel this just resonant positivity back from the universe from this of me kind of putting this out into the world. But all of a sudden, like I said, there was moments when either Jenna or a close friend or something would send me something. But more than anything, as this kind of built in the energy around this bill, I felt like not alone. I felt like there was just this like groundswell of

positive energy vibrating in both directions. And I was very viscerally connected to that. And that was a beautiful thing. And I don't know if that's from, you know, not specifically from Instagram or whatnot, but from the amount of people, you know, I was like, you know, cheering me on saying encouraged things as well as kind as having that go in a two-way direction of me hopefully encouraging others. Well, that low-grade aerobic output matched with solitude and then being in a place where there's no humans around for as far as you can see and zero distractions. If that's not going to contribute to A, some level of flow state and B, some kind of self-reflection and spiritual awakening that I don't know what's going to do it. Yeah. No, I mean, it was beautiful. I mean, meditation is something that's been a big part of my life for several years. I think in 2011

was the first time I did a 10-day Vipassana, 10 days silent, no reading. Have you done one of those before? Not yet, but it seems like every single guest i have on the podcast i was just up at jack dorsey's telling me about his latest 10 day vipassana retreat game changer i highly recommend you know that you know people ask me like i'm never gonna go to america i'm never this i'm like if you want to do something that has like profound and deep impact 10 day vipassana i mean it's it's free to go um it's just a commitment of your body and spirit and mind and it's's, um, really, really beautiful. And I've done that several times. Um, that certainly helped prepare me for the solitude in some, some regard, but this 54 days was just like the next, like the deepest, deepest layer of the ultra Vipassana. Um, and it was incredible. I mean, it was incredible

to feel that it was incredible to actually feel not alone most of the time. And it did connect me to, you know, whatever you want to call that, the universe, the vibration of the planet. I definitely felt really connected in that way. And that was really profound, but also, you know, I wrote down, you know, four or five, you know, lessons, right. When I got back, I've always been able to unpack more of this now, but, you know, top of mind when I finished was really about like love this word, love, this repetition of infinite love, infinite love, infinite love, and this ability that we, I think we all have as humans to love infinitely, to love our neighbors, to love our family and friends, but really to actually put that positivity and the resonance of love into the universe and how much that

can reflect back when we do so. That was really clear to me in this moment. And all these sort of lessons about, of course, this deep connection with Jenna and this sort of emotional journey that we were able to go on together was beautiful, but also connected me back to, you know, family and friends and memories that I had lost from the past that I kind of came up in these beautiful moments of childhood with my sister or my mother or kind of reliving these moments that kind of connected me back. You know, not that I'm disconnected from my family, but on a deeper level of family and friendship and really kind of the essence of all of this

was how much as humans, of course, I'm all alone and this is what I'm pontificating about, but I'm thinking about the importance of community, the importance that we all have to lean in, to love one another, to really be compassionate, to help, to uplift and support one another and how much stronger we can be when there's not this finite level of love, but this infinite love that we can share with one another. And what

that can really create in this universe was absolutely spectacular to feel that and be so viscerally connected to that at the end of this journey. And what has it taught you about not only your own capabilities, but about human capabilities in general and potential? I feel like I scratched the surface of this 11 years ago. We've talked about this before, but when I was severely burned in this fire in Thailand, I was told I would never walk normally. And then I recovered from that through the guidance of my mother's love and positivity, ultimately. Yeah. And I'm going to interrupt you really quickly here just to share one reflection on that. We have talked about that, and I'm going to interrupt you really quickly here just to share one reflection on that. We have talked about that and I'm well aware of that story from your life, but this is how weird memory works. In my mind, I had this sense that that had happened way earlier in your life than

it actually had. And when I sort of realized like, oh wait, that was 2008. Like that wasn't that long ago, dude. That was only 10 years ago. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I was, I had been a collegiate swimmer before that. I mean, it kind of gone through a big chapter of my life and yeah, it was you know, took a surfboard and a backpack and scraped together some pennies after college to go travel the world. And I met Jenna at the very beginning of that trip. So that was a net positive for that who ultimately became of course, this most important person in my life. But not after that I found myself in rural Thailand with a kerosene flaming rope wrapped around my legs my body lit on fire and having to dive into the ocean to extinguish the flames that saved my life but not before my legs were severely burnt and spent several months in the

Thai hospital being told I would never walk again normally and in that moment my mother came she arrived about the fourth or fifth day and kind of comes to my bedside. And she says, like, Colin, like, visualize your future. Like, visualize yourself, you know, being whatever you want to be. You know, your life's not over. And I was just in this deep, tragic, you know, place in my mind, in my body, in my spirit. And I closed my eyes kind of trying to, you know, placate my mother in some regard. And I pictured myself crossing the line of a triathlon, which is not something I'd ever done.

And so I won't get into the whole story. But the, you know, the next 18 months were kind of learning from that lesson and keeping this sort of fixed goal in my mind of racing this triathlon and ultimately, you know, competing in the Chicago triathlon as an amateur and winning my first, you know, ever triathlon and my first go at it, which was a crazy moment. But the reason I bring that story up, I mean, it's important inflection point in my life, which is, you know, in that moment, I started to feel, I wasn't like, wow, like I'm so amazing.

Like I'm so blessed and so good at this. I was like, wow, like as humans, I believe we all have these reservoirs of untapped potential inside of us and can achieve these extraordinary things when we shift our mindset for the positive, when we're supported by this loving community of infinite love and compassion and positivity.

Like, wow, like how extraordinary is that? And so that was my first kind of lesson towards that. But I was, you know, 22, 23 years old and I'm kind of the beginning of this journey, which has been the last, you know, decade of my life in this chapter. And Antarctica, certainly not the last chapter of my life, but the most recent chapter of my life is Antarctica.

And to connect to that on such an even, you know, 10x or 100x deeper level, which is like, wow, look at what we are capable of myself. I mean, people keep coming back. I do these interviews and things, and people want to say, like, Colin, are you superhuman? And I'm like, yeah, I'm superhuman. And so are you. So are all of us. But I think it just happens how we flex this muscle between our ears, this six inches between our ears.

What we can do with our minds is extraordinary and how we can all be connected and uplifting each other in that sense. And so for me in Antarctica, the lessons learned were, yes, about my own potential, but really were resonant across humanity of what we are all capable

when we set our minds to things. And again, I don't think that necessarily anyone wants to walk across Antarctica solo and unsupported and unaided. I don't blame you for not wanting to do that. But we have dreams, we have goals, and it's so easy to get in our own ways of stopping the progress towards that. And when I started this whole thing, like I said, Jenna and I had no money. We had a whiteboard on our wall, every reason not to do this. And it should be like, yeah, go get a real job. Grow up, do something. We're like, no, what can we do to have positive impact?

Let's start a nonprofit. Let's dare to dream greatly. And we started out by taking out our Mac laptops and being like, well, if we want people on social media to do this, we better know about marketing. I had 200 Instagram followers. My parents and my close friends were Googling, like, Google, what's the difference

between marketing and PR? We're basic of all basic questions. You know, but I just got the metrics back on this last project. And we did, you know, as of now, it's 1.8 billion media impressions and counting. And I don't say that because, like, I care about having, like, my name in, like, the press. But because of that, we've created this platform, this ability to share these stories about inspiration, positivity, love, nutrition, health, all the things that I'm passionate about. And I know from you, from having this podcast, it's also a blessing for you to be able to, you know, have this voice, not because like you want to be rich for all this

like famous guy, but because you have this opportunity to share with the world and the resonant positivity that you can put in the world from that is incredibly humbling and meaningful. And I applaud you for it. I mean, you know, lasting impact, that's the juice, right? So what is the, what is the lasting impact that, that, you know, what is the impact that you want this adventure and everything that you're doing going forward to have? Like, what is the change that you want to see in the world? Yeah. You know, I think that, um, when I've really tried to drill down to this, I, you know, I mentioned this before, like sort of this athlete and arena and I'm, I'm, by the way, I'm a massive sports fan. Like I'm, you know, I like watching sports as throughout my life. Um, but I think that our sort of knowledge or interest in sports in general,

not always the case. I think like the NBC Olympic coverage is a great example of not doing this, but oftentimes the sports are like winning, losing, like this sort of like the zero sum game of like cheering for your team or rooting against the enemy or something like that. But, you know, for me in doing this, it's not so much about that at all. It's about tapping into these sort of universal truths that we all face and encounter, which is like facing obstacles, stepping outside of our comfort zone to grow and being an example of those lessons and showing, you know, showing all the flaws. Like I'm not sitting here going like, yep, I stepped off the plane. I knew I could beat Lou. He was not, you know, it's like,

no, like I like had this huge daunting task of crossing Antarctica. Oh. And by the way, like the most experienced polar explorer in the world, it's also out there beside me, but I was willing to like, give it a shot, which is, I think, emblematic of someone starting a small business, everyone going like, oh, but like like why wouldn't Google or Facebook just like do the same thing why would you start with that tech idea like that's never gonna work or you know the person that's like starting a family or has lost a loved one and like just figuring out how to get on through life and so hopefully like by sharing my story as authentically and really as I can with all the ups and downs and the struggles and the warts and the successes that people can take from that in their own lives, what they will and really paint their own masterpieces.

Beautiful, man. And you're working on a book. I am. I am working on a book. That's really exciting. That's, of course, fun to be able to be offered that platform to be able to do that. I know you've sat and done that yourself. So I'm cutting my teeth on my first book, but hoping to have that out within the next year or so. But it's been really excited to begin to dive into that process. And really, it's a fun process for me. I've been fortunate to be able to share the story I am. I do a lot of public speaking and things like that. But to be able to sit, and that's one of the reasons I love doing podcast interviews, because it's like one thing,

like you've been on these short TV segments before and it's like three minutes, like say your thing real quick. Like I'm rich troll. I, you know, vegan triathlete, like whatever it is. It's like, was it cold? Yeah. So it's like this like weird thing. And why I love podcasting of course is the, you know, I love storytelling and the ability to, you know, go deep and get real. And, um, it seems like at least I at least I'm still kind of in the early stages of this process, but it's forcing me to get real about a longer form story. I mean, of course, I'm probably not going to read a thousand page book, but even 300 pages or whatever gives you the opportunity to really dive into different moments of times and illuminate different things.

And it's been really, I think, nice with Antarctica, with this project specifically. Of course, I think the book, it's going to be a memoir, mostly what's going to with Antarctica, with this project specifically, of course, I think the book, it's going to be a memoir mostly with, you know, it's going to cover Antarctica, of course, but it's also going to talk about other elements of my life and things. And, you know, it gives me a sense to really reflect on the stories and even the ones that don't necessarily make it into the book, let's say. It's amazing to go back through my journals from being a young kid and seeing sort of these pivotal moments or maybe moments that I forgot or, you know, really kind of go back through Antarctica day by day. Because in some senses, when we turn the page on our life so often, it's easy to be like, oh yeah, yeah,

sure, I did that, you know, for you. Like, oh yeah, I raced Ultraman and, you know, that was in whatever year. When you go back and you read those journals or you're going up on stage and you're sharing your story, your story starts to tell you what it is. Yes. There's an aspect of self-discovery and self-exploration with that that I think leads to personal growth if done right. A hundred percent. And I think that it's, I mean, it's fun for me.

I've been back, you know, from Antarctica for two months. And, you know, sitting down with you is always amazing because I feel like I should like owe you money at the end of this because it's like this cathartic therapy session. Yeah, but you're giving me like five speeches a week now. I'm like, he's going to tell the story again. You're all animated and lit up.

So, you know, like, but I'm wondering like, is it, you know, it's that thing where it's like, if you're doing it too much, like when does it start to become rote and not coming from that hard place? And I think what's beautiful about at least the moment, I mean, I can't, you know, I can't project forward 10 years or something like that, but at least like right in this moment is like, I'm still learning things. Like I'm humbled that people want me on stages right now. And I'm

sharing this story and I share it as well as I possibly can. And I think that there's some great, you know, great nuggets and take homes and all those things. It's a great story in that sense, but I'm still learning from it. Like I'm still unpacking the lessons from that. And I think that that's a amazing thing to have a genuine curiosity about where you've come to also dictate where you're going and to really sit in that moment of reflection. I mentioned briefly before about this idea of memories, but you know, I'd long since thought that certain memories of mine were gone from childhood or things like that. But when I had the time to sit still in Antarctica, I mean, not physically sit still with the stillness in my mind, you know, I found this

incredible, you know, ability to go back and catalog these memories, not like of epic things that happened, but also some of the, like the mundane moments of, you know, driving to school as a kid with my sister or things like that. What we were singing and listening to on the radio, my first swim race ever. And not like, oh yeah, I was my first swimmer. She was when I was five years old. It's like, I'm diving into the pool and I can see my mother on the other side and the wind's blowing and she's wearing an orange shirt. And I'm, you know, like the whole thing is playing out in this rich and vivid detail. And so it's exciting for me to be going back and reflecting on my life, not knowing like, gosh, I need to like remind myself of what happened, but go like, actually like it's exciting for me to be going back and reflecting on my life, not knowing like, gosh, I need to like remind myself of what happened

but go like, actually like it's in there. Like I'm a product of all of these things that happen. We all are a product of these memories, whether we can recall them quickly in our social media and instant gratification type of world that we live in, it's a little bit harder. But when you take that stillness and that pause and that's why these Vipassana meditations

have been beautiful for me as well is these moments of really deep reflection to reflect on mistakes I've made and things that I want to change going forward and ultimately grow. Yeah. Is there anything that the media is getting wrong or where you feel like you've been misunderstood in this whole journey? You know, not really.

I think actually, you know, Lewis House and Um, I think, uh, actually, uh, you know, Lewis house and I were talking about this last week and I, I love what he says. I'm not going to get his perfect quote, right. He's like pretty articulate guy, but something along the lines of like, he goes like, do you ever write a negative review, like on like Yelp or something like that? And I'm like, no, like, why would I ever do that? And just kind of this idea that like, no matter what you do, there's going to be like that 1% of like, well, why would you do this? Just kind of this idea that no matter what you do, there's going to be that 1% of, well, why would you do this? People will say, oh, it must have been easy for you because you must have so much money.

I'm like, well, I actually grew up quite poor. Oh, but you have this Ivy League education. It's because I worked really hard as a swimmer when I was a kid and was offered an opportunity to have a great education, but based on hard work, not from some like pedigreed, like background, you know, it's like, there's certain things that can, people can pull. Um, but you know, when people, you know, kind of reflect that way, I try to just reflect back like the positivity and just like, Hey, like, this is my story. Like I'm out here doing my very best and, you know, hoping to move

forward to that. So there's like little tiny things like that. Well, there's always going to be grousing. Yeah. You know, there's a little bit, I mean, there that. So there's like little tiny things like that. Well, there's always going to be grousing. Yeah. There's a little bit of that. I mean, there's a little controversy over Borge, right? Yeah. So he's the guy who in 1996 traversed Antarctica. He actually went quite a bit further on a totally different route,

but there was some wind aided with a sail or something like that. So there's certain people out there who are basically like, well, Borge did it first. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting, you know, that, that whole piece of it's been just kind of not, not bizarre, but just interesting to me. Um, because before I even launched my project, when I kind of put my website up, like, Hey, I'm doing this project, it's called the impossible first. I'm going to try to be the first person across solo unsupported and unaided, which has been something people, multiple people have tried before me. I didn't just like create this random thing out of thin air. And I said, you know, there's been like five expeditions that I want to highlight that have

been like exceptionally inspirational to me. And like the top one, this is on my website, before I take any single step in Antarctica, it's like what Borg Ousland did in 1996. And I might get his name wrong, but Borg Ousland, I think is, is Norwegian. You know, this is what he did in 1996, 1997. Like I explicitly called it out as one of the expeditions that's been most inspirational to me. What he did then was he crossed not only the land mass of Antarctica, but also the entirety of the ice sheets of the frozen ocean that I mentioned, he crossed that and he was able to do so using kites. And so, you know, he oftentimes went, you know, there's a lot written on this. New York Times actually covered it. There's lots of quotes about him. And he used these parasails

that actually took him sometimes 150, 200 miles per day. He did that entire crossing almost twice the distance that I went in almost the exact amount of time. And he's been, you know, he's on the record quoting like, oh, it would be impossible to cross both ice sheets as well, just manhauling unsupported. But in his sense, he's like, but I was the first person to cross Antarctica solo. And I'm like, you absolutely were.

Like, these are just apples and oranges. I was purely manhauling crossing the landmass and you were using kite and windade. By the way, that's extraordinary what you accomplished. I'm not trying to take away anything from that. Like I said, to me, it's just apples and oranges. And again, even without even knowing that there was any sort of, you know, quote unquote controversy, which to me is like pretty minimal anyways, but you know, there was some chatter about that. The day after I finished my project, I had to finish on December 26th and I posted the Instagram of, you know, I finished.

You know, wow, what a day or something like that. And then the following day, again, not knowing anything about controversy, I was in my own little bubble just writing from my tent whatever popped in my mind. And I wrote this post on December 27th that's called Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. And it was like, wow, like it's amazing to step into the history books and do this, you know, this world first that no one had done before. But none of this happens without all the other pioneering explorers and the amazing things they'd done. And I called out Borga Ostland. I called out Felicity Ashton, who's a woman who did a supported, but solo crossing of Antarctica on a very similar route, which was amazing. So she had two resupplies of food and just calling out these other explorers that have been inspirational to

me. So for me, the only way that I can, you know, kind of reflect on that, which is like, it's not a controversy in my mind. Like I've been nothing but very clear that Borja Olsen, what he did was inspirational and incredible. He used a kite. I didn't. Like he went further.

I went a shorter distance, but man hauled only. Crossed the landmass. He crossed the ice sheets. I mean, they're both like, I mean, it's like splitting hairs over like, you know, it was like the slam dunk at the all-star game in 96 when Jordan did it cooler than like when this, you know, it's like, it just like, they're awesome. Like we can't, we all just like celebrate these, these moments of, of achievement that are unique and interesting

in their own ways. Yeah. I gotcha. Um, after doing this whole thing, it must've been freaky. The first time you were back on the mainland and it was actually, it got dark at night. Yes. Right? Yes. Was that weird? Yes. Yeah.

I mean, that was absolutely bizarre. This 24 hours of daylight out there. I actually got quite accustomed to it and used to it. But I could easily see how people lose their minds with that. Yes. Yes. I mean, I had to have, you know, an eye mask over my eyes and try to like, your body is just like lose their minds with that. Yes, yes. I mean, I had to have an eye mask over my eyes and try to like,

your body is just like not adapted to doing that. The one cool benefit, which we hadn't spoke about yet, but was that final push that I made on the last day. Oh yeah, we didn't even talk about that. So you do this crazy 32 hour push to finish. Yeah, so I woke up on Christmas day actually, and I'm 77 miles away from the

finish. And I think, oh, you know, I've been averaging about 10 to 12 or sorry, about 15 to 16 miles per day average throughout the entire project. But my sled was lighter and I was beginning to go downhill a little bit. And I was like, oh, maybe I could do about 25 miles per day. That's probably like three more days and I could finish this thing. But for me, like my guard is still way up. Like Henry Worsley, you know, fell ill a hundred miles from the finish line. It's like, this thing isn't done until it's done. And I wake up that morning on Christmas morning and I just tap into this, this deep flow state. And your question was about, you know, how people getting things wrong in the media. And I don't think they're getting things wrong, but there's this, this state that I'm

trying to describe of this sort of deep flow state. And I think, you know, athletes, other high performers, you know, musicians, things have felt that, but sometimes people are like, what do you like, what is this like crazy, like weird abstraction that you're talking about? Um, but you know, for me, it's just waking up and having just this moment of like true, like confidence and clarity of this. Like I start calculating my head. I'm like, okay, like people have run ultra marathons before, like the sun's never going to set. Like, could I just do 32 hours straight or 30 some hours straight to finish this thing in one go? And it seemed crazy other than the fact that even though my body was so exhausted,

I was running low on food, but I had just enough to kind of, you know, push through a couple more, you know, a couple more days. And I just locked in to this place in my mind that was just like calm and collected. And I was in complete silence and really just taking in the moment. And it was this beautiful moment where I felt like all of the experiences of my entire life were stacking that, you know, five-year-old kid jumping into the swimming pool that, you know, my burn accident and the lessons for that family relationships, love, heartbreak, like just all of the moments, the meditation practice, the training with Mike, like all of these things were stacking this way that I finally eventually reached this moment of just utter and complete calm and focus. So I go on through the day, you know, 10 hours, 15 hours,

18 hours, and that's the longest I've ever gone. And finally this massive storm blows up. There's actually this huge ground blizzard comes out of nowhere, wind kicks up because it had been a calm, nice day when I sort of got this idea in my mind, I pushed through and I get stuck in this crazy storm. And it's now midnight, which means it's seven, it's midnight Chilean time. The time zone I stayed on, but it's still 24 hours of daylight, but it's 7 PM back home in Oregon and it's Christmas day. And so my family has been tracking this satellite tracker throughout the day. And they're like, he didn't stop after 12 hours, didn't stop for 13 hours, like 18 hours. So I call home after 18 hours, because what happens is I actually ran out of water. And the only way for me to get more water in the middle of this

storm was to set up my tent and light my stove inside of my tent. So I set up my tent, get inside, call home, and it's Christmas dinner. My family's at Christmas dinner. So my Jenna puts a phone on speaker and it's like my mother, my sisters, you know, Jenna, these incredibly strong women that have like supported me throughout my life. I have five older sisters. So, um, I just have been, uh, been, been raised by an incredible, incredible, um, people and women particularly, um, in this case. And, you know, they get on the phone and they're like, you did 47 miles. Like this is your best day ever. You're going to finish tomorrow or the next day. Like incredible. And I was like, actually, like I'm going to keep going. And they're like, wait, what? And I was like, I'm in this, you know, this, this really

focused state. Like I know I can do it. And it's just in that moment, we talked about sort of Jenna pushing me to put those boots back on before where she, uh, when she describes this moment, you know, she's actually videotaped all of our conversations on, on her end so that we could reflect on them afterwards as kind of a video diary. And she was like, I just heard it in your voice. Like I've seen you high perform. I've seen you broken down. She was like, there was something in your voice. You sounded stronger on day 53 than you had felt sounded the entire time. And so they just said to me like, all right, but they just said like, oh, the weather must be really good. And I was like, actually, it's like some of the worst of the whole project, but I'm going to go back out there. But even though it was storming and raging

outside of my tent, I had this inner calm that made all the difference. So I got outside my tent, took my tent back down after boiling the water and made another 12 hours, ultimately a 32 hour and 77 mile continuous push to finish it up. Yeah. And as much as Jenna is there to push you and say, put your boots on and keep going. She's also there to put the brakes on. Exactly. If, if, you know, she gets the sense that this is going to be unsafe because people do lose their minds out there and get ahead of themselves. And that's ultimately how people die. Yeah. My sister, Caitlin, she had said to me, and she was amazing. She actually built all that mapping stuff.

If you ever went to the live tracker during the project, she built all that. And she had actually said to me a few days before that, she's like, I think you're going to finish this thing. And it looks like you have a margin of error that you're ahead of loose. You'll finish first. Unless you do something stupid like just go continuously so long that you tie yourself out and fall apart. And so of course it's like also in the back of my mind, like, am I doing that one thing? Exactly. But it was, it was weird. It's hard to, again, I'm still, this is one of the things I'm still trying to reflect on and try to, hopefully I'll put it more articulately into

words in book form. But to describe that state, that state of just like, just knowing and calm and feeling again, that sort of resonant positivity from the universe, the people cheering me on, the fact that it was, you know, Christmas, I think on that day and people were gathered and celebrating with their family and their loved ones. There was just something about this sort of magic moment that all came to pass of this, all of these moments stacking in a beautiful way that allowed me to, you know, push through 77 miles straight in 32 hours to get to the finish line. And it was for me a beautiful way as someone who's curious about exploring the limits that we all have inside of us to kind of break through, uh, a perceived limit in my own life and show that I had even

more in the tank at the end than I really even thought possible. What's next? What's next? No one's ever asked me that question. What's next? Now you next? No one's ever asked me that question. What's next? Now you got to go, you got to top it now, right? You know, I think that it's a dangerous game in this world to try to be always one-upping oneself. You know, it's been a blessing to, you know, have these world records and this world first and things that I've done. But as somebody in fairness, because you've gone from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next without like even a breather in between.

Yes. This is like the first break you've taken. Yes. And it's only because you're in like media demand, right? If the phone wasn't ringing, you'd probably be out. You know, I have some ideas of course, in the back of my mind, fluttering about about other expeditions and things,

but it is really, like I said, the, the storytelling and the sharing of this is, is humbling that people want to hear the story. Um, and it's amazing to have a moment to do that. And certainly, you know, diving into a book and things like that, as you know, like require a dedicated focus in that. And so, um, it's nice. And also in a moment when I need to recover my body a bit to have a more of a still activity to do, you know, I'm, I turned 34 next week. So I'm 33 right now. Um, there's, you know, there's a long life ahead of me, uh, of adventures and explorations and all sorts of different things. But I also, like I said, I don't, I don't, um, you know, and maybe this is why there's controversies with the likes of the Berger Oslinsins or whatever is that I don't necessarily think of myself as this endemic outdoor athlete.

I was doing triathlon. I love professional triathlon, but I didn't necessarily think of myself as a triathlon insider as well. I think there's going to be many chapters in my life where I can express myself through physical demands, through business, through interpersonal relationships. through business, through interpersonal relationships. And so what's next is hopefully a full and complete life and things that bring me joy and that I can reflect that back out into the world. Well, this canvas that you're painting, this art expression that is the manifestation

of your expeditions and the way you're living your life is a beautiful thing, man. So I salute you. I'm so proud and honored to be your friend. And it was really cool to see you get out there and accomplish that. But I think what touches me more than anything is the way that you're now out there really trying to inspire people and help them redefine their own sense of potential and frame new stories around ultimately, you know, what we're all capable of.

Absolutely. So thanks for that, man. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's a blessing. I have to say this one last thing, which is, like I said, I didn't listen to much out there, but I did listen to my fair share of ritual podcasts.

I appreciate that. Generally, you know, I sometimes, maybe I shouldn't say this out loud, but I would pass through the ads from time to time. You're the only one. I had them all memorized. You do that MeUndies commercial and I'd be like, I have one pair of underwear. Wouldn't it be nice to have some MeUndies right now?

And like your final closing credits. Yeah, I had all the words down, your closing credits and music by Annalima and the whole thing. So I wish I could record the outro, but I had it all in my head. I should have you just come in and do it for me. Honestly, it would be a load off. Interstitial music by Jason Camaiolo. That's hilarious, man. It's the best, man. Well, cool. Well, thanks for that, man. And come back anytime, man. When the book comes out, come back, share with me. Would love that. And we'll keep this conversation rolling.

Absolutely. Thank you, my friend. All right, peace. So you're a super easy guy to find at Colin O'Brady. Instagram is probably the best place, but colinobrady.com is the website. That's right. And I'm sure if you're doing any speaking engagements

that are open to the public, they'll be up on your website. Yeah, colinobrady.com. It's got everything about my speaking at colinobrady on Instagram. I love hearing from people. I read all my DMs, reach out, say hello. This community you've built is such extraordinary people.

And when I got going on my first project as one of the first early supporters was your podcast listeners. So have so much love and compassion for this community. It's just the perfect vibration and resonance with me. So all the love to everyone out there and thanks for all the support over the years. Awesome, man. Appreciate that.

Much love, my friend. Peace, plants, and Colin Bars. Yeah. So DK, when you wake up and you're just not feeling it, can I trust that you will think about what Colin just did as some added boost and inspiration to get you moving?

A hundred percent. I mean, it's inspiring. It's also mind boggling. Also, it's like, I can do more. It's incredible, right? What he's accomplished and what he's achieved, especially given that he suffered this burn that had doctors telling him he might not ever walk again.

It's just such an amazing story. So hope you guys enjoyed that. Please, please let Colin know what you thought of this conversation by hitting him up directly at Colin O'Brady on Twitter and Instagram. If you're not following him on Instagram, please change that immediately. His feed is absolutely incredible. And don't forget to check out the show notes on the episode page on my website, richroll.com. We've got tons more info there

including all of Adam Skolnick's amazing articles as well as links to Colin's other appearances and adventures if you're struggling with your diet if you really want to get this thing sorted out your nutrition once and for all please I implore you check out our Plant Power Meal Planner

we created it to answer this very basic question and solve a very basic problem, which is making nutritious eating, delicious nutritious eating, convenient, simple, and affordable. When you sign up at meals.richroll.com, you'll get access to thousands of delicious and easy to prepare plant-based recipes. Thousands. I mean, that should take you years to go through and everything's totally customized based on your personal preferences. Like how many are you cooking for? What's your budget?

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And you get all of this for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year, literally the price of a cup of coffee. So to learn more and to sign up, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. richroll.com or click on meal planner on the top menu on my website. If you'd like to support the work we do here at the RRP, there are a couple of simple ways to do just that. Tell your friends about it. Share your favorite episode on social media. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or Google Podcasts. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you can support the show at patreon.richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. This is definitely a team effort. Jason Camiello for a lot of behind the scenes, heavy lifting, audio engineering,

production, show notes, interstitial music. He helps write these scripts for me. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for filming the podcast for YouTube and editing it and putting together all the groovy little clips that we share on social media. Jessica Miranda for her graphics wizardry. DK for advertiser relationships. Allie Rogers for behind the scenes videoing and general miscellaneous assistant stuff. And also, as I mentioned the other day, we're going to start trying to put together some more kind of vlog type content for YouTube, which I'm really excited about. Thank you for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple of few with white collar minister, activist, social ethicist, author, speaker, the Reverend Jeff

Grant. He is the co-founder of something called Prisonist.org and it's a really fascinating story. So until then, life is an adventure. What is your impossible? Go out and tackle it, right? For DK, it's 190, right? We're working on it.

Hashtag DK190. We are indeed working on it. All right, go out there and explore and love your fellow man. Peace. Plants. Namaste. Thank you.