317 Miles: Pushing The Limits Of Possibility - Ross Edgley

take me through what you've just done what have you just completed yeah yeah so uh I suppose after swimming around Great Britain so the 157 days 1,780 mies uh that was the world's longest stage sea swim so stage just means basically that you swim to a certain Waypoint you get out on the boat and then you start from that Waypoint you keep going until you go all the way around Great Britain I sort of had this idea and sort of fascination with a Non-Stop continuous swim which is just basically no sleeping no touching land no one can touch you I don't know why it just ignited a bit of a curiosity in me uh tried a few times in different bodies of water uh L Ness which didn't go entirely to plan go through go through what happened with lch ness and the Italian one that's right so so loes was the first one and uh that was uh 2022 um it was all to raise awareness around ocean conservation uh doing some brilliant work with Tallis and parlay uh protecting marine ecosystems around the world we had everything set up like I mean Loch Ness is a body of water that you don't take lightly um it's as long as the English Channel the way that the wind picks up is it's a massive funnel so you'll just end up getting 10ft waves we were already pushing it into the winter and then um the queen actually died the day that we were meant to start so obviously out of sheer respect you know the entire country shut down then I sort of sat there knowing full well and as a team we're like okay this is now getting into the winter which it goes from being ambitious to a little bit stupid um but with all of that said the goal was always to raise awareness around ocean conservation so I was like do you know what not ideal conditions but but let's go so I sort of set off knowing not to say it was doomed to fail but the odds were stacked against us um things going pretty well 53 hours in uh and then it just kind of went dark and then I remember just waking up a hospital bed seeing my mom and my girlfriend and I was like oh it's not going well has it they like no it's not hypothermia cellulitis was actually What stopped it which is uh where the wet suit was check thing it's a bacteria infection uh but basically when that gets in your lymph nodes or bloodstream it can be fatal so so glad that the team sort of called it and the doctor did uh when they did Fast Forward another year and I thought you know what let's get away from the cold let's go somewhere warm went to Italy tresino seemed like a good idea at the time again uh paid for the boat paid for crew everybody's out there and then uh an anticyclone from the Sahara Desert ends up in tresino which is kind of this huge Dome as well so it just became a massive SAA uh but because of the authorities in Italy they basically say if you're going to swim in that Lake uh you pay for permits organized permits it has to happen at that time we flew camera crews out and and crew it had to happen so we set off I think in the shallows the water was like 36 37 uh for those Celsius in Freedom Units that's 100ish yeah it was yeah it was it was a bath it was a Jacuzzi you know which um Fina the governing body for Open Water swimming so often they will cancel events where it's anywhere just over 30 cuz it it just becomes dangerous so I knew you know that that wasn't going to be great but again we tried our very best we set off and actually what's really strange is I'm really proud of that particular metric um it was a great swim uh doctors and friends of mine ever since were just like Ross that was rabdo waiting to happens where the muscles essentially break down and liquefy and end up in your bloodstream which is something you don't want to happen um they were like we're amazed you went as far as you did so in a weird way with all the data we collected around that I remain weirdly proud of it um a human guinea pig yourself even though you didn't achieve your your goal so how far did you go on swim one and how far on swim two um so I don't actually know want swim one because it all went dark and I it all got a little bit and then people had to basically jump in and pull me out and as soon as you do that the Swim's over so we don't know the metrics on that one uh but the 53-hour duration was something I'm quite proud of um and then what was strange with the tresino swim because we went between two islands um so it was basically 70 km between the uh all the islands but with the wiggle room it was getting up over a 100 um which again in those conditions I was weirdly proud of um but we then sat there fast forward now to this year and I just thought with all the the data that we have available to us um there was this aure of a river swim a Non-Stop River swim so basically there's a there's a uh it's called the Yukon River Quest where people paddling kayak down there in boats every single year annual event an amazing event I sat there with my girlfriend just looking on the internet one day and I was like oh but if you can kayak it you you can swim it in theory reached out to the health and safety team there the organizers out there they said yeah yeah in theory if you avoid white waterer Rapids Bears wolves you know there's there's a chance you could do it um the team out there were incredible the way that they read the river uh was just insane it it was such a team event and essentially this was last week now um set off from a white horse uh in in Canada and swam 510 km over about 60 hours total Expedition time and uh set the record for the longest non-stop Rivers eventually we got one is that different to doing it in a lake have you got assistance from Big streams is this going to be tested in some way oh it's exactly that yeah I'm glad you asked that so so there's different categories for different so this would be classed as an assisted swim so it's very different from a lake where there's no tide or current uh but with all of that said it then comes with its own challenges as well because as you're kind of getting pushed down by the river it might take you down one route where you know that's leading to whitewater rapids a log Jam uh you're just going to get impaled on some rock so so it's almost like interval sprinting for 510 KMS cuz you're the boat so you've got to essentially have enough power to steer your navigate around things exactly so so it's very different I think that's the beauty of um Open Water Swimming is there's so many classifications and categories um this is just you know a Non-Stop River swim talk to me about preparation you did a lot of preparation for the Great British Swim you've got this really interesting insight about sze actually being an advantage even though people might think it's not and then what did you learn great briish swim into Ness into Italy into Canada how did preparation change and explain what your training looked like yeah I you know I'm so glad you asked that just because I think preparation is so different for these sorts of events because people sort of think of swimming as just swimming it's all encompassing but it but it's for me it it's so different like you you couldn't compare uh me to sort of Adam py for instance like Adam py good friend of mine greatest bre stroke of the world has ever seen you know you look at him he is a mako shark he's a white shark he looks phenomenal broad shoulders six foot plus he's amaz and in the water he's poetic you look at his technique I am a chubby whale shark at best you know I'm very different and they're two different disciplines um but I love that because I say so many people have like a swimming superpower you know some people are incredible Adam pet is rapid he's poetic you look at him I'm just stubborn you know I'm I'm stubborn I can eat lots and I won't give up and I think that's the sort of difference uh between the different disciplines so preparation for this was was really different because with most swimmers you would say how's your Technique High elbow catch are you bilaterally breathing is it a two beat a four beat leg all these technical things whereas when you're 60 hours in none of that makes any sense you're just like am I still kicking my legs am I still AF float that that that's literally all you're concerned with so preparation for this was like not necessarily building a faster body it was building a more robust body because because speed wasn't going to be what determined success or not it was is a ligament tendon going to give up uh gastrointestinal distress as well almost training the digestive system that's another thing as well studies looking at how competitive eaters they have an adaptation in their stomachs so now actually endurance athletes are saying hang on we can actually learn from competitive eaters so all of these things actually preparing for a a Non-Stop continuous swim training looks very very different to what a conventional Olympics swi would be how are you preparing the ligaments what does this look like from a training perspective strength training yeah I think with all training modalities people look at uh you know proception kinesthetic awareness uh uh agility Mobility all these sorts of things whereas strength as a training modality it's called mechanotransduction so people will think in terms of Weights stress and stimuli makes the muscles strong yes absolutely that is true but it's also the ligaments and tendons at the same time so again it's so counterintuitive because there's some swimmers who won't touch weights iner affect their Mobility uh their proception kinesthetic in the water whereas with me it was very much just trying to build this big robust body I I think again to to use Adam py as an example he is a Formula One car he he is everything on him is refined it's unbelievable it it's designed to make him the fastest human in the water I am a big truck I'm a tractor F-150 you're a John de a tractor is exactly it yeah okay what about the gastrointestinal preparation what did that look like do you know I this was my favorite prep actually so shout out to James Morton he was the nutritionist for team Sky when they won the Tour to France and he does some amazing research just into looking at not only the carbohydrates and uh or or calories that you can tolerate but the calories that you can assimilate at the same time and that's really important because up until recently people fought 60 to 80 gram of carbs every hour on the hour was the upper limit of what you could actually digest whereas there's a studies looking at different osmolality digesting of carbs we found that we've been able to push that to 120 grams of carbohydrates every hour on the hour but what we were doing with James Morton and this was fascinating I I found it helped so much is when you're looking at just marginal gains is we did that 120 grams of carbs every hour on the hour but then also on top of that used MCTS some medium chain triglycerides that are very different to long chain triglycerides cuz they act more like a carbohydrate so essentially what we're doing is just trying to take the digestive system and say how much can we put through every single hour without actually it sort of detrimental you know the the sort of digestive system imploding as it were um and on that note you know for anyone sort of wanting to trial it MCTS are something that you have to train the digestive system uh there are stories of people having you know too many uh during exposive repercussions you said it gra yeah genuinely yeah people will literally just [ __ ] themselves yes yeah yeah yeah okay so uh kit what are you wearing specially designed uh wet suit of some kind yeah okay you know oh since since we're on the the topic of toilets as well I might as well start with this story y but is there a butt flap is there a special butt flap in your wet suit how does it work it was a butt flap CH yeah there there is but to this day I'm unsure if my uh bum hole is in the wrong place or the uh the flap was in the wrong place okay right yeah I'm 5 hours in to what was a 60 hour swim um sure enough signal to the team I was like guys I just went like that t as in I'm going to the toilet they were like cool everybody sort of turned their back to to give me my dignity y went to the toilet it let's just say it didn't it didn't work it didn't evacuate what it was right um so I'm then nursing what I was trying to get rid of in my wet suit for what was essentially yeah what 55 hours in the Sun so honestly Chris it was so bad I knew as well like this this is the thing I'm just sitting there and I'm swimming I'm just going this is disgusting but you know no one said this would be easy we got it done but it wasn't until the end and again the team were amazing it was just made up of just big Hardy manly Canadians you know the sort of men you'd want if you go on to war like in a hunt these are big men and as they're cutting the wet suit off me because of compression and chafing I just said guys I heads up for warning I've fermented something indeed I'm so sorry and then no no no it's fine we've seen all sorts they cut it off what was interesting is Dr Tom very good friend of mine he said it didn't actually smell uh like feces at all um he said it was more akin to a burning flesh um I was I couldn't smell anything you turned it into butter or whatever the equivalent was it's essentially it he said it was like a gray powder that had come how that happened I don't know but sorry like I said that the big Canadians some of them just had to excuse themselves they've seen they will got a bear you know they will they will behead a w you after 55 hours swimming slowly mashing poo into your your own wet suit they just said I'm sorry I've got to go I was like no not for me not for me mate all right so tell me tell me the story of the of the swim yeah so what from start to finish yes please leaving out the mashed up that can that can include that's we'll we'll we'll revisit that so yeah uh started off um and I think what was really interesting it was my first River swim as well so I was completely listening to the team I think um I tried to swim it as hard as I could as a swimmer whereas what's very apparent and I found this on the GB swim is you you need to treat it like a sailor like a boat expert like an adventurer you need to treat your body like a vessel like a ship um so I was trying to find the the path of least resistance or the path of most assistance so it was constantly weaving our way um down the river um I think one of the biggest things as well was just the toll it took on the shoulders as well with like the Yukon would ask so much from you we were we were 24 hours in and we came to Five Finger Rapids so you're 24 hours in and and for anyone listening as well it's kind of like imagine sort of running a marathon and then at some point someone just turns around and says whether you like it or not you have to Sprint you know it's just but I am fatigued pleted of muscle glycogen it's no no no the river doesn't care Sprint or you will drown so I think throwing curve balls in like that was pretty bad um picked a fight with some Rapids as well lost um started bleeding posted on Instagram uh picture of my legs uh which was a weird injury to pick up and that was sort of a combination of the rocks and also chafing but from that what was really strange is um there was then a direct correlation with that and the the number of wildlife taking it into interest in me so the the first one was this massive eagle and I've never seen them before it was a pterodactyl it was huge and it's hopping from tree to tree while looking at me and I turned to the guys on the boat and I said what's going on and they said oh well it knows you're too small to be a bear too big to be a salmon but what they typically do is wait for the salmon to exhaust themselves and stop flapping and then it will come down so it's it's it's waiting for you to stop flapping um so sure enough I never stop flapping just carried on swimming that was weird just being circled could been an eagle's dinner exactly um saw a few black bears saw Moose's Crossing as well moose moose are massive uh did not realize uh that and then also as well what was amazing is uh just catching up with all the stories with the guys on the boat um they obviously had to go to the toilet in the woods with a bucket and quite often you'd see them sort of sheepishly Running Out of the Woods having seen wolf tracks and everything as well it was uh it was an interesting swimming pool basically to say the least yeah it was it got a bit weird well you're in the wilderness for sure and you're surrounded by all of these different animals and if you're bleeding I mean yeah how much stuff bleeds for 300 miles and just spreads itself along the Yukon very few animals W I didn't really think about it like that yeah you're it's a big you know like an ice cream truck going by you're the like oh God smell equivalent of that just ad izing your sweet British flesh to all of the animals around you I'm glad we didn't have this conversation before yeah that's that's that is true I was an ice cream van wasn't I you were yeah just playing playing your tune as loud as possible through the through the scent I just got back from Nashville this morning and this was the bag that came with me the nomatic travel pack it is an absolute GameChanger they 14 L for daily use or their 20 L if you are traveling I Can't Describe the difference in the quality of your life when you start to use a proper well-designed backpack if you have a well-designed bag that's got tons of pockets it's not over engineered it's got lifetime guarantee so it is literally the final backpack you will ever need to buy because For the Rest of time they will replace or fix it if anything breaks there's a 30-day money back guarantee I keep hopping on about them and I partnered with them because I love the things that they make they are the best quality backpacks and luggage on the planet and you should go and buy it right now you can get a 20% discount by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to nomatic docomo wisdom and using the code mw20 a checkout that's nomatic docomond wisdom and mw20 a checkout okay so take me through each different or do you think about the swim from a a mental perspective 60 hours 60 hours exactly uh no that was total Expedition time so I count I think it was maybe like 54 55 I count that cuz we had to get into position as well understood okay so 54 hours of actual swimming that's no sleep that's not touching land that's not touching a boat food is being thrown at you launched at me used with a a net I saw the Great British Swim um talk to me about how you think of the uh the fatigue part chunked is it the first 24 36 like where do how do you think about that it it changes so much I think um one of the biggest things I've learned from all athletic Adventures is you have to Outsource common sense like you you can't trust your own brain and it's so weird I know Tim noes talks about Central Governor Theory you know this idea or psychobiological model of fatigue that you know you're so more power so much more powerful than your own mind allows you to believe and essentially what's happening is your brain is a hypochondriac and it's picking up all of these these signals from the body going oh Ross you're kind of depleted muscle glycogen or neurotransmitters chemicals signals in the brain not quite firing it's giving you all this and it's basically get trying to get to pull that physiological handbreak um again people listening they'll understand that you know if we ran a marathon all a sudden 18 miles in you hit the wall you can't go on your legs are burning your lungs are on fire you can't go on and then what happens all of a sudden at 24 miles you see your family and friends everyone starts cheering you Goose step and you're sprinting to the end it's like hang on wait you said you were done at 8 Miles and that's essentially the same it's the same principle but just kind of extended over a longer period of time and it's knowing that that you can't trust your own brain it's a hypochondriac and then more to that point your brain as well will find any weakness and it's it's so strange speaking like this because it's almost like you're removing yourself from your brain but if we were if we were in the middle of the Yukon we were doing this all of a sudden it would be going oh Chris what what are you doing here you shouldn't be in the Yukon have you trained have you trained enough did you eat enough didn't really sleep last night how's that shoulder you never had that shoulder injury for a while and all of a sudden you get these voices in head isn't it funny how the way that the brain delivers these concerns is through a narrative it's through a story it's personifying all of the worry and the concern because it could just be pain right it could just deliver just straight up pain to you but it's being uh like a press secretary and it's creating this sort of weird narrative and it's spinning things at you and well you've gone far enough that's far that's far enough like you know what what if you drown what if your what would your parents think what would you what about the bear over the what about that eagle that eagle is still following you you know all of those different things it's so funny how it uses the very competitive advantage that we have as brains to use theory of mind to have an internal dialogue it uses that as the uh the governor it's exactly that yeah and I think it it gets really strange I mean I I read a lot of echart tol as well and I think my mind even goes to that sort of place sort of like identifying the ego identifying these different voices in your head and I think it's so interesting that when that happens a very good friend of mine actually Benny Gordon who's the the drummer of a partway driver rock band amazing I was wearing that t-shirt only here a couple of them Aussie guy yeah yeah whereas Benny I remember he he essentially gave me this perspective on things and I love this I've always I've used it ever since but a lot of people sometimes will when that voice comes up they'll shout back at it you know they'll say oh you know man up uh you know oh grit your teeth get through this and that can definitely work for a marathon I found that can work for an Iron Man as well 12 13 14 15 hours can work it gets quite tiring 54 55 hours in and so Benny always taught me it's almost like if you sort of sit there shut your eyes and he said your thoughts are like clouds that come into this clear sky and at the start of the swim the sky is very clear you know the sun is shining in that head of yours and all of a sudden these dark clouds just coming and every cloud that comes across is just a new thought and your job is just to observe it don't have to react to it just observe it so as it comes in and it pops in your hair just like oh Ross have you done enough training just go yeah I have thanks yeah disappears and then all of a sudden 12 hours pass who Ross Sun's going down hypothermia is going to set in remember remember L Ness remember how bad that was oh I don't want to do that again now I've got this and it just keeps going past every cloud it's just your job is just to observe it not necessarily to react to it it's very hard to do especially when sleep deprived but that's been one of the biggest things it's like mindful resilience as as opposed to the goggin's Joo sort of lean in punch it in the face type approach very interesting so what were you are are you sort of embodying a curiosity there like is't that interesting that's an interesting thought that comes through and goodbye and it is exactly that yeah I think however I respond to it the main thing is just making sure that it doesn't alter my biochemistry so it's exactly that that a thought that is like punching it in the face or saying no you don't know me you know and shouting it that is going to do nothing but Spike cortisol your biochemistry is going to be out of whack it's fine again you can do that I think for a marathon or 12 hours but I've found personally and and it does work for some people I mean you know Yoko Goggins incredibly successful I found it doesn't work for me and and whether that is um sort of nature versus nurture obviously they have an incredible military background I am a you're more sensitive to cortisol yeah yeah and just a country bumpkin you know sort of swims around chesha in the countryside you know I'm a hobbit you know whereas they are very much you know they are Spartans they are warriors uh I am not you know so I found that you know maybe a bit more Courtney da who I'm a massive fan of as well I'm maybe more that you know you see her just in the pain cave smashing sweets having the best time and I think I looked at her and I go oh that's a bit more me yeah you know that that I found that approach Works a bit more what is being awake and in water from a a fatigue tiredness standpoint like what happens when you get 24 48 54 hours in yeah what's so interesting is it's not a steady decline you know it's it's an absolutely drop off a cliff you know so from anywhere from 24 hours from then um perceptual distortions hallucinations just straight up and that was something I was so familiar with with the the GB swim and you just kind of become really comfortable with it so um Chris Morgan really good friend of mine uh uh Olympic coach Olympic swim coach he kayed hundreds of miles in support of me on this and equally did not sleep and I want to say I think we were like um probably like 40 hours in I remember Chris is just kaying next to me and uh he just pulls up to my side I'm eating a banana on a break H and he just said Ross can I be honest with you I said yeah yeah no please do mate he goes I am tripping I went oh good what you seeing and he goes Seven Dwarves just over there they just chopping down they seem happy enough I went cool goes what about you I went oh yeah let the show begin I just put my goggles on and started sing and that's what it was you just again rather than being like no get out of my head I just put my goggles on and just went a it's going to be a fun night the original app VR Apple VR Pro exactly yeah well you had um I remember on the lock and S swim you were dogs weren't you asking like who are those dogs over there yeah yeah yeah I thought dogs to this day I swear dogs were swimming with me um one of the main ones as well I I get actually how uh sort of encouraging it could be though like for those who who have seen lot Ness it's just a long sort of stretch of water and that's surrounded by trees and at night you just see the silhouette of these trees these branches huge trees and I remember looking up at a banana break I'm just eating a banana everyone's checking on me I'm like you know 45 hours in and to this day I swear it looked like a cruise ship cuz you can imagine the tree line like a cruise ship I remember thinking that's so weird like why why is there a cruise ship like the Titanic I was like why is there a cruise ship on loock Nest I said regardless I hugely appreciate them just stopping off and and showing their support so I start talking to the trees thinking it's a cruise ship and then all of a sudden the branches start waving as well and it looks like people have come to the side of the cruise ship to wave and my girlfriend and my brother and my mom are watching as I'm there going thank you so much for your I'm getting choked I'm going thank you for your support don't forget we're protecting marine ecosystems and they're like oh yeah he's talking to the trees but it was also on that note I think what's really interesting is um they know it's going to happen like my girlfriend's amazing I've been with her 12 years she knows it's going to happen uh very good friends of mine like Chris Morgan like my brother they're like oh he's going to go a bit crazy let him that's fine but we know when to pull the plug they've learned to not deny the delusion exactly yeah they know when to pull the plug which is you know hypothermia cellulitis and various other things but if I'm talking to trees or seeing dogs L he's fine goldilock Zone this is exact we've got him right where we want him he's good what's the longest you've been without sleep by the way I mean I think I've there's certainly been a bunch of days I've done 24 hours you know back in the day when I was running nightclubs there was one particular day I remember I flew I got up at 4:00 a.m. flew to London ran a tough for uh pcal or aiel for like I think I remember seeing that ACH of influencers back in the day so I did that and then got back on a plane flew back to Newcastle and then ran one of our events and got in at 4 in the morning so that was a full 24 hours so that was busy uh I don't know man I mean I've been uh my energy my capacity to be able to deal with sleep deprivation now as I get into my 30s it's just so poor I do feel like I kind of tapped the tank driving back from Manchester at 2:30 in the morning after having run a club night so I feel like all of my late nights I just front loaded them into my 20s and I've got none left you know like I think Donald Trump believes that there's a number of heartbeats that you've got in your entire lifetime and if you do too much exercise they happen more quickly so um it's kind of the same as that but yeah I I don't know man I thinking about you being in just being in water just Treading Water because while you're eating talk to me about that talk to I was talking to a friend about this yesterday the Digest of discomfort that I have even if I just lie down too quickly after I've had a meal you know because vertically being upright allows gravity to help the digestive tract to get things from mouth esophagus down all the way through um what what are some of the unique challenges and how do you get around that that it's strange that of all of um the tests that have been done on me at Liverpool John mes University and LU University that was one of the biggest things that they came away with that they were just like um when you look at like Michael bels cam makoy one of the fastest sprinters Ben proud they all have amazing superpowers going back to that swimming superpower whether that is hyper extension uh Michael felt's ability to tolerate lactic um you know cam makoy crazy strong it just feels that when they were handing out superpowers they just went Ross can eat that was it genuinely so when people say you know how how do you eat and how do you I'm like that's literally all I do I I've never and when you say I can eat that means I can consume a good amount of food with minimal digestive discomfort and also absorb it and use it exactly that yeah yeah and then not only that actually I think what became really interesting on this particular swim is eating became a way of making sure we sort of staved off hypothermia at the same time as well because you're just that thermic effect of feeding just making sure just warm porridge oats just so you're being warm from the inside out what were you eating at that point we just hammered the the warm porridge oats and what was really interesting actually about this is um and I hope no one ever finds himself in this dilemma we were so cold on on the second morning the sun wasn't coming up for ages it was behind the mountains um water was so cold like I said it was 8 n degre and uh the team started to increase my feeding as well so it was rather than every 30 35 40 minutes was it was every 15 to 20 minutes just regularly and it was hyping hot porridge oats and what was so interesting is maso's hierarchy of needs that sort of pyramid at that point all I wanted was warmth that was it you know so as you got Mas hierarchy at the base you've got sleep warmth uh you know food shelter As you move up friends family as you move up job security As you move up feelings of prestige accomplishment um until you get to the very top philanthropy self-actualization I was so low down on that pyramid you could in that moment you could have offered me a brand new car a million pounds just one hot water bottle yeah do not I'd want the sun to come up over that mountain that is all I wanted and I think what was so interesting is in in that point I knew I wasn't going to give up I didn't want to end up in hospital and I and I I didn't want to give up so faced with that the only option was basically just to swim like crazy to heat the body up and during feeding strategies they were basically saying how hot do you want it and I was like it it needs to be as hot as tolerable so sat there in the middle of the Yukon I just there basically just drinking scolding hot porridge oats as I can feel it burning the tissue as it goes down but I would rather that than the hypothermia and it was a weird position to be in now sitting here in the comfort of the studio I had me something like a burning hot cup of coffee I oh Chris it's too warm yeah but in that moment I think it shows like humans are are really capable of amazing things I mean that was very small I'm I'm talking you know when you hear stories of Everest and you know these incredible stories that was very small but it gave me a glimpse into what humans you know could potentially do what you can endure with a greater goal hot porridge bananas is one of your favorites it really is so what else are you doing in order to hit and have you got any idea of macronutrient intake across the whole time or caloric intake not really I mean sure that some the dude that was throwing the bananas you can probably reverse engineer yeah yeah we've got a long list um and then also as well just shout out to my sponsors as well PhD nutrition because just gels electros they have something called beta fuel where it's just a really nice blend of sucros and fructose so you're basically not trying to throw one form of carbohydrate through the digestive they have different digestive sort of speeds so that again we made up a lot of that as well and then things got a little bit more creative when the sun came up and I could actually enjoy it a little bit more um a lot of the guys were having uh bison Burgers moous soup uh things got a little bit more creative and also I could then enjoy it a little bit more but there were certain periods and especially as well in in Canada and the Yukon the Sun never really goes down so even like your circadian rhythm is all over the place is that good given that you're not supposed to sleep I felt it was and then also as well what's interesting is um a lot of the team didn't sleep at all as well my medic Dr Tom was amazing Chris Morgan kayak um J Kennedy as well Expedition leader amazing but in some ways I'd say it was harder for them to not sleep because my face was constantly in water and it was 8° like it it hurt every time I put my face in it was just pins and needles to the face so what was really interesting is I actually found it easier to combat sleep deprivation you're being woken up with a splash of water in the face exactly yeah which is really weird like I said yeah sure it was harder swimming but I would say it was harder for them in the really nice warm sun on a boat that's kind of like Rocky it was harder for them to stay awake than it was me the sleep deprivation I didn't actually find that bad until immediately afterwards um there's video footage well we're going to release a whole YouTube series on it's amazing um but the doctor's talking to me just how me and you are talking now Chris and literally I would just like that in between sentences they ask how'd you feel I'm like yeah I know it's so bad um what about other supplementation caffeine any neut Tropics beta alanine any other spicy stuff what do you use so much yeah caffeine we were just literally talking about this as well because um we got into the grams people dealing milligrams I think the upper limit is 400 milligrams you know right and yeah so we would that's a really strong preworkout um we would getting into the grams yeah so over well over a th000 milligrams and then what was interesting I'm glad you picked up on that because at a certain point the body kind of goes what more do you want from us like you know there's there's no neurotransmitters left you've completely depleted them um Alpha GPC I found really works quite well yeah we've got an activated version of that in newtonic cognizant is activated Alpha GPC exact and I love that because and I don't know if anyone else has used it when swimming but I found like it it it just makes you happier staring at the bottom of a river or a sea and instead of swimming and I don't know if this is true of of running but certainly for swimming I found I'm happy for 10 hours and as I'm pulling through the water I'm like how's my high elbow catch oh that's a good feel for the water as I'm swimming I'm just more content with the process caffeine has always done that I've always responded really well to caffeine but Alpha GPC specifically and I hammered it for these three days usually um as per the teachings of huberman you know I sort of go on and off and sort of cycle it but for this we just went all out for those three days and then immediately afterwards like yeah I mean the come down there's an awful lot of uh substances going through you okay so you're using Alpha GPC you're using caffeine what else was in the mix and that was pretty much it to be fair just because you didn't want to spike anything too much you didn't want to it was trying to make sure that the entire event was kept like this you didn't need any adaptogens you didn't think that that would be useful or interesting no not having trial it in training we always say no debuts uh come race day you know and we we didn't have time you know to trial any of them I think it worth stating is is this is just kind of ignited a curiosity in me for other stuff and also as well even Liverpool John mors University they were making some fantastic suggestions as well they were talking about like even um on swims where the sun does go down just punching light into your retina you know liter as oh how fascinating yeah yeah yeah maybe uh a couple of little red light things on the back of the knee attached to the wet suit you know I mean like exactly that be so interesting it's it's cool that you've done the whole thing uh from a supplementation pharmacological standpoint on uh caffeine and basically cyto colines like it just get a Col energic into you make sure that you feel good in the brain but you're not spiking anything too much I do think you know I think the most I've had of of neonic is maybe five in a day when I've been doing just back to back to back to back to back episodes somewhere and um the come down off the back of that is relatively gentle but there are certain compounds that you could throw in that would just [ __ ] destroy you and I guess you're thinking as well about digestive discomfort how is this mixing with the other things that I'm eating that's a really good point yeah that's why it was just trying to keep it like this the entire time and also I think as well um as it went on I found I was just metabolizing it so quickly so initially um Half-Life caffeine 8 hours uh I would certainly feel the effects if I had 200 milligrams in the early stages of the swim I could probably feel that for 4 hours you know feel pretty good uh powerfully pulling through the water improving the ionic environment within the working muscles neurotransmitters chemicals in the brain felt all of that going into the second day two hours towards the end you know over that 48 hour period just it was just endless amount yeah it was just it like yeah so it was it was just I suppose if we were to draw a graph it was like initially we and then it just went like this doesn't matter how much more you put in the front did not matter I you haven't mentioned much about protein what is the role of protein intra workout in an endurance event like this I'm glad you asked because we didn't I trying to force so much through the digestive system it was Fats and carbs you know so it was really just trying to look at anything that would give you an energy substrate so protein at that particular point less important like it but on the GB swim when it was a stage swim so much more important you had to have your protein you're going to break everything down over exactly exactly whereas I think for this it was almost like controlled catabolic breakdown of the body you were just asking so much of the body it was going to be a mess you know and immediately afterwards shout out to the the guys at dwson hospital you know I rocked up uh kidneys were good actually surprisingly you know we thought they would have taken a battering what from um just from uh well dehydration essentially from not trying to get much in because it was weird I touch upon that a little bit now I got sunburn with hypothermia which you mentioned rare blend yeah they were excited this is fantastic we've never seen this before but it was amazing how much I was sweating and my skin was taking a toll when they got me out I was red I was burning up despite being in 8° water for what was 55 54 hours so it was weird how that was all kind of going on uh rabdo again uh they couldn't test for that CU they couldn't test for creatine kise I reckon it was through the roof uh were you taking creatine throughout this actually no never used that it was just again for what was going to be a 60 hour swim it's not quite the same as a 00 met Sprint you know I sort of sat there and was like it's not going to be that useful I think that was the thing that was the thing stripping back all of my supplementation as well to know that when you're on the boat whatever you're using is is there you know what I mean so you have a very sort of narrow band yeah so okay so you you you get to the hospital little bit of rabdo or a lot of rabdo I think there was probably a lot of rabo okay yeah lot of rabdo um hypothermia with sunburn sunburn anything else I think that was oh and then cuts to the back of the leged oh yeah explain that yeah so that was really weird it was um we put um like Baseline and I believe I think it's called lanoline I think yes yeah we put that breastfeeding and used that to like fix their skin yeah which is amazing I put that all around my neck and and that actually was was pretty good um even I'm so sorry about this even put it down my bum crack to make sure that was all okay as well there's no shaving brilliant like completely apart from the toilet mishap was was perfect but the one place was the back of the legs CU When treading water so sort of like a breaststroke leg kick or egg beater leg kick for those who play water polo um it was sort of riding up and in the crease of the back of the leg um so that was the weirdest injury that I took I just never thought it looks deep the image on Instagram is not how is it now it's pretty good I mean I'll take out my trousers if you want me to get them down let's have a look come on show me show me this is what this is what the people are here for that does not look good no that's that is healed can we bring up a picture of before yeah that's true that's good oh dude wow that's [ __ ] nly oh my that's actually healed I showed rich rich R he was like yeah that's pretty good okay well I'm still um what was that photo of your hand oh yeah well I think it was like one of the things that the doctors were most concerned with is the compression for so long like if you saw a picture of my face my cheeks I look like a hamster yes cuz that was the only thing that was kind of like protruding out of the wet suit so that just kind of went like this and then I think my hands my hands were just damp and cold for what was eight well 8 degree water you know 55 hours so that the hands had just turned like sponge like and yeah that was that was but they've recovered look absolutely fine normal hands yeah it looks like a weird PR aesthetic rubber glove it was in the image that you put through it was we'll get back to talking to Ross in one minute but first I need to tell you about magic spoon magic spoon you probably already know magic spoon for the super popular high protein cereal that has got 75,000 five-star reviews well now they've turned their cereal into treats that taste just like those classic crunchy cereal bars that you had growing up but with way more protein and far less sugar it is a Tasty guilt-free Time Machine back to your childhood hitting a protein goals is never easy but magic spoon Treats have a crispy and Airy texture that tastes phenomenal and every treat has 11 g of protein one gr of sugar and four net carbs so you can actually feel good about what you're eating they're great if you're on the road if you don't have time to get enough food into yourself throughout the day or if you're just looking for a midnight snack they've got six delicious nostalgic flavors including marshmallow chocolate peanut butter blueberry double chocolate birthday cake and strawberry milkshake so if you want to make hitting your protein go a treat rather than a chore head to your nearest grocery store right now to pick up magic spoon's brand new protein pack treats what have you learned uh across all of the swims you mentioned that sort of interesting perspective you have on resilience you wrote a great book art of resilience um give me your overview of resilience and and how you've come to think about it from a a human standpoint yeah I I say in the book um that resilience is suffering strategically managed and what I mean by that is you know so often I think people think in terms of gritting your teeth Manning up you know and and for me it it it just wasn't quite right to sort of say that that's not that's not an approach that I found works it's like me and you go for a run right now um if we're 5K into the run and we're going to run a marathon you turn to me and say Ross I got a pebble in my shoe I won't go resilience man up run with it and wear it down no like just just let's stop and take the pebble out Chris you know what I mean it's it's suffering strategically managed and I think um especially with the latest swim as well with the Yukon it is really nice if people say oh Ross is really tough he's really resilient I'm like no no it's just suffering strategically managed you know uh neurotransmitters chemical in the brain caffeine depleted of muscle glycogen carbs uh I need more than that MCTS uh I'm getting cold make sure that the porridge oats are turned up you know mean it's anything that's going on Limited limitations and I think um to go on from a little bit of a tangent it it it's kind of what I I love the heroic age of Antarctic exploration you with admon Robert Falcon Scott Shackleton and when Robert Falcon Scott and admon the Norwegian uh Falcon Scott being the British guy when they were racing to the South Pole it was so interesting that admon with Norwegian efficiency you know he turned up his guys were trained Olympic ski there's an Olympic skier in his team as well who led from the front everybody was made to practice in skis not not only that as well they turned up with dogs this is something that he learned when going to the Arctic Circle as well from the indigenous people there so he knew that if he got to the South Pole with this number of dogs that on the way back he could eat a certain number of dogs for sustenance and the British at the time were like oh that's ungentlemanly like eating dogs that's terrible and then equally when you look at the British Expedition they brought ponies that ended up falling through the ice and they had to feed them to the to the orcas they brought uh mechanical skis that just broke down tins of food that were just completely useless and poisonous as soon as they arrived and I think it was so interesting that learning from that I was very much Scotty of the Antarctic when it came to Loch Ness and tresino you know I turned up and it was like right let's give this a good go whereas for the Yukon I was very much trying to be adanson you know this Norwegian efficiency and um that's one of the biggest things to come back if I was to add a chapter to the art of Brazilians it would probably be uh that story I read it uh I think I messaged you about this but I snap I ruptured my kiles playing Cricket the most British way to do it um four years ago at the end of uh the end of covid and I put together and this is the same if anybody is going through good for physical stuff probably also all right for emotional stuff uh obstacle is the way by Ryan holiday art of resilience by yourself on Audible I think I go go audible because that's cool uh and then um resurfaced the documentary about Andy Murray is uh hip replacement where he gets a ball and socket it's like a steel ball and a a a ceramic socket hip replacement and those three that's my stack you know yours was caffeine uh MCTS and cyto cholines um mine was those three and um that was the thing that really kind of set the tone for the rest of my recovery um but it is it's such a unique perspective on resilience and I think that we are definitely in an age of um glorification of the tough heroic man and the main reason being that it feels like something that's very absent it feels revolutionary it feels um counterculture in a world which is very convenient and you go from air conditioned house to cooled office um it feels traditional in a sort of wholesome way to talk about just gritting your teeth and getting through it um but given the choice I mean what did you do for the swim you didn't swim upstream when it came to what you were doing mentally you didn't try and swim upstream and it feels like that's kind of the philosophy that you've taken yeah yeah yeah I love what you said that yeah I never actually never thought about it like that but that um this is why I wanted to appreciate coming on here because I'm still deconstructing the Yukon so this is almost just like therapy it's not podcast at all please tell me about your ancestral drama yeah no but that is exactly it I didn't really think about it but yeah figurative metaphorically yeah it was very much trying to uh work with the river this is going to sound so strange as well but it it really is like quite spiritual when you do and that that's the only way I can describe it for want of a better term but with the Yukon it just it it almost provided everything that we needed so so the glacial milks the glacial lakes they're melting which made sure that we had like a stronger current uh we had a brief window those two days where the sun actually came out uh it just felt like the Yukon was like you know what like if you're crazy enough to come and try this we we'll we'll guide you well after the first two attempts that you've done for this you would oh something Mother Nature was all right I've kicked you in the kicked you in the dick twice here we go I'll give you a nice little helping hand explain to me where your mind is you know you're doing 6 hours on 6 hours off if it was great British Swim you're doing 15 minutes or half an hour 45s what are you doing with your mind for that long I the biggest thing that I've taken away is solely focusing on the process and this is something I actually learned from the raw Marines because and anyone listening will be able to understand when you're focusing on the outcome you're not actually focusing on the process so if you are rowing you're on a treadmill something whatever it is if you're looking at the gym clock and being like how much longer have I got oh my god I've only done 15 minutes no no no no you're focusing on the outcome you're not focusing on the process if you're running on a treadmill Focus am I four foot striking my heel striking how's my Cadence that's what you should be focusing on when I'm swimming how's my high elbow catch am I catching am I finishing my stroke what's my leg kick doing that's the process the moment I immediately turn to the boat and start saying how much further have we got how far have we gone th those metrics are important but if you keep on asking that you're not focusing on the process if you're not focusing on the process you're not focusing on the outcome but the weird thing is by just solely focusing on the pro process the outcome becomes inevitable how do you avoid tapping into dopamine's a hell of a drug and the where am I where was I how far have I gone oh this is exciting that's something that fuels motivation and for a lot of people that's a Temptation now is there a mantra that when that voice comes into your head say why don't we just ask I'll just and you know that it's going to rip you out of this process driven mentality that you say is optimal is there something that you do to bring yourself back to that not necessarily I think it's just really blindly and stubbornly thinking of the process it was actually I I love um huberman he talked about there was a study and I hope I don't butcher this but he was talking about how he there was a study where they had people on a treadmill and they had them run in kind of this kind of like Corridor and in this Corridor they said you run as fast as you want so they did and as they're running in this Corridor the sort of pillars going past them were either sped up or slowed down and what it was showing VR of some kind exactly that exactly that and it was sort of saying how they were manipulating The Columns moving faster if it the columns are going faster they think they're running faster if they go slow they're like oh my God is that as fast as I'm running and that's one of the biggest things that I took away one from the GB swim and this certainly on the GB swim because when you're swimming across like the Moray fur for instance there's no land there's no landmarks you can't see anything also not only that it say it was kind of like completely overcast you've not even got the moon so it is pitch but you're swimming in a black hole and you're like am I even moving like what is going on and I've even seen that I remember in um St Lucia once I did a swim and uh got caught in a bad counter current and I swam as hard as I could for 4 hours this was after an 18 hour swim and I did not move for those four hours I was swimming as hard as I could to stay on the same spot so so that's like running a marath well an ultramarathon for 18 hours and somebody just putting a treadmill in the middle of the road and going I'll just run on that for 4 hours it was not and then I remember stopping turning to the captain and I said how are we doing said Ross I'm I'm so sorry we've not made any progress for 4 hours I remember turning and I won't repeat quite what I said my language was quite colorful I was like what do you mean we've not moved I was complaining for about 20 seconds and he just said so sorry sorry Ross can I just interrupt you there I went what and he goes the whole time you've been complaining you've gone back 200 meters I was like and that in that moment really taught me the ocean does not care but sorry going back to that that the experiment that I heard from hubman I thought that was so interesting as well because I'm just literally like those columns going past sometimes I'm like don't don't tell me because you might turn around and go oh Ross you're going really slow and that that bad day exactly that will crush me or you're doing really well and it's a roller coaster I'm almost like I don't want to know because I'm solely focused on the process I don't want an outcome how do you stop yourself from giving up oh that is a really good question one thing that I found going back to maso's hierarchy is sometimes you're at the base of that pyramid so how you stop yourself from giving up is by looking after your primitive needs water hydration food warmth that's it so if you're running an ultramarathon in the Arctic or swimming down the Yukon river it doesn't matter look after those needs but then one thing that I found that gets really interesting is sometimes you almost flip maso's hierarchy because sometimes you almost forgo the base of the pyramid for a higher purpose and I think that happened a few times in the Yukon where I just had to flip it I I was looking going okay hypothermia is Now setting in I wasn't just shivering from my sort of extremities it was it was in your core anyone who has ever experienced that you are shaking from your son and I was like right that's not good news so I knew at that point that my base needs those primitive needs weren't being C for so I just had to basically just flip and remind myself of the higher goal what's that which was the higher purpose which was the record which was cont ruting to sports science it was all of those things that we all set out to do in the in in the first place and I think that's what gets really interesting that if you have that higher purpose a bigger cause then you can flip maso's hierarchy but it takes a really big cause it's got to be important to you if it's not you can't flip maso's hierarchy have you thought or have you designed a framework where you maximize your intrinsic motivation you're not thinking about the extrinsic stuff is this something you did in advance is there a mindfulness technique practically how do you do this that's a really good question I think I've become far more intrinsically motivated I I don't mind admitting that with the GB swim I was very much inspired by Captain Webb 1875 first guy to cross the English Channel and he did it for records and accolades that's what he did it for he became a celebrity of his time he was on matchboxes and everything it was amazing and um I still love the story did it with his brother and his cousin feeding him um beef bro and Brandy and he swam breast stroke all the way across because front craw was ungentlemanly like at the time love that but he did it for records cuz people said he couldn't you know and he made good money from it as well you know that that was why he essentially did it and I think I've always said the GB swim was my captain web moment but after that again looking at Mao's hierarchy that was I suppose feelings of accomplishment and Prestige and things I found like I I don't need another one of those and actually it would be a little bit weird it would actually make me feel weird weird to just constantly go if they were solely for records and Personal Achievement because you be like what are you doing and so so that's why I've become a joke I've almost become like a mercenary for Charities if there's a good cause then I'm like Wicked I'll put my goggles on you know so whether that is the lock neswim of ocean conservation or more recently with the um with the shark documentary for Disney which I know we'll come on to um it's just knowing that that yeah there's a there's a higher purpose and also being intrinsically motivated for that as well I think um with Ness and tresino it was really interesting how back in my youth I like to think I've matured a little bit back in the youth it was very black and white did I get a record did did I not success and failure whereas after L Ness and tresina I was really proud of those swims so when a lot of people came over to me and they' sort of go Ross are you okay i' be like yeah oh sorry I'm like don't be sorry as a team we had a great time got some great data contributed that back to universities um and I was personally really happy with what we achieved I couldn't have said that previously and um I think that's maybe that's maturing there's a degree of uh completion and sort of validation that you got from the GB swim once that's done it sort of opened you up to yeah transcend that a little bit I think exactly that yeah swims now are very much uh did I enjoy it uh did did it mean a lot to me did I push myself did I get something from it and um whether that was in Tesino swimming through a a heat wave or Lo Ness and surviving 53 hours uh they were all achievements that I was like oh that was was was pretty good yeah Standalone in and of itself that was impressive yeah yeah didn't get any records no achievements or anything like that but personally there are there's stories that I talk about quite fondly I think for intrinsic reasons there's a question I've always wanted to ask you and I've been thinking about how to put it across for a long time like yours how I how I can ask this without without trying to create too much pressure so I'm I'm quite fascinated by your demeanor you're uh very positive even in the face of suffering it seems uh laughing and smiling and so on and so forth I've never seen and it may just not make the edit or whatever but I've never seen a Darkness side of you I've never seen agitation I've never seen rage I've never seen um bitterness or resentment uh I've never seen a lot of the things that typically drive very high performers and endurance athletes and there's a degree of suspicion that I have around anybody who I don't see that dark side to do you have a dark side yeah you're not the first person to say that actually a fair a few people have said that as well um I I definitely think it's a uh sliding scale so to sit here and say oh no I'm Smiley all the time no no no no no and I can show you pictures of the Yukon where my face is swollen you know and I you I'm not having a great time with that said I think one of the nicest things that the uh the team in Canada said was it was a great swim Ross but what we were most impressed with is you were still saying thank you when we were throwing you bananas 50 hours in and like oh like I I can talk about it now and not get uh so choked up but but that would have made my dad so proud and I think the thing is is um if if anyone had met my dad they they would probably understand why and and it's um for those who don't know I talk about in The Art of resiliance and I can talk about it now and not cry I hope touchwood but um when I swimming around Great Britain it was going around Cape Roth and and my dad was was diagnosed with with stage four cancer and I I was like that's it I'm I'm done I'm just I'm just going to go on land I'm just I just want to give him a hug I want to be with their family and he he said to me no no no Ross you you can come home and you can give me a hug but it's got to be via Margate you have to finish the swim um so that's why at the end of the GB swim when people see you you see my dad uh in a wheelchair as well cuz it was it was sort of the cancer was pretty bad at that time the tumors were so bad that they couldn't walk and and doctors said there's no way you can be around crowds like you have no immune system Richard like you can't be there and he looked all the doctors dead in the ey and he was he was always so polite always handled himself like so well he just said I appreciate the medical advice um I really do uh I don't want to uh go against it but I will be there on the beach when my son swims around Great Britain you know and that's why he was there and um I think it was his just I don't know what it's called humility gr whatever but even even when he was diagnosed with cancer and they got really bad I remember we went to go and visit him in uh in in hospital and he' cut up all of his face because he's a tennis coach and he cut up all his face cuz he fell on the tennis court and he went for a point and we all went in me my brothers my mom and he's there and his face is like oh bloody and I was like Dad what happened and and the tumors had got so bad he couldn't run basically and then he just goes oh just had a bit of a fall I was like oh Dad and he goes no no I'm fine everyone's you know making too much of a fuss and then there was a silence and then I went did you win the point dad went oh yeah yeah yeah everyone burst out laughing that was very quickly followed by the doctor saying Richard you know this is this is terminal you're not going to be able to walk again and he said that's absolutely fine and the very next day took to the tennis court in a wheelchair and just started teaching wheelchair tennis you know he he just growing up with that that's one of the reasons I'll always say thank you if you give me a banana and I've got cellulitis and hypothermia and I'm 50 hours into a swim because ultimately my dad went faced with stage 4 cancer did not batter an eyelid and just went that's absolutely fine I'll just coach from a wheelchair and just went straight back out there and it's that if if you understand that that's the first time I really told that story and then that's the biggest thing that I think um oh this is going off on a complete tangent I'm sorry but it's you you know they talk about you just inherit certain genes and stuff and you whether it's spiritual psychological J whatever sometimes I just hear hear my dad as well you know I'm 50 hours in and then I'm like if you do not say thank you for that banana like I can just see my dad's face just being like you know and that's what he'd be most proud of so yeah after that swim it was it was on Father's day as well the Yukon thing so it was uh yeah I've done pretty well there not to cry it's impressive it's a very very meaningful story thanks for asking that yeah cuz that I can talk about it now without like it was three years ago we lost him so I can talk about it now and and yeah it's um someone said something lovely because it was like he was my guiding North Star when he was here and every single swim I would speak to him like I said he was a tennis coach um taught wheelchair tennis uh visually impaired tennis uh you know he he even when he was he was fine he would just blindfold himself go out there and just start playing tennis you know so he would just play visually impaired tennis just just to make tennis available to all and um as a coach I would you I'm going to s around Great Britain and he just sat there at the the dinner table Sunday roast dinner and he just started doing the calculations was like you need to swim this so he was my North Star and then what's what's interesting is now he's not physically here but he's still sort of that Northstar because I always think what would he saying you know you can actually for anyone who's lost a parent or anyone closer them they'll know probably what I'm saying you just you literally hear their voice you know that yeah it's just I'm going to swim the Yukon I can hear my dad I can hear what he's saying like now you know it's just yeah thanks for listening to that monologue Chris what a fantastic imprint man what a hero yeah yeah so that that's it I think when people go it's not because I'm completely Smiley and stuff it's because my dad was the most stoically strong person I've ever met so polite and uh yeah e even yeah in the latter stages was still coach he's carried on coaching and even when he was completely bedridden he was just doing paperwork and everything I remember I remember he rung up um because he needed to sort his accounts I never forget this conversation as well I rung up the accounts um and he was like oh I'm going to file my accounts early cuz he just didn't want to bother my mom with it you know so he wanted to make sure all the paperwork was sorted and they went oh Richard you don't have to sort it uh for another six months and he just went no no I'm aware of that but I will probably be dead and they were like oh my God yeah just so you know matter of fact and I'm I'm so glad I'm talking about because I can talk about it fondly now but even when we were sorting out his funeral and they said um you can be buried in anything you want and he was like anything and they went yeah pretty much anything and he had a natural burial where they um create a sort of coffin and it goes in the ground and it B degrades and you become one with the Earth and stuff and that was my dad he was so sort of thoughtful like that and then they said yeah you can pretty much have anything you want and uh he looked at the designs and then eventually again we're all on the phone it just goes can I be buried in a tardis cuz he loved Doctor Who and he's just having these conversations so I think that's it you you know I love stasis and um you know the last thing that you can choose is your attitude to things I'm watching dad in that particular scenario and his attitude towards death and how he just completely greet I say my dad taught me how to live but he also taught me how to die and I don't want that to sound morbid because I think sometimes in the west we have a bit of a you know yeah don't talk about that a bit of a weird relationship with de whereas dad just taught me just to um yeah just you know yeah thanks for listening to that c sorry that was a long answer not at all not at all I I'm I'm glad that I got to see that Insight in other news this episode is brought to you by momentus you might have heard me say that I took my testosterone from 495 to 1006 last year and one of the supplements I used throughout that was tonat allei I first heard Dr Andrew hman talk about the really impressive effects which sound great until he realized that most supplements don't actually contain what they're advertising momentus makes the only inform Sports certified tonat Ali on the planet which means it is tested so ously that even professional athletes can use it and that is why I partnered with them because they make the most carefully tested highest quality supplements on Earth so if you're not performing in the gym or the bedroom the way that you want tonat Ali is a great research back place to start best of all there is a 30-day money back guarantee so you can buy it completely risk-free try it and if you do not like it for any reason they will give you your money back and they ship internationally right now you can get a 20% discount by going to the link in the show notes below or heading to live momentum /od wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout that's L IV m o m n us.com slod wisdom and modern wisdom a checkout that's one of the best bits of British culture at its best I think you know the kind of stiff upper lip britishism that you know uh Keep Calm and Carry On like that's what it feels like it embodies uh and been since moving to America I have been quite critical of of British culture because I don't think that we fully embrace the best bits as well or as frequently as perhaps we should anymore and yet you look back and Antarctic Adventures Crossings of the channel exploration R find you know we have such an illustrious history of people who were able to withstand suffering take risks uh be adventurous and um yeah it feels like your dad is a individual from a bygone era like a personality from a a past time yeah that's yeah that is exactly it that all those uh what are now considered oldfashioned ideals you know he just had in abundance and then that's what me and my my brothers and my mom yeah still have I love what you said there as well with with um you know Robert Falcon Scott as well obviously perishing in the Antarctica and I forget it's going to annoy me now but that particular part of his crew and there was one guy who had Gang Green on his foot and um you know turned to the team knew that he was slowing them down and so one night in a tent as a blizzard was just coming in he just turned to his team and he just said gentlemen I will be going for a walk I may be sometime and he just walked to his death knowing that he was holding up the team you know there was I I I completely get what you mean there was an element of that that's quite proudly British you know that sort of yeah what's your favorite um retelling or what's your favorite book of of those Crossings I think shackleton's hard to beat yeah Ur by Al laning oh one of my favorite oh but what he did as well what the entire team did certainly from that navigation from the Antarctic Peninsula through to the islands it was just crazy how they talk about how they had like 5 Seconds of coverage where the clouds cleared and they just looked and went okay Navigator went I think it's that way and it's like you miss oh my God yeah I get honestly I get chill and all of shackleton's stories as well and how he just instilled in his men but but equally to that point um Tom creen as well the unsung hero the uh of Arctic and and polar exploration Tom K an Irish um Explorer what was really interesting it's only until recently that historians have kind of looked and going hang on this name just keeps on appearing on loads of expeditions and it was just this guy who was just like bulletproof like hard as nails but it was always interesting that coming back from Expeditions obviously adanson and Shackleton were like no no no one says anything until I've published my book you know they could write they could read but there were people within that team like Tom creen who was not very good at writing read I believe he might have been a literate and there's still I think there's a pub called the South Pole that he took all of his earnings came back and started a pub you know in Island it's you just get stories like that which are amazing then Shackleton just keeping you know Christmas pudding in his sock and then just pulling it out of the opportune moment to rise spirits in the team is just like yeah there's stories like that that um us as a team going down the Yukon we were very much like what shakon do what would ad do right now yeah you mentioned your love for stoicism Ryan holiday was Sting in that seat not long ago I'm always interested with people who have immersed themselves in a a philosophy and a worldview for a little while and then matured to see what they've retained and what it is that they still rely on because when something is new to you everything's exciting everything's sexy you know you've got the like dichot of control and oh yeah but it's thoughts are not thing believing makes them so like you know you've got this huge big Buffet of new insights what have you held on to from stoicism that even six years five years after beginning to write a book on it you still use I think it's the stories more than anything I think so often people say it's you remember not what people say but what they do and I think Marcus aelius is probably one of like the biggest Inspirations by all written accounts not a very well man you know survived Wars assassinations never complained you know and so this idea of like everything that he enjoed uh I just so often just find myself being like what would Marcus aelius be doing right now again it's just that idea of um admitting adversity with a smile you know just being like my dad you know I I think it's that idea so yeah it's it's stories it's people it's what they embodied and I also just love that Marcus aradius never wrote it to be a bestselling book it was just his musings it was his diary and it's crazy that years and years later people are going oh my God that's so applicable now it was an operating system for the brain and that sounds so strange like because so often we don't know how to run our own brains and that sounds really weird because it's not taught in school but Marcus aelius did a pretty good job and it's essentially Timeless what he produced yeah I really do uh I I really do find myself going back to the lessons that I learned when I first started personal development and and self-growth that you keep on Reinventing the wheel around things that you already know and then you find something and you realize that's very interesting it's a rewording of an Insight that I learned in 2018 and I'm just sort of bringing this same thing up over and over and um yeah I think that there's a a really big argument for embedding what you already know after you've done a good bit of self-work yeah embedding what you already know as opposed to trying to acquire more the doe mean from trying to acquire more is exciting in some ways but I think a lot of the time You' you already have the answers after you've done it for long enough agreed and do you find though as well that you think there's times where you go I got it sorted life feels great you go I know how it all works I am infallible nothing can touch me something then happens you go oh God no I I I have permanent uh impostor syndrome so I I'm I'm on I'm I'm on a Perpetual dreadmill of not knowing what I'm doing it's idiot it's all the way up how high I how high I climb um but yeah I I do know what you mean that you've you Josh weit skin from the art of learning calls it Tighter and Tighter circles and this is the guy that seeking Bobby Fisher was written about so he's a chess Prodigy and then lets that go and becomes a Chinese Push Hands uh world champion lets that go and then takes up a combination of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and E foiling uh and tries to become a world champion at that too and I love the idea of Tighter and Tighter circles he basically refers to the increasing resolution with which you look at the dexterity of anything any Pursuit that you do as your capacity increases as you become better at what you're doing the way that you look at it and the the grace and and the the the bar that you try and get yourself over becomes ever higher it becomes ever more deaf and the way that you try and do this thing it's the stroke is even more beautiful there's even fewer ripples in the water and um that's a infinite game it's a a way that allows you to perpetually be improving but I often think about titer and titer circles when you believe that you've reached Mastery but then you just look at the same Pursuit with a sharper set of eyes more close better magnified and you actually realize oh there's games within games here yeah yeah I'm you know what I'm so glad you asked that just because well going off on a slight can I talk about shark documentary absolutely oh amazing okay this so so for those who don't know um well this this will probably be out when it it's probably on TV now how exciting so for two years I've been working on this documentary Shar versus Ross Edgley so it appears on National Geographic and Disney plus and oh my God it was it was the best thing I've done like the best project to be involved in just essentially because I love what you said there the realm of conventional Sports Science I've been studying it for over two decades from L University right up until now started Sports Nutrition Brands and everything and I felt I fully understood a lot of things you know I was I feel pretty good in this the whole concept of of shark versus Ross Edgley is me trying to take four sharks and compete against them so National Geographic came to me they were like Ross you love a challenge I was I do love a challenge they said cool we want you to Polar us out the water so jump out the water like a white shark the ones that hunt off South Africa and jump out and grab seals we want you to eat as much as a tiger shark we want you to withstand as many gForce as you can set agility as a hammerhead shark and we want you to swim as fast as a mako shark in my head I was like a I reckon I would do all right especially the eating for instance I was like oh you know so let's take eating for an example I was like right good so tiger sharks can just basically migrate over like thousands of miles across oceans just completely famine and they're just able to just go for miles and miles and miles with no food but then when they do find something because of the unique shape of their mouths they can Chow Down on a whale carcasses just like just thousands of calories so I had to do the same so I basically went to Lu under medical supervision lost as much weight as I could and then in 24 hours managed to put on 22b it was amazing Chris so I ate 40,000 calories it was amazing and I felt pretty good about that I was like that's good right 40,000 calories against the tiger shark I reckon I'm competing we went out to the Bahamas Mike height house World leading expert in tiger sharks amazing we took a giant lollipop the size of kind of this seat here went down fed it to a tiger shark it bit the lollipop and then we were able to measure its mouth and how many if that was whale blubber how many calories it could eat in a single bite did 20,000 calories two bites and it's beaten you yeah exactly godamn it you win again Mother Nature it's exactly it so I became fascinating this went down a rabbit hole all of a sudden polarising out the water using a monofin as well so again I've got to learn how to do that Allison toer World leading expert in white shark she's amazing and I never forget feeling pretty good I've been training hard for this as well like basic that was why I cut all that weight my power to weight ratio last year was amazing I felt amazing I was like this is going to be brilliant I'm going to impress Allison so much she's watched white sharks jump out of South afca down five meters Polaris as high as I can get I look at her her reaction underwhelmed she said Ross that's really good for a naked shaven ape you know but you have this clumsy skeletal system your 40 45% muscle a white shark is is up to 65% muscle the cartilage is so flexible these propul forces just go all through this tail so again I was like right Fair one not very good then I thought right Hammerheads fine I'll take on a hammerhead when Hammerheads because of the unique shape of their heads were able to just withstand so many GeForce as they spin so they went Ross we're going to send you up in an RF fighter pilot plane Green's Greenfield one of the Europe's greatest RF fighter pilots sends me up goes Ross this is one g w this is two G's W 3 G's I am just decorating the inside of the really with my breakfast oh no yeah again and and he was just like yeah Hammerheads you know 10 up to 10 G's just casually as they're hunting just on the scene what did you get up to in terms of G's honestly I say two to three and I was tapping out green is Greenfield I hope I get this right he says he's done up to 9 to 10 more I think and and what was amazing is I was like am I just a massive wimp do people have a genetic sort of of propensity or to to to uh predetermined to be good or about it he says yeah an element and he was like you're pretty bad yeah but all of all of the capacity went to your stomach exactly exactly and then um moo sharks as well this one was amazing you know the the fastest sharks in the world um what was really interesting training at uh L University the English Institute of sport hammering training as a sprinter just trying to get faster and faster faster over 25 M and then eventually like look we've got to think like shark and over long migrations they'll use water colons tidal currents everything to just move faster so we found this amazing current basically just off the coast of Wales uh and jumped in and just absolutely gunned it um felt amazing uh still was woefully bad compared to how fast did you go uh I off the top of my head I think it was over 10 miles per hour but I believe a makeo is like 45 so I I think I've got those metrics right I was I was like a quarter so you were defeated at each different stage by a shark badly 90% of Americans are not getting all of the nutrients that they need every day to be healthy and we all know that food is always first but no one has the perfect diet and science keeps showing us that our bodies need more nutrients and they need the support consistently every 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just basically had to exercise for 24 hours non-stop uh but to to sort of accelerate that and obviously my physiology is very different to that of the Sharks but it was the same idea of just depleting energy reserves so there's this idea of exercising to deplete muscle glycogen but at the same time as well and as humans I had to dehydrate myself as well so L University had this uh this heat chamber an altitude chamber they just cranked that up to basically Kona you know the the the famous uh Triathlon you up to those temperatures and they just locked me in there for like 12 hours yeah and I was just sweating depleted a muscle GL started cramping void of electrolytes there's a there's a clip as well like on my my my entire stomach just went into cramp like the my my sort of you know uh stomach around the just the obliques everything just went into contraction what are you feeling like at the time oh horrendous and I think that was it I was trying to get into the psychology of a tiger shark and I think it's interesting because we humans have kind of lost that I think I've posted some clips on social media and people were like that's nuts that's crazy I'm like is it because our ancestors would have just said that was Monday you know I mean that's not a big deal they would they would have just done that you know this ability to suffer like we humans are actually really really good at that um so it felt disgusting and then I think what was really interesting and what surprised me is afterwards I thought oh my God like as soon as I have to put on weight I am going Pizza Burgers ice cream I'm going cheesecake the first thing I wanted was just to to curl up in a corner with the big ice bottle of water that's all I wanted and again going back to that primitive need I think what was also really interesting is um having depleted myself so much and for anyone sort of listening they might experience this as well when you're dieting and you're not having crazy hyper palatable Foods anything tastes amazing you know you you can give me a raw stick of broccoli and I'd have been like oh my God that's unbelievable so in that moment not even flavored water I just wanted water ice cold water water and I saw liters of that off but there's no calories in water exactly yeah but you did 40,000 calories plus all of the fluids that you needed to replace is exactly that yeah yeah so first off it was just water cuz that was just so easy you've done 24 hours around about 12 of it was in the hot altitude SAA yep what else do you do for the 12 hours uh swimming a lot and then running around the track a lra in a sweatsuit as well okay okay so this was kind of a little bit mimicking a MMA fighters w hurt a little bit but way more aggressive it's exactly it actually yeah certainly with um anyone who's doing mixed martial arts they're trying to basically look after their body cuz they never got to fight the next day whereas uh mine was just very much just like yeah ruin your body as much as possible do deplete it okay and then did you sleep or did you immediately begin eating badly yeah yeah I'm talking like I probably got two hours my body was it was incapable of sleep I was so hungry so dehydrated the body just wouldn't go to sleep the body it was at or flight cortisol was probably for biochemically I would have loved to have seen what was happening then like they would have just gone this is disgusting and then wake him up up in the morning like I said the very first thing it was just water but then once your body had basically gone okay we've had enough of that then the hunger kicked in and it just went crazy but initially it was really interesting because the nutritionists at L University were like whoa whoa whoa you got to hold your stomach is like this right now it's just gone into a ball like we need to basically replenish muscle um muscle gling but very slowly electrolyte bites and then once we've done that that was probably 4 hours are very carefully controlled in terms of like the micronutrients the macronutrients and the volume uh it just got silly and and then it's like that primitive Instinct just kicked in where what did you eat everything I'm my we honestly we just had like deliveries on speed di so I started with pizza uh sort off like two burgers fish and chips uh and then it just started to get really weird as well you know the the share and cinnamon loaves MH yes I got like five of those and then 8 lers of custard and I was just basically just Tak and just dipping and putting that in ice cream then also became my best friend because it got to the point where I wanted calories but I wanted to continue the hydration or something soft on my pette um and then that night when I slept uh again I had six cinnamon loaves just stacked next to the bed um with what was 8 lers of custom but in a bucket so I basically just had the cinema loaf sounds like a nicard avocado video it was amazing and I just yeah scooped bang put that away and then because you you're able to put away anywhere between I hope I get these right but you know 600 800 to a liter of water of liquids every hour on the hour through the digestive you can't have much more than that so that's why my body was almost waking me up all the way through the night to just go there was an hour I woke up and it was like I just have a little bit more so we were just forcing as much as we could through the digestive system into the muscle glycogen and you and ended up consuming 40,000 calories in a day do you know what the world record is I don't do you know what I I don't actually know what it is that would be worth investigating imagine if You' broken a record accidentally maybe yeah it's it's really interesting when you just have to make up calories as though because it just gets to the point like similarly when I've been bulking um for the Yukon uh you you start off with you know cereal in the morning chocolate cereal and then you have full fat milk and then you have full you might add Biscoff and Nutella chocolate spread and then you just go from full fat milk to just double cream and custard you know it just it just gets silly which is it was necessary with the amount of time we had for the Yukon um where you just can't make up those calories cleanly it's not sustainable I absolutely don't recommend it for anyone listening and and right now I'm in the phase where I'm being very kind to my body but um yeah the tiger sharp bulk oh it was amazing it's so good that's wild and just explain how it feels from a inflammation standpoint on the muscles on the joints to consume that many calories in a day yeah it was it was strange how I think was so much was probably in pain at that point cuz my stomach was so I've got to show you pictures afterwards I've got a video as well you can literally see the muscle glycogen being replenished I'm so vascular as well because at that time it sort of also pull is exactly it yeah um so it was a it was really weird the sport scientist in me was fascinated by this almost physiological puppetry um to see a video video I posted a picture of it actually on my Instagram but you would struggle to explain to someone that that's 48 hours apart you like that's not the same person and it just shows how crazy malleable the human body is I love the UFC and um Alex Perera you know I love you went from middleweight now light heavyweight talks of him eventually maybe going up to heavyweight but uh Robert whito when he was like how who let this guy in what is going on I'm just I think I think he puts on 24b I hope I'm not wrong there but he puts on B used to put on an insane amount of weight as well I heard yeah yeah I mean have you seen him now have you seen what his face looks like now that was a fat man inside of a Fighter's body just that was the biggest fight of his life it wasn't McGregor it wasn't winning the title it wasn't going undefeated it was keeping that fat lad inide of himself for an entire UFC career but what I love there was a a clip of him rolling with Luke rockold I think it was DC Daniel Kier was talking and he's just like now to your point he's not cutting weight and they said it's just like wrestling a bear cuz now he's just PO on he's not weight restricted and there's that click with Luke rockold and he's just holding him just chilling it's scary he must be he must be2 200 plus now I think at least maybe a little bit more and I'm I'm fascinated by the physiology of Fighters like that and how you know at a certain point a lot of them will move up weight because they can't quite cut the weight when they were younger so sort Conor McGregor training age exactly yeah yeah I guess you're just accumulating that's interesting just a byproduct of training a lot you just pick up little hypertrophy coins as you go and you're like it's going to be so hard I'm going to have to suffer so much in other areas to get rid of this muscle I kind of just need to take it on the chin that maybe at 33 I'm just going to have to go up a weight class yeah I think that's what it is and because you do see with younger again it was actually James Morton at Liverpool John who I've been talking about and there's a study I believe it's published um I I think I'm I think I can say his name cuz I'm pretty sure he is in the study but it was Paddy pimer and it was just talking about the insane weight cut of him and his blood work was fascinating because it literally from the weight cut down his testosterone just went nope and then the day and then he just refeeds and it goes okay and just goes back it was crazy so I think that's a whole area in sport Science especially with Fighters cuz they are so tough going back of resilience you know suffering strategically managed someone just lock themselves in saers and just go I'm just going to be here for 4 hours it's like you you're going to lose the weight but you're frying your central nervous system you know come fight day so I I find that interesting as well so although it was tiger sharks it certainly gave me an Insight because if you would have said the next day Ross go and fight I was full of custard sorry sorry it's too many cinnamon rolls I'm uh I want I want to try and dig back into what we were talking about about before that um the degrees removed that you are from the way that your mind Feels by saying I understand what's going on there's an amount of norepinephrine there's some cortisol there's some adrenaline going through me I'm depleted my I've got my coleric system my like cyto Coline is down I've tried to sort of ramp my adenosine up as much as possible but all of those receptor what that is to you as a secret nerd sport scientist is a bunch of knobs and levers and parameters and that's actually what's happening right what's happening underneath any mental state uh physiological process uh feeling good today feeling bad today feeling well rested not feeling well rested got lots of power in the muscles oh I'm feeling a little bit weak all of those things are knobs and levers and dials that have been turned in one form or another by your physiology the story that a normal person tells themselves about what that means about who they are about their capacities as a person about their resilience their willpower their worth their validation in the world I'm fascinated by the Your Capacity to split apart those two things um and to not get dragged into the personification The Narrative that that side wants to convince you of and to see it with more perspective and equanimity H for the people who don't maybe understand physiology in the same way as you how would you how would you advise people that want a little bit more resilience to see what signals their body gives them during mental or physical tough times yeah I you know that I'm so glad you ask this just because well there there's two things there one uh there was a meta study so a study of lots of studies that looked at um successful ultramarathon athletes I think it was running and cycling it might I've been swimming as well but what's really fascinating is the age at which they were competing at Elite level so winning these aren't people just these people are winning who were the victors what were their ages was 35 to sort of 45 maybe upwards and I found that so interesting because it's one of very few Sports where when you look at sprinting weightlifting there's all these arguments that elasticity of tendance fast twitch fibers reaction speed all of these things testosterone growth hormone all of these things are better when you're younger whereas with ultramarathon running it just feels like as you get older that that you're getting as a better athlete now whether that is capillary density mitochondrial efficiency uh I personally think it's it's just experience you just bank so many ideas of how to suffer you've been here before a million times you know now if I competed against a 21-year-old Ross Edgley and we both went down the Ukon I'd back the 38-year-old even though the third 21y old would be so much fitter I'd back the 38y old cuz I know we're going to be 36 40 hours in and the 21y old be like whoa God I'm tired you know the 38y old like I've been here before I think that's really interesting and then also to that point I think sometimes knowing too much can be bad knowing too much can actually hurt you I I think going back to those voices in your head if you're really educated that voice all of a sudden is Ross you know how we doing there are you cramping in your left leg a little bit Ah have you had enough sodium oh God your electrolytes must be so out of balance but the fact that you've educated yourself that voice is then saying that and I find it really interesting friends of mine at the raw Marines down in lyston they talk about the benefit of being a 18-year-old turning up saying to Mom and Dad I'm going to go and get my Green Beret turning up you turn up at limson with nothing you just told all your family and friends that you're going to become a raw Marine you got 32 weeks to do it if you turn around and you say oh I didn't do it you know you're going to look kind of foolish so these people they turn up kids and they are so naive it's such a superpower they don't know enough to know that they should struggle and they just crush it I've seen it there just like unbelievable times when I go down to lyston um on bottom field there's an obstacle course and I never forget they put a full kit on me and I was just running through it and I ran the bottom field I felt it was pretty good to this day I look back and go I couldn't have done much more I didn't stumble didn't hesitate I was fairly quick and they like yeah yeah Ross you'd have passed fair play but I was well rested I'd turned up I hadn't done 32 weeks training but I never forget they then turned around and out of curiosity I said what's the record cuz I felt pretty good about myself I'm not exaggerating the record I swear was it might have been a minute might have been two minutes faster than me and I'm like how do you make up a minute on what I just did it was crazy so there's some absolute specimens down at lyston but one of the things that friends of mine who were the PTI said oh yeah but there's some young kids who just throw themselves over that wall whereas I was maybe tiptoeing little bit of hesitation exactly I've heard um cyclists Pro cyclists talk about it a lot as well you know they're like I hate going up against younger guys who haven't got a family and things I'm like why and they're like they do not touch the break downhill no risk yeah it's almost like uh cultivated naivity or educated stupidity I love that that's exactly what it is yeah but that's the problem I guess you know as you as you begin to learn more things as you get a little bit older you accumulate this you can't not know what you know so you actually have to somehow educate yourself back into stupidity or cultivate this naivity have you been watching tour def France Unchained on Netflix no I need to you're the second person who said that in any way I am [ __ ] adicted to that thing it the first season came out last year and I loved it and then I just saw it just appeared on my feed season two and I thought this is bril it's so great and what I particularly love about tour to France the suffering is so protracted you know my housemate Zach is a weightlifter he's competed at the Top Flight of weightlifting and weightlifting is great but it's over and done with within 5 Seconds even a really long cleaning jerk with someone rcking a failed jerk is maybe 10 12 seconds this the tour def France rides some of them are three four hours and it's over multiple days it's over multiple weeks and that's what I really love I love being able to see the machinations of these different athletes and where they're putting themselves and there was a time trial I won't spoil it too much but there's a time trial and it's the kind of Gulf that you're talking about where this guy [ __ ] Nails it and he's top time and all the rest of it there's one guy left to go and he comes in with a time that immediately gets him ped accusations there's no way that he can take this much time off a guy that is world world world class and he does and yeah I mean for you to just sit and and chill a well-deserved chill after the last couple of download it for the flight home bro it's it's phenomenal and there's two seasons of it and it's really well done and now I care what's happening in toour of France I genuinely care what's happening it's the same thing that we've seen with uh the golf is it Top Spin or full swing uh base Point whatever the tennis one was where Nick Kos was the first episode drive to survive that man city thing for football getting to see behind the scenes and creating these narratives has just really I think Revitalize sport in a different way uh the UFC does it with their embedded uh Series in the buildup you know they understand this you need to get some buying you need to be invested in these fights Beyond just I like him because he's got a cool style or he fights southp or he's from my country it's more than that you know their family and their dog and where they live and the car that they drive and that kind of investment to me is awesome and yeah the toour of France Unchained series is just out of this world on that note Dance Michael Jordan I I don't know or didn't know too much about basketball I still don't but oh my God I blitzed that series and what I loved about that as well is that that whole idea of motivation Michael Jordan oh my God like the way that one of my favorite bits is um when a reporter just sort of said to him oh I forget the name of the guy now he said you seen the new young kid he's the new Michael Jordan he went no one is the new me and he marks this poor kid just dunks on him yeah and then equally what I also found fascinating was Dennis Rodman and and I love how was it Peter Jackson the head coach and was sort of like uh look that's what works for him we need to let him go to Vegas we need to let him Michael Jordan was like you do not let him go he would never come back and he's like no no no you need to and I've known athletes like that as well that I find so interesting I was talking about this recently that if aliens came down to this world there are certain sports that you'd have a really hard job explaining that you have two athletes who are world class but their approaches are so different so one of the best examples is kabib and McGregor you know that you're sitting there going devout Muslim you know says I only need a bed water and bread for training camp that's all I need you know I don't need anything else and then the whole time you got McGregor smashing whiskey and so but it's like that's what got him to the dance you know McGregor famously was like oh I'd never see a morning you know I'm such a night person oh you'd never catch me you know early in the morning a training session and then others being like I'm up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning but how so I think with regards to the McGregor point I think that what got him here is not currently what he's doing to try and get him there I think that he's leading a very different life to the one that he had on the come up I completely agree with you that uh having a one- siiz fits all best practice just does not seem to work and this is something I I really need to spend a little bit more time thinking about it but um I'm becoming more disillusioned with advice giving Which is blanket coverage what's easier is to basically say this is what worked for me and a little sort of brief overview 30,000 foot of my particular Constitution and saying if you are constructed mentally or physically in a similar way to me you may find some success with this particular type of approach if you were to say to David Goggins stop using the chip on your shoulder stop using the fire that's being lit under you from your childhood and from the people that didn't like you and from the doubters and all the rest of it he's going to say that's that's not my fuel I'm going to try it's putting diesel into a petrol car right it's not going to work a good analogy whereas for other people the the the goggin's approach is precisely what they need and I'm becoming I think uh a little bit more gentle with my proclamations about this is the right way to do something I've never been too sort of uh too much of an evangelist about any one point of view but even more so sort of caveat and realizing that look there's there's sort of delicate areas here but yeah when it comes to the uh the khabib the McGregor approach thing I found it so so interesting to watch that that come up and I I do think that that was the point where McGregor really kind of turned from fake heel to actual heel when he threw that trolley through the window and you know I don't know I I really do hope that he is able to come back and do something sort of special but him at his best for me was when he was working working with Ido poal and you know he was he'd almost become this he transcended the sport he was this svant of movement and he was using capaa and sort of free movement style things he's walking along handrailings in like uh the parks in LA and it's so cool that to me was him at his best you're so right and on that I'm glad you because Dan Hardy's a good friend of mine and Dan I remember when he knocked out Aldo and then went on to uh become double champ with Eddie Alvarez Dan is incredible his IQ not just I mean I love MMA but but people who really know MMA go Dan's another level and he was just explaining exactly what you said you're like he he's on another level his movement his understanding of spatial awareness and he was explaining what he was doing and I was like I had no idea he was even doing that and so you're so right I think that version of it was special it was it was advancing our understand he then started to believe his own hype which was dangerous you know what it is that gets you there is sleeping in the Attic of your parents' house and rolling the same sequences and fighting and punching the same combinations and doing it you know there's a a really great my two favorite videos three favorite videos from McGregor which I a massive fan of and it's a shame that I find him so cringe now because I find it hard I look I almost look back on Old McGregor as a different person I don't see him as the same guy now the lambo The Roadhouse movie The your wife send me DMs like all that stuff just makes me think oh God it's all the bad bits of Irish culture do you know what I mean he's Conor McGregor is all of the good bits of Irish culture and all of the bad bits of Irish culture um and my three favorite first one is when he said um I went crazy for this game he's basically talking about how he lost his mind doing that thing yeah exactly and I think that's a really nice analogy and actually maybe is a bit um it's prophetic for where he ends up going in future um the second one is when he has beaten Aldo and the the journalist is so good for doing this he brings up the quote that he was going to talk about I will create vacuums he he will think I'm there I'm not going to be there I noticed a subtle tell of him he's going to unload that hand and blah blah blah and then you cut that to the shot of him backstage in the warm-up room throwing that left hook that he ends up knocking him out with phenomenal and then my favorite one which I rely on a lot for myself is um when he first won the interim title against Chad Mendes um and then someone asked him well you've kind of fought for this title twice what are you going to do the second time that you didn't do the first time and he says I'm actually going to remember it because he was so focused and so scared and obsessed about the victory that at no point was he basically present and I've heard this story from high performance before Olympic athletes and and world champions and stuff that basically when they try and think back to the performance that they did that got them the achievement that is their crowning Glory they can't actually really remember being there they were in this OD sort of mental fever dream where everything was just performance and I don't know it's such an it's such a strange Duality to think maybe the price that you need to pay to succeed at the thing that you want to do is being so unpresented that's a really do you know not I don't I that was so insightful I don't want to talk about myself and BR back to me at all but I don't here I've had to wait six years [ __ ] talking about yourself but um it was the same with the Yukon so we with the Yukon we didn't go out on social media um with that it was the first swim that I didn't mainly because we didn't have any signal when we were going down so if I'd have announced that I was doing it there would have been just been a period of 60 hours of people going what's going on because we had no signal um but and I I don't I wouldn't change it for the world but when we finished the GB swim I'm not comparing myself at all because what Conor McGregor did was amazing but I came back on to the to the beach and was immediately speaking to media and and everything and it was amazing but all I wanted to do was hug my dad um and I wanted to be there with the people who had uh made this possible uh whereas I ended up getting whisked away and then I went to America on a US tour and it was a whirlwind I would have still done the same it was amazing I just wanted a different to Conor McGregor's point I just wanted a different experience this time and being out in the Yukon in the complete Wilderness we finished and I and I got that moment I'm not saying it was better or worse I still the GB swim needed to have that and it was amazing because we ended up swimming in with 200 people it was incredible people still come up to me with the GB swim hat and I see them and I'm like you were part of the 200 and we hug and we're like oh my God how good was it and it was amazing I just wanted something different with the Yukon and and and at the Finish you know I sort of collaps I'm sitting there and then you see me in the boat and I was just like this is amazing how did they decide when you finish did you just say I've had enough get pulled medically what happened well it got it got pretty ropey towards the end actually because um the river really picked up uh we we broke the record so we were like right at any point now you can just head to a beach so the rules dictate you have to leave from a beach and then you have to walk unassisted onto a beach as well so that they're the rules so it was like right at any point any logical place now you need to to get on but it got really ropey because um the river we went down this particular part and there's sort of trees that are diagonal so you can't see them they call them sleepers cuz they're just under the water if you get caught on one of those and you're being pushed by the water you'll essentially just be jammed under a tree underwater um so at that point I think everyone was like look everyone sleep deprived we've got the record I think what was really interesting as well is um again 38 years old I'm maturing that I was like this has been amazing you know it's enough I think that's what's so interesting like at 21 nothing was enough I would have just gone no no no I want more I want more let's go whereas the swim was perfect everyone was safe it it was the sun had come up it was a nice end and I and I could enjoy it without being in hospital certainly from tresino where I was out for a few weeks afterwards with rabdo um same with L Ness as well uh I was like I don't want that I want to be able to go and sit with Chris barue exactly exactly genuinely that was all going through my head I was like this is enough and you know what you know I've already thought I forgotten who said it now but when they said um uh no man who steps in the river is ever the same man it's never the same river I've butchered that quote but I think it's something like that thank you thank you but I'm like look I could revisit this in a few years what's to say you know 10 20 years you know when I'm 70 years old I'll put my wet suit on hopefully with the toilet flat working this time I'll go again um but at that particular moment it felt so right and I was coherent I was conscious that I could go guys we are done and and and so sorry going back to what you said about Conor McGregor it was just so nice and we we all had bisberg and moose burgers and we all sat down afterwards and we all just reminisce because what they had on the boat was a very different experience of what I had because I was just literally staring under the water what did they what what happened that you didn't see loads there's a whole other story and I can't wait like I said we're putting a YouTube series together but it's amazing their boat so we had um four boats essentially and there was one that went up ahead to make sure that there was no moose bear uh log jams and also finding the path of most assistance least resistance and then there was one that was constantly feeding me so it was constantly by my side um and then there was another one which was the mother ship which kind of had it was slightly larger that had a bed on it so people could sleep and then there was one behind that was making all of the hot water basically and that just worked in like this perfect Unison of just coming around and um but then there was sometimes when I was swimming I was like hang on there's only one boat and it was because they'd basically just like hit Rocks come to a log Jam and there's just stories and guys have got it on camera of like my girlfriend and my older brother just deadlifting a boat off the Rocks My Brother Talks about it as well there was a time where it went onto the rocks and they are like Ross is heading to some Rapids we need to get there this is this is really bad and my older brother Scott just quickly like looked around I was like there's five of us I can sled drag 250 deadlift 220 what can Hester his girlfriend and he did the math and was like we've got this and they did they managed to dead lift it off the Rocks it's going to be yeah the whole series on YouTube is going to be nuts that's very exciting yeah Mission critical uh uh roles like that I find so [ __ ] funny oh yeah yeah what have you learned from training Chris Hemsworth time with him and the guys in Australia not a lot his genetics take care of most things he's honestly his I said it before his genetics that family genetics need to be studied um it was crazy Limitless was amazing but I was like I said I was basically bought in with my Niche skill set which was Ice swimming and climbing ropes um it was just it was unbelievable I I still maintain that I don't think anyone's done what he did which was to go from the Australian summer take him and then just drop him in the Arctic Circle no no one does that and I think like Limitless was amazing it was it was brilliant to be part of it um but but one thing that um for obvious reasons because they only had a certain amount of time but what he did made no sense in terms of like an athlete periodized calendar so he he was Thor siiz so Marvel were going get massive and he was like okay done and then extraction they were like right we need you extraction size and then also as well we had Limitless going we need you to climb a rope dangling from the Blue Mountains and then also going to ice swim it was nuts what he did um but but equally like I said I think uh the the family as a whole Liam who is a new witch as well i' I've I think he was 110 kilos I've still never seen anyone do 20 b muscleups at his size his back's ridiculous and then equally sled drags with Luke like his legs are just like you know those people who just have silly yeah he's one of them and then you only have to look at Leon and Craig so their parents Craig I don't know how old he is now he's just coming out the water with a beer in one hand surf in just chiseled so it's a family of genetic three oh it really is and then yeah and then Elsa as well Chrissy's wife and then you look at the kids as well so they're um sasher and Tristan twins they're doing Jiu-Jitsu at the moment and they are like tearing through kids like literally just like pulling limbs off and then India as well the da oh I tried to sort of coach her it reminded me so much of Chris because I tried to coach her in swimming she had a swimming G sort of coming up um gave her a few pointers and she just went yeah yeah cheers Ross just gunned it and just smoked everyone with no technique and then Elsa as well like she's an absolute specimen like the entire family it just needs to be studied it's uh yeah they're ridiculous what's Chris's mindset like do you know what I think he doesn't quite I think get enough credit that that he probably deserves because this is going to sound so strange because he's such a good actor you you sort of forget that he's an amazing athlete if you look at what he did in Limitless alone any other athlete and you said they did that it would be great if you took someone who I think he was I hope I'm getting this right I think he was about 112 kilos Olympic gymnasts are maybe 5560 so it's like taking uh a rope dangling 100 foot from the Blue Mountains and I believe it was I can't remember the distance it might have been 50 mters I'm not sure now but it was a long rope and taking two Olympic gymnasts fusing them together and telling them to climb up a rope like when you actually break down the metrics it was obscene what he did and then with ice swimming as well ice swimming you need body fat body fat is insulating he had none of it because he needed to look like Thor so the only way you're really going to get through that is just pure resilience like there because physiologically like the Rope climb you're completely handicapped so I think that was one of the biggest things that I saw that um yeah he just he has a mindset of an elite athlete but that's kind of not really talked about because he's Chris Hemsworth the actor does that make sense yeah it does yeah and I think it's the same as Liam and Luke as well and and all of they're just like when I train with them they don't they're proper Australians in that like when they turn up I go right what we training and they'll be oh I don't know we'll throw up a do a powerlifting Centric workout I be like have you trained today they're go no no no no we're fresh but then I'll find out they've surfed for six hours but they don't count that as training I'm like what is going on yeah they're absolute specimens yeah all of them what's next for you well we got we got a few ideas but uh ultimately um Sharp versus Ross edley airs I love doing that it was amazing there's so many different species of sharks so should it go well I'm already speaking to National Geographic I'm like look I've got to run it back oh I've got two three and four in my head already so there's yeah there's loads of those and but then also as well like I said about the the longest swims um the river swim was amazing but I said at the start of the year that uh it's it's kind of this infinite goal you know that that was a river swim I want to get back into lakes I want to get back into the ocean um just to sort of like touch upon that I was sort of speaking to friends of mine about this and um I know you'll be aware of the myth of Copus um you know Copus in Greek mythology uh one of the cleverest humans ever to exist and he outsmarted the gods numerous times including death and the gods really pissed at him and was just like ah you know we can't have a human just outsmart us so when he eventually came to the underworld they like right we're going to punish you and the Greek gods were renowned for their punishment and said we are going to make you roll a boulder up a hill for eternity and just when it gets to the top of the hill it's going to roll back down you got to do that for eternity Copus was like h fine I'll do it so he started doing it but then it was Albert Camu the French philosopher who just said you know what Copus was able to outsmart the gods one more time if you imagine that he was smiling what I love about this is Albert Cam said the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart and I love that that really stuck with me and I think the river swim was amazing but when people say what's next just like another long swim because ultimately you know that's that's my Boulder you know the struggle alone is enough to fill a man's heart and I know you a good friend of yours Jordan Peterson I love his work when he starts talking about you know the purpose of life is to pick up the heaviest load and carry it simple you know Victor Frankle as well the meaning of life is to give life meaning this this whole idea of just purpose you know I think for me when people say what's next it's like I'm probably going to pick up that proverbial Boulder and go for another long swim somewhere hell yeah Ross Edgley ladies and gentlemen Ross I really appreciate you where should people go they want to keep up to date with all of the bits and pieces out bless you yeah social media suppose we've got yeah Instagram all of the usual channels the YouTube series for the longest swim will be on there uh posting more pictures of poof flats and uh chafing skin it's been six years well waited I appreciate you thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode you will love my conversation with the one and only Chris Bumstead right here