Breaking “Unbreakable”: Sean Conway on the Grand Slam of Endurance

I think it's important that we all find a ball to chase in life, whatever it is. I think we all have a sort of a terrier in us. People who feel a bit lost and when they get out of bed, you know the spark's gone. Find a ball to chase. Doesn't matter what it is, just find something difficult to chase and then just chase it.

Today's guest is one of the most extraordinary endurance adventurers alive, Mr. Sean Conway. If you've ever questioned what the limits of human endurance might be, Shaun has probably already gone there. From swimming the length of Britain to cycling across Europe, to setting the record for the longest ever triathlon, he's built a career on redefining what's possible. Most recently, he completed Iron105, an unimaginable feat of 105 consecutive Ironman triathlons. Imagine that, an ironman every day for 105 days. But this conversation conversation isn't just about mind blowing records. Sean's philosophy of first, furthest, fastest and foremost is a blueprint for how we can all approach life and business. His story of growing up in Africa, of struggling to find belonging and turning suffering into meaning, will challenge you to think differently about resilience, purpose and success. If you're looking for inspiration to push past your limits in sport, business and or life, this episode will give it to you. Now, Sean was actually my guest number two on the podcast. You may want to go back and listen to that episode as well. But for now, let's dive into this brilliant conversation with the amazing Sean Conway. Do you know what? When we look at the back end of this podcast, then we see something really interesting. We see that 50, 97% of the people that regularly listen to it haven't hit the subscribe button. So could I ask you a quick favor before we dive into today's episode? If you're enjoying Claire and I bringing you amazing guests, not asking you for patronage fees, and not jamming the podcast full of adverts, then the best way you can help us continue to do that and make it even better is to hit that subscribe button. And here's my promise to you. When you subscribe, we'll make it our mission, along with the team that supports us, to continue to improve this podcast every week. So thank you so much for your support and for being a part of the business of Endurance community. Let's dive in. So, Sean, welcome back to the Business of Endurance podcast. Officially, it's your first time on the Business of Endurance podcast because of course, it was called the Tribathlon podcast when you were guest number. I think you were guest number two. So you are officially the first guest that is being invited back for a second visit. So this is one more of your first achievements you can add to your long list of firsts. But I'm really looking forward to chatting to you, particularly after cycling from Lands End to John o' Groats with you. I know we chatted a lot there and looking forward to sort of diving into some new stuff. And of course, since we did that interview, we went off and did a small sort of mini, mini endurance trip that was known as Iron105 or Iron105. So 105 Ironman in 105 days is actually just like completely. You just can't contemplate it. So I'd like to start there because obviously we didn't talk about that in the last episode. So where did the concept of Iron 105 come about? Can you try and explain to people how tough a challenge that was? Because I know when we spoke on, on our bike ride, it almost was too much for people to comprehend. So how do you explain that ym105 and how was it born?

Yeah, well, I go to how it was born in the world of endurance, in the world of breaking records and that sort of thing. There's a thing called the endurance Grand Slab. So there's four types of world records. You can get, you can become, you can get a world's first, be the first to do something the world's furthest or longest, a world's fastest, and then the last one is the world's most of. So you can do the most marathons in a year or whatever. I had three of them. I had a world's first. I was the first to swim the length of Britain back in 2013. I had the world's longest continuous triathlon record. I did a 4200 mile continuous triathlon and then I was the fastest record. I was the fastest person to cycle across Europe. So from the edge of Portugal to the Euro mountains in Russia, 4,000 miles. So the last one I had was the most of. And then because, you know, I've done swim, bike, run and I love triathlon, I'm still the only person in history to have done a Lands End to John o' Groats swim bike run. For me, it just seemed obvious, it just seemed obvious that I was going to go for the, what was considered really by the Internet and by everyone, an unbreakable record of the Most number of Iron Mans in a row. So that, that sort of how it came about, really. Just me wanting to get the grand slam, which A, no one else in the world ever has, and B, was to, you know, get that record that sort of. Everyone, including the previous world record holder, said, you know, is impossible and he was going to take it to the grave. And, you know, nothing against him personally, but when I heard that, I was like, no, you won't. You know, it's just a bit of, bit of. I mean, sport is meant to be competitive, right. And I think you will push each other higher and higher and higher. And that's sort of really what hooked me in, you know, once I decided and once in my heart and head committed. You know, I'm a monkey terrier. I talk about a lot. I have these two personalities and they both need feeding and the monkeys creative and, you know, writes books and I've got, you know, a whole bunch of written books which I keep at my desk here next to me. That's. And I like to try lots of different things. So that's the monkey. But the terrier just needs to chase things. And if I, if I'm. If I don't feed the terrier, usually every couple of years, the terrier really just gets agitated. And then once I thought of trying to break the most number of iron man's record. That's the ball being thrown for the terrier. Once that happens to me, it's easier for me to chase the ball than not chase the ball, which if anyone's got a terrier or any dog that chases a ball, if you, if you throw the ball and hold, hold, hold the collar of the dog. Right. The terrier I used to have goes mad, doesn't it? Just like the ball. And that's, that's kind of what it is like for me as well, when someone throws that ball, when I have that idea and, and it's really now, you know, you can have it in the bit percolating in the dark, but once it gets thrown, then I just have to go for it. I just have to. And I think it's important that we all find a board to chase in life, whatever it is. I think we, I think we all have a sort of a terrier in us. Yeah, you don't have to go the extremes I've put myself through, but I think it's important. I think people who feel a bit lost and, you know, just a bit grumpy or when they get out of bed, they're just you know, the spark's gone. Find a ball to chase. It doesn't matter what it is. Just find something difficult to chase and then just chase it. And then that sort of set me on that path. And then your second question is sort of the enormity of it that it's only in sort of respectively looking back at it and looking at how people responded to it while I was doing it that I've sort of realized over the last two years now that it, it just was just too big and too difficult and, and people just sort of really didn't understand it. You know, doing one Ironman is incredibly difficult even now. I'm not going to diminish that. Even though, even though I've done the 105, even doing one is still very hard. You know, doing two is hard. Doing three is hard. You know, 10 years ago, no one had done more than sort of 30 in a year. So it just becomes. It's sort of a difference between millions and billions. You sort of just see them both as big numbers. But actually a billion is a lot, lot, lot. 1,000 times more than a million. Of course. Yeah, it's, it's. I have. I've noticed that it's been very difficult to explain it to people, even people who do know triathlon and, and that sort of thing are 105. They will have what really what. And it just, it's like. It's just uncomprehendable. And that's part of my, my sort of role, responsibility now is to share that story and tell that story in a way that will hopefully inspire next generation without making them just go like, oh, that's just way too difficult. I don't want to talk to you because you're obviously an outlier because that is the worry. You know, suddenly I've put myself outside of what people think they can achieve and then they just put me as an outlier. Sean's an outlier. Whatever you did it. I can't do it. So that's sort of part of my journey now is to show people with science and facts and figures and storytelling that actually I have just a normal guy because I've been tested for. But I, I've applied XYZ, I've applied the 10.5 pillars of endurance and everyone has their own 10.5. And that allowed me to, to break that. And when you break it down, then you can achieve it, you know, so that's sort of been. Been the journey over the last couple years since we talked last really is, is a Breaking that record and then be realizing that everyone thinks it was bonkers and impossible and didn't understand it. So it kind of just turned off basically. And I'm trying to go, well actually if you do what I say and listen to all my lessons, you'll actually. It does make sense, you know, it.

Is, is an unbelievable achievement. I mean, I, I mean, by the way, I loved reading Iron 105, your book, I think that is, it's just like a. It had me chuckling along while I was, I was listening to it typically while I was running. So I was laughing away to quite a few different bits in it. But it's just the enormity of it is absolutely, I mean, Claire and I have done multiple Iron Man's Claire a lot more than I have. But the idea of doing two in two days seems ludicrous. So to go 105 days is absolutely insane. I can't think of a better way of describing it, but there must have been some incredibly dark moments during it. Describe what those dark moments were and what were the greatest lessons from completing IAM 105.

Yeah, there was a couple of really, really dark moments. One is just quite early on, actually. Well, in the overall campaign, my big dark moment was actually I failed the first attempt. Only got to day seven. How embarrassing, right? And that's when the whole Internet said, I told you this record was impossible. You've never done an Ironman, which is true. Still haven't. You know, anyone to day seven. You'll never do this, you know, you're too slow, your power's rubbish, your FTP is rubbed, your marathon pacers, rubbish. And they were sort of right. I really probably needed to work on my pace a little bit and that's what I did. So I came back. So that was difficult. So failing that first one really was dark because, you know, I'm 44 years old now, or 40, 41 back then 42, I've got all the, the injury niggling, you know, demons on my shoulder going. Why? You know, because you don't bounce back biologically as you get older, you're a bit more robust and I feel like I can push that edge more with, with experience, but really that was dark. And then on the second attempt, you know, nearly timing out in the first on day two and three because of an injury so early on, again, you know, I missed the cut, the 17 hour cutoff. I nearly missed it by five minutes. I did 16 hours 55 minutes on day I think two or three. So that was, you know, that was a dark moment, thinking, geez, you know, maybe I just don't have it in me, you know. And it took a lot of willpower. It took a lot of sort of practical thinking, not trying to let my emotions get in the way, but go back to like, right, what can I control? What, what can't I control? Because there's also this tendency that we all want big improvements in our performance because we see people on the Internet and they're like, oh, wow, he's so good. And you put yourself up against them and that, you know, you don't know their history, how much training they're doing and that sort of thing. So I remember when I did 16 hours, 55, you know, the tendency day one, I did like 14 hours or 15 hours. I was like, well, I'm two hours slower tomorrow I want to be two hours quicker. And I have to rein myself back and say, no, no, no, that's just like, just be five minutes quicker. And I was, I was seven minutes quicker. So I was like, oh, I did two minutes better than I thought I was going to. And then that's what I started to do. I just changed my perception and my, my sort of, my view on, on my performance said, right, well, tomorrow gonna be five minutes, five minutes. And I just chipped away at the block until I got quick enough that I was. I sort of then leveled out on a pretty even sort of 15 hours, 14 hours, 13 and a half hours type thing. And then that became sustainable. You know, when you can do 40 or 15 hours, you're getting nine, 10 hours recovery, you're definitely getting eight hours sleep in that. And then it becomes sustainable if you can do that with a low heart rate. So those are the things I started to focus on. I started to focus on the 10.5 pillars of endurance. You know, I've got them written down. Yeah, I stare at them every day in my office and I'll quickly go through them. There's planning, equipment, experience, fitness and conditioning and nutrition and hydration recovery, muscle management, health, mindset, community. And the point five is luck. Sometimes you just need a bit of luck, right? And bad luck can, can derail you as well. So. So that was it, you know, that's how I got out these real difficult moments, by practically thinking about, right, why am I down? What is going wrong, what is going right? What can I improve on? What can I get those little marginal gains? And then they slowly build up because what. And it's quite human behavior. A lot of, a lot of people, you know, and this is quite well documented. Really overestimate what they can achieve in like a day or a week. Massively underestimate what they can achieve in one year, five year, 10 years. Right. And that's what I started to think. I sort of started thinking, right, well, I'm on day five, day six, it's going pretty bad. Let's have a Goal by Day 30 to be in this position. And then it just changes your framework. You know, you're not dividing each day up into all these, like, manic little things. You, you just averaging out your day. And then that really works for me, you know, and that works in, in business and life as well. Now, you know, when I, when I write a book, I'm not like, I need to do 500 words a day. I say, right, well, I, I need to do10,000 words this month. And that's kind of what I look at it. And some days I do more, some days I do less. And people who lose weight, it's quite common, people who lose weight shouldn't do a daily calorie count if you're trying to lose weight. If, and if, if a calorie deficit is the way you're choosing to do it, you should have a weekly count. Because inevitably, if you have a daily count, you go over it, you go, failed, I'm going to give up. But if you have a weekly one, you're going to achieve it. So it's all those little steps which sort of gets me out. And people do ask me, so, Sean, you know, what's your superpower? Why can you do this? Hey, I don't have one. I've been tested, you know, mentally, physically. All my Mark is Joe blogs. However, if I did have one is I'm very good at micromanaging my performance and working out what can work and what doesn't work. And I do that regularly throughout every Ironman. I'm looking at my stats. I know it was three laps on the bike if I was five minutes down. And one day I might write, why am I down? Oh, actually, I don't need to feel so bad. The reason I'm down is because there was that train crossing that I had to cross six times and I lost five minutes at the train crossing. So, okay, let's not stress. So, yeah, if that was my superpower, that's probably what it would be. And that's what got me out. The dark times, really.

And I think what I love about that is, and I can't remember who I heard say this, but it's easier to find 101% gains than one 100% gain. And you're just constantly looking for. So today we can improve a little bit by this, tomorrow we can improve a little bit. And that I think is really powerful. What fascinated me was when you decided to end you. So originally it was a 102 you needed to get to to go to 102 Ironmans and then you had this amazing way of deciding how to whether you carried on or finished. So describe that to people, how you did that and what did you learn from the way you did that?

So I, well, let's reverse it past part of my. And I hate the word manifesting but you sort of know what I mean, right? When I go into it I go in with this utter 100% self belief that it's a Dundee on no plan B. I'm not very good with a plan B because I find for me if you have a plan B you might take it like for example, I got asked that, you know, by someone I'm very close to, really good friend of mine for many years, they said, oh Sean, you know, if the four Ironmans aren't going so well and you time out, will you maybe move to the half Ironman record and just carry on doing the half? And I was like, no, absolutely not. Now had I that is an option in my head I may have taken it on day two or three when I was broken and I was nearly timing out. So yes, I'm a big fan of sort of no plan B for me. You have one, you can, you can move plan A and you can change things so that. But you still have the end goal. That's the one finish line. You're not moving your finish line. Part of that process is I actually printed numbers up to 123. I like, right, this is such a done deal. I'm going to smash a record. Go up to 1, 2, 3. Why 1, 2, 3? Because it seemed like the next cool number and it cost me a pack. It was 10 quid a number to pay for so I spent like 300 quid. I didn't need to just touch, you know, get all these caps and numbers right. So when I got to sort of day 95ish, I remember thinking, I just, I reckon I could carry on. And I went to Caroline, my lovely wife and I said look, I reckon, I reckon I can do some more. And the look on her face, she was very supportive though. She's like, she's Just was like, sean, like, you're never doing this again. No regrets. Like, just do what you need to do, but also remember you're a dad. I got two young boys who weren't at school. Caroline is self employed and was still working. So like, she actually had the harder deal, 100%, you know, hats off to single moms out there. It was hard for her, right? So there was sort of really no real, other than ego going much further than that, other than me just going, I feel like I'm more on the tank. But I didn't want to give up because I knew I'd regret it. So I thought, right, well, I always, I always knew I was going to do day 103. So day 102, I wrote the record. Day 103, I always was in the books because I wanted to know what it felt like to do an ironman that I didn't have to do. Up to one or two, I had to do it, but I didn't do it. Records off day 103 was like, whatever, you've got the record, mate. And I wanted to know whether my body would totally crumble and just be like, you're broken, like it's over. Or would I thrive because the pressure is off? Which is really interesting experiment for me. So I was super excited about day three, did day three and I thrived. I loved it. It didn't matter if I crashed out on the bike. I could push a little bit harder. Didn't have to worry about injury because I had the record, right? And then from then on, I made an agreement with Caroline that I'd flip a coin. I said, look, I'll flip a coin and I'll choose heads every time. I said, heads, I carry on. Tails, I quit. The coin said, do day 104. The coin said, do day 105. And then when I flipped for day 106, the coin said stop. And that was it. And now for me, mentally, you can say, well, actually, I didn't quit the bloody coin. TOMMY STOPS it's been a good way for me to navigate the. How far I could have gone. Because actually that was it. That was the agreement I had with Caroline and I needed to be a husband and a dad again. And I'm proud of that now. I'm proud. I'm not sitting here going, yeah, I definitely could have gone to 150 or 200, you know, so, yeah, that's, that's how that one ended.

I, I love the idea of flipping the coin because I can hear with like the way that you talk and the adventures you've done, that. That could have just continued and continued and continued. You talked about no plan B and you touched on it a little bit. But. But what do you mean by no plan B? So, you know, surely there's got to be options. I mean, you're out there for days, hours, months, like doing things. So how do you have, let's say, options? I don't know.

What.

What do you call them?

So when I go into something, the no plan B is the ultimate goal. So for the I'm 105, it was getting to what, eight. Getting to day 102. If you take injury out of it because, you know, you. I could have got run over by a car and then obviously that ends it. And previously on the previous record, I got injured when I crashed out on the bike. So if you take out the question and now you're just dealing with pain, suffering, misery, depression, deprivation, all that sort of thing, right, there's still just no plan B in I will get to 102. There's no me changing it to half ironman record or me trying to get. So other options I could have quite easily hung my hat on would have been a stopping at the British record of 21. British record, stopping at the European record, which was 61, I think, or 62, or. Or moving to the half ironman record halfway through. If I got injured and couldn't just do it. Moving to the half iron. I don't even know what the half iron record. I think it's less than 105 anyway. So those could have been other options for me. And for me that just. It doesn't work for me. And I'm not very good at even celebrating the minor wins. But that I know doesn't work for some people and I think some people need to celebrate the minor wins. So, like, as a crew, I've let them celebrate when I got the British record, the European record and a few other things. So, yeah, those. That's what I mean, you know, and my other record, swimming the length of Britain, like finishing it, that's all I needed to do, no matter if it took me, you know, two months, three months, four months, five months, six months, eight months. Getting into John o' Groats from starting at Land's End was the no plan B, you know, because plan B could have been, you know, by the time, because that was a bit slow, I was still swimming in November, you know, I could have got to October and gone, oh, well, I'm Going to GPS pinpoint. This weather's a bit rubbish. I'll go home and I'll come back next year and finish the final leg in the summer. But no, that was just my option. I was just going to deal with Scottish winter and swim around cape wrath with 30, 40, 50 foot waves and that was it. No plan B on there. So that's how I go into it. And it's very important for me to have a clear finish line with no other options along the way for each individual record. And that just makes me more focused. It makes me more focused, you know, because sometimes you will, you know, you get these ultra races where you, you know, you might have a 60k, 100k and a 50k. You know, the worst thing you can do is go, oh well, I'll sign up for the 160, but actually I might pull out at the hundred. Oh, just, just no, because you will, I promise you, you'll pull out of the hundred. If, if you gave yourself that thing, that option and then sometimes you, you, you know, some people might thrive on putting things in place to, to not allow you to pull out at the hundred. You know, I don't know, just take your favorite watch and leave it at the end at 160. So you have to get to the end or some of the watch out of it. You know, there's things, there's lots of stuff you can do to, to motivate yourself and I call them a part of One of the 10.5 pillars is mindset and one under that sub pillar of that is what I call dangling carrots. You know, you've got to dangle as many carrots in front of you to help you, motivate you. Some people say you should have a bucket of motivation and you put as many things in there so when you're tired, you pull the thing out. I had the carrot analogy. You know, look, when you're really struggling, you're like, oh, they saw that carrot. And that could be raising money for charity, having a cool pub story for your mates. For me, it's when my lad, my two boys do their first iron man and moan how miserable it was, I'll be like, you don't know pain, boys. You know, that was a Clarence. So yeah, it's that sort of how I manifest again, I hate that word, but you know, you sort of know what I mean. That self belief and, and implementing a process and a strategy that everyone buys into then because it's very clear, it's one or two or nothing guys like everything and everything fits towards that. So all my teammates, my crew, everyone in my little snowball I call it, is working towards that all or nothing goal, really.

It sounds like no isn't an option for you either. The gauntlet's throne. And that's where you're going. I guess that's that terrier that you described right at the very beginning.

Yeah, that's. That is true. No is not an option. It depends. I can also say yes to everything sometimes and that comes with hardships.

I also wanted to just actually go back to something you said right at the very beginning around this. You talked about the Grand Slam, the endurance Grand Slam and you mentioned about the first, the longest, the fastest and the most of the. You've described this before as your philosophy, I guess, in terms of being first, furthest, fastest, foremost. Can you explain that philosophy a little bit and how you've applied it, but not just to sport, perhaps, perhaps in life and in business as well.

Yeah. So when I first discovered the terrier in me, or first acknowledged that I knew there was, there was in my twenties, I knew that there was a side of me, but I didn't really know how to feed it. I was always chasing something, but not quite hard enough or not part of a bigger picture or just one off little things. And that sort of also didn't really satisfy me. So the Grand Slam was sort of just having a really, really long term goal and I think that's important as well. And that goes back to our spectrum spoke about earlier, where everyone really underestimates what they can achieve in 10 years. And sort of my 10 year goal was this, was this Grand Slam which really, if I'm honest, at the beginning I was like, it's never going to happen, mate. Like, I'm a school portrait photographer. Why have. I'm going to just go for it. Because I had no business in the world of endurance. Had not. I was a school portrait photographer until I was 30 years old. Didn't own a pair of running shoes. I knew nothing about sport. Right. Never run a marathon. I think I ran my first marathon when I was 30, 20, 20, 39, I think I was 36. I don't know, I was pretty old. So yeah, so the Grand Slam was also having this really long term goal to chase and that, that excited me. That excites me and it excites me now having just stuff that's really long term, you know, which I never. Outside of the Grand Slam, I hadn't really thought. I really thought it'd take me longer than 10 years also truthfully. And now that it's happened, you know, there was a little, obviously I'm only human. So there was a little bit of me that was like, now what, you know, what I'm going to do now. Achieve more than I ever thought I'd ever achieve physically. But you know, I find other mountains to climb which are equally difficult to me. Are they as difficult as 105 Ironmans to the general public? Probably not. Are they as difficult to be? Yeah, probably. And those are in the pipeline at the moment. And they're also part of just a much, much bigger picture. And the bigger picture for me is, is at some point, I'm 44 now. Biology, you can't change biology. I'm going to get slower and more injured as I get older. Hopefully not. I'm feeling pretty strong right now. But you know, life will change and I'll have these long term goals which I think is important. I think everyone should have 10 year goals. You know, like, you know, if you want a very good example is, you.

Know, if you, if you, you know.

Wanting to do caps to 5k and like that's a big bowl for you. Why don't in 10 years time sign up for 100 mile reps or 100k race? You know why he did that? I've put in my diary for 24, November 2035. I'm going to be rowing the Atlantic with my whole family, me, my wife and our two boys. It's in the diary. November 2035, that's when we're doing it. The boys will be old enough to actually be able to do some rain. They'll be teenagers by then, late teens and that's cool, right? I've got something super looking forward to which now makes me go like, right, I need to step it up, right? I need to save for this boat for one. It's very expensive. So that's in the pipeline. Like we're just now. I'm not doing it every day of course, but you know, every few months. Am I right? What, what am I doing towards this long term plan of running the Atlantic with my family in 10 years time? And I love it. You know, I think we should all do that. Super important, super important long term goals.

It sounds amazing and I love the, I'm sure Charlie's already got stuff in his diary for 2035 or something. So how can like you touched on it a little bit there but how can listeners today like apply some of these principles to their goals? And their life. So you talked about kind of planning way in advance of something that's huge. What other kind of, what else can they apply from, from those principles?

So I think once you've got the long term goal, don't be in a rush to, to have these big advances in performance. You've got to set a good foundation early on. A you suffer burnout, B, you suffer injury, B, just suffer lack of motivation or you give up or yeah, it just gets overwhelming, whatever. So set a good foundation, have that long term goal and then just keep chipping away at it and you'll achieve all the little milestones along the way, still have that really scary long, long term goal and practically just write it down. I'm quite visual, you know, I like to write this. My whole office here is a blackboard. So I painted blackboard stuff everywhere. So I write on the roof and on the walls and everything. Whenever I'm quite visual, you know, I respond very well to visual stimulation rather than audible, for example. So that's what I would have, you know, I'd put stuff in the diary, you know, and not all of it will happen, you know, not all of it will happen. I have some really crazy far fetched ideas that I just put out there and they're in my little book of ideas. You know, they're exciting now, but am I ready for them? Do I want them enough? Maybe, maybe not. They might come around in a couple of years time when I'm ready for it or you know, the family dynamics means I'm able to do it and that sort of thing. But you know, just find stuff to get excited about that way in the future. So I think it's super important whatever it is, physical can be hobbies, it can be learning a language or as I said, you know, think about, you know, potentially where you want to be with something XYZ in 10 years time and you'll just, you'll just treat the whole process differently and you won't, you won't sort of is the sort of motivation and skill graph. So you, you know, when you start off something your skills low and your motivation's high and as you get better your skill will go up you weirdly. And it's human nature, your motivation for it does dip after a while. You've super motivated at the beginning, you're sort of a starter, you maybe might lose a little bit of motivation. Where those cross, you'll often find is where people sometimes give up because now they're less motivated than they are skilled. So they're super, they've got more skill, but maybe don't feel like they should be where they want to be. Just stick at it. Because what you'll find is you'll unlock the next door and then your, your motivation starts coming up again. It's sort of like a reverse bell curve. And, and that's what I'm like. And not everyone's like that. You know, I think Charlie talks about, you know, are you a starter or a finisher or an all or whatever, you know, so I'm definitely all of it because I can stick it all of it. I'm a very good starter at something. Pretty good at the middle, making it happen, and then I'm pretty good at executing at the end. But not everyone is. Sometimes people love the start and they lose enthusiasm, but stick at it and then it's sort of the enthusiasm comes back again. I find in that curve as you suddenly get better, you know, and it's with fitness, a good example, when you first start running, you're super motivated, but you're rubbish, right? You do that first run and you're on a high. And then like within a couple of weeks, you know, I'm just not getting better. I'm on, oh, I'm sore. And the motivation dips. But if you stick at it, suddenly you'll realize, God, I'm running 6 minute ks and not breaking a sweat. Then also you're all right. Now that three hour, four hour marathon time that I thought was unachievable becomes possible and then your motivation goes up again.

Brilliant. I love this and I love, I love in particular your approach to a long term goal. I don't have Anything planned for 2035 yet, but what I do love is I have long term goals that are kind of a bit more woolly. But I think what's great about the approach you're talking about is that you're programming your subconscious to say, this is really important to me. I don't quite know how or when it's even possible for it to happen. But all the time in the background your subconscious is going, hang on, I know this is an important thing, or hang on, there's an opportunity over, over here. If you do that, that'll lead to this thing that you've told me is important. And that's why having those long term goals is so important. I think it's, I think it's really, really, really powerful. One of the things I love chatting to you about while we were cycling the length of the UK was your Time growing up in Africa. Obviously, Africa's really close to my heart, but I've been lucky enough to go to the game reserve you spent a lot of your childhood growing up in. So. But one of the other things that came out of those stories was right at a young age, you seem to have both people and animals trying to kill you or you were getting yourself into situations where your life was in danger. So I wonder if you could share one of those stories, whether it's to do with a lion or whether it's to do with those young male elephants that you shared with me, but then also kind of tie into that how you think that childhood has formed the career that you have later on found.

Yeah, Africa. My African childhood was amazing. I grew up on the Zambezi river in Zimbabwe, then moved to South Africa. My dad. Dad's a rhino and elephant conservationist. Specializes in rhino and elephant conservation management and big game, game reserve, game park management as well. And yeah, just. I grew up in the bush and like, I don't know how my parents manage or coped. Like, we had snakes everywhere. Snakes that would kill you in half an hour. You know, we'd go on a game drive and I'm on the back of the. The bucky. We used to call it the pickup truck. And, you know, I remember coming around the corner and there was a zebra kill on the side of the road. I used to collect like skins and skulls and an. In my bedroom. And, you know, it was just. Just your typical African upbringing, right? And I remember seeing the zebra skull on the road. I was like, all of a sudden, I remember climbing out the back of the pickup. Just I literally almost like in the air, you know, going to get this thing. And suddenly in the grass next to it, a lion jumped. I scared the crap out of this lion and it just looked at me and I looked at it. I climbed back in the car. I hadn't jumped at least. And I was like, I was one second away from jumping on top of a lion. I don't think it would have taken a. Too well. And then, you know, the elephants as well, you know, we. We had people killed, unfortunately. It's really tragic, but I'd heard of elephants that were in the road and this person just hooted and they got annoyed and they just ran the car and unfortunately killed. Killed the driver. And that was, you know, 500 meters from my house. So it was. It was a really dangerous place. You know, I had a hyena come in our house once someone left the garden gate open and someone left the kitchen door open. And then the sing hyena came in and trashed our living room. And the first I heard about it was my mum waking me up at 6 in the morning, giving me a right bollocking for leaving the living room in a mess overnight. I was like, it wasn't me mom, I promise. She's like, well, who wasn't there? And luckily we found the bike parks and the sport print outside. So, yeah, it was quite adventurous. I do joke, you know, whenever I give a talk. And I sort of, at the beginning of my talk, it's a little bit about my African upbringing. The sort of the running joke is that, you know, my dad says, sure. You know, Even now I'm 44, Sean, when are you going to get a real job, mate? I'm like, dad, you took, you took that off the table a long time ago. You know, having this amazing adventurous upbringing. How does it, how has it affected my life now? Well, there's this just. I had an outdoorsy wilderness life, so that, there's that part of me, I guess I'm yearning for just to live that, be out in the world and travel and, and that sort of thing. It made me resilient. You know, walking around barefooted is, you know, we, we try and encourage our boys to run around barefoot because, you know, the less you, you run around barefoot, the more likely you are to get your feet cut up. But you don't, you know, so it's sort of this thing like, you know, parents are calling, oh, put your shoes on, you're going to get your foot cut. That's sort of why they're going to get their feet cut. Right? So we're like, go and get your feet cut. You do it more often. Eventually your feet won't get cut because they'll be super strong. Right. It builds that resilience. And that's obviously quite a physical metaphor for, for resilience. But. But yeah, it was. You sort of. Life was just tougher. Just, you know, things had Achilles the whole time and, you know, we only had electricity for a few hours a day. And then it was just always on the generator, so it went off. There's mosquitoes, snakes, there's frogs in your shoes every time, you know, so if you, you know, in our household, before you put your shoe on, you tap the, tap the heel on the floor in case a snake or frog came out and that was just life. You just tapped heel. It's a frog. Let the frog outside, put your shoe on. So, yeah, it couldn't. I can't see me sort of having that childhood and doing anything other than what I'm doing now. And I tried. I tried photography. I thought I'd be a National Geographic photographer, but I made poor decisions and went down a route that was sort of, you know, in my head was easy money, which it was photographing school kids in the early 2000s, before camera phones, and the only way to get pictures of your kids was school portraits, really, or paying for one at a studio. And, yeah, that was. That's what I did, unfortunately. Made some poor decisions and stepped away from that sort of adventurous spirit in me, which I was probably trying to hide away or deny or think was not important, really, that it was. I can't. It just sits in me. I have to do it, really. And, yeah, that was. That was it. I mean, so I can. I can really. I need to thank my dad. You know, it's like, thanks, dad. You know, you've. You've met. You and Mum, of course, because she was also working in the game reserve as well with dad, and, yeah, without them, I would have, you know, had a very, very different outlook on life and everyone has their own life and I'm just pretty happy with the one I've led, really.

Yeah. I mean, that childhood just sounds amazing from, you know, coming from the uk, listening about that and. And kind of those stories. Do you. I can see you understand now you're describing it like that adventure that you had as a child and how that maybe kind of now plays out in terms of what makes you happy or tick right now, or the terrier, whatever it might be. But do you think that's also had an impact on how, like, resilient you are, like, the fact that you can keep going through anything? Has that childhood had an impact on. On that side of your endurance, do you think?

Yeah, definitely. From a resourcefulness point of view, I think the other thing that growing up in the wilderness in Africa is you had to be pretty resourceful when things went wrong. You know, you couldn't. There was no easy fix because you, you know, I was an hour from anywhere, you know, civilized, really. So when things broke or things didn't go your way, you sort of had to do it yourself, like, find a way of fixing it or any problems. You had to really. You couldn't really call anyone else in. You had to sort of do it yourself. And I remember, you know, with Mum and Dad being really. That really sort of rubbing in on me that, you know, if something breaks, you fix it you don't buy a new one. You're my dad now. So it's 2025. He has the same microwave that he bought in 1995. Yep. So he has had the same microwave for 30 and he. And every day he cleans it and lets it dry out and fixes it same. I think he, he still had one of those box TVs with the wooden veneer around the edge of it. I think he had all those until like 2012 or something. Because you decide, well, it still works. It actually doesn't, dad. It's completely green but you can't see it. So just get yourself a proper telling. So yeah, I remember that rubbing off on me, you know, trying to be resourceful and then the resourcefulness leads to resilience because you know, you can be resourceful all you want but might not work and you got to do it again and do it again and do it again and it'll be something simple. Like you know, you're driving in the bush in the rain and you get stuck in the mud. You're like, well like I can't just call a tow truck because we're in the middle of nowhere. You know, if we hear too long the lions and elephants are going to come, let's get stuck. You know, we need to get out of the mud. So you know, you throwing the car mats out and you're digging and you throwing rocks underneath and you're reversing it back and forth, back and forth and, and you're working out what works and what doesn't work and eventually you get up and then, you know, all those little experiences as a kid definitely gave me that mindset of trying to fix stuff. I think I definitely have a part of me and that's probably a little bit of the monkey there as well that likes to break stuff and fix it and do stuff with my hands. But you know, finding a solution to fix a problem is definitely ingrained in me from a young age and that really transfers well into the multi day altringer and stuff. When things aren't going wrong. When things are going wrong or difficult or broken. Now be very resourceful. Right. I need to make a plan. Yeah, this is what I can control. This is what I can't control. Let's write a list. Let's see what's the optimum to make this get out of the situation as quick as possible and then you implement that and inevitably that sets the ball rolling for you to overcome whatever issue you're in at the moment.

I Can imagine, you know, and having, having read before this as well, you know, like the number of things that you've had to, you know, endure and get out of as well is, yeah, that, that resilience and resourcefulness is, is, is really important. Going back to your, your book the Iron 105, you talked about struggling to be able to make friends and part of the motivation was a connection. Did that work for you? And has endurance sport helped you find that connection or that belonging?

Absolutely. Firstly, I, I don't want to sound like, you know, misery gut sitting at home going, oh, I don't have any mates. Like I have, I have really good friends. But what I meant in the book is I just moved to North Wales and then it was covert so I sort of spent the first few years in, in North Wales, you know, just stuck in the house really not meeting anyone. So that, that was part of my journey of, of, of sort of wanting your. I call it the snowball of life. You know, you, the snowflake, you're gonna, you know, float down and you either get a freeze or melt in this in the one spot or if you want, and this is up to you, you can take that first step forward to create a bit of momentum and then someone will join your, your, your snowflake. And eventually the more people that join becomes a sort of real, you know, I call it the snowball of life. And, and the bigger the snowball, the more people actually want to join. It's incredible how just that works. People are attracted to a fast moving ship. You know, no one wants to join a sinking ship. So you know, but you've got to make that first step. You know, if you don't, you'll just melt or freeze. Right. And community is one of the 10.5 pillars. And that over time I've realized has just as much importance as all the other pillars in the, in the, in the 10.5 pillars because it never used to be enough. I always sort of thought, wow, it's just community on my own. And yeah, okay, I might have some coaches and trainers and physios and nutritionists and that sort of thing, but really it's me, I'm just doing it all by myself. But really it's just not much fun. You know, find your tribe, find your people, find your community and just life's better when you find the same sort of people who have the same sort of thoughts as you and have the same philosophy and also in the world of endurance and things, you know, to you on your own as you on your own, you and one other person who's the right person equals three people. And you and four or five of the right people equals 100 people, you know, and it's important about nurturing those people and, and choosing wisely the people who you want in your snowball because you can get people who join your snowball for ulterior motives or toxic people who just want their, they want to be part of the momentum and they can bring you down, you know, because often in a team, the team will often, and this has been proven, will sort of kind of sync to the lowest performing person. So it's really important to like get everyone, lift everyone up, don't put people down, lift them up, get everyone together, get everyone excited and get that momentum. And that's why our community is, is on my 10.5 pillars because it's just that energy and that, that sort of connection with other like minded people. It's just so important. And same in business is when you employ people, you got to find those people right as well. You don't want someone bringing everyone down. You want the really nice solid group of people in your snowball and then you'll just find it easier. Even though I was still me doing it, I still needed the two. Chris's, Justin, Phil, Ryan, Simon, you know, everyone in my crew, day to day crew were just incredible. You know, they were just incredible. Without them it would have been impossible really to do it. So yeah, it's, it's, it's really taught me a lesson that community element of endurance really.

I think it's one of the things that I took most from our Lands End to Johnny Groats cycle ride. You know, there's five of us all doing, all embarking on this journey together. You know, some of us had almost, you know, very little multi day experience. You obviously have huge amounts of multi day experience but sort of that building of that tribe together and kind of helping each other. We all had kind of moments where we were not top of the, the the you know, at our best and then sort of supporting each other through that. I think it was, it was really, really powerful. And I also love the fact that you set a new PB while we're going from Lands End to John o' Groats by being with us. So that was really cool. But what did you so, so we're obviously all new to that Lands Enter Johnny Ghost experience, but you've done it many times in many different formats. What did you take from the experience of cycling from Lands Enter John o' Groats with us beginners.

Well, it made me realize sort of a couple of things actually. One is how much I actually really enjoyed being part of it. You know, even though I've done almost every single road we'd cycle on except the bit in Scotland where we cut north. I hadn't done that bit through Edinburgh and the Cairngorm, so that was exciting. And also B, I feel like I almost. And I wish I'd done this before really because yeah, I did my first dancing genre, it's 2008. I feel like I've not given the community back enough in the form of just being that mentor, that figurehead, that person who can put on these events that people can sign up for and join. And because of that I've actually now as of. Well, we'll watch this space. It's going to happen soon by a big meeting tomorrow. I'm going to be launching the Sean Conway Adventure Series where. Which will be cycling based and you'll be able to come and join me. There'll be four events around the world, all cycling based, all a week long and it'll be the short Conway Adventure Series and I'll be at each one, hosting each one, telling people how to do it. There'll be a bit of fun, bit of banter, pretty much exactly how we did it. Nice evenings out and that sort of thing. So yeah, it's made me sort of suddenly realize actually that was, that was really good and I, I'm sort of kicking myself that I just. Because I was offered these things, you know, when I swam the length of Britain and the fame and the Discovery Channel documentaries and then the Amazon documentaries during that period, which is nearly 10 years ago now, I had all this stuff come to me and I was like, oh no, I don't know. I had all these excuses and reasons why I, I shouldn't do it and, and I'm kicking myself now because I think I've missed an opportunity to make the community bigger. I think people would have got a lot from it. So now I've got some catching up to do. Yeah. So hopefully every year we're going to run this, this, this four parter Sean Conway Adventure series. But yeah, watch this space. It's gonna be fun.

If you.

I am very excited about that. I think, I think you can, you can make sure I'm on the distribution list for that because I think I think it. So I learned a huge amount from you. Just I remember going into the McDonald's in I can't remember where we were somewhere sort of on the Scottish border. And I would have normal. I mean, I can't. I think it was probably 25 years since I'd actually stepped foot in a McDonald's. But even if I'd been, you know, it was. It was somewhere that I would have been regularly. I would have been like, oh, I think I fancy the flavor of this. Or I like the, oh, what's the healthy option? Sean just goes straight to the calorie list and goes, right, that's the highest calories. That's the second highest calories. I'll have those two, please.

Yeah, well, it's. It's me, you know, going back to my superpower of I micro analyze and micromanage everything. And, you know, two of the. The pillars is there's nutrition and hydration and then recovery and over. And experience, you know, that's. That's the other one. Experience is another pillar. So, you know, I was implementing three of those pillars in that moment, right. Experience said, straight after a ride, I need calories and. And I need some. Well, I need some fat, I need some carbs, I need some protein. I need some hydration. And that sort of ticks the nutrition. Hydration. I need a bit of salt as well. That ticks the nutrition and hydration and also the recovery side. And part of the recovery is sleep, and then also part of the recovery is muscle management as well, which also is some of the other pillars. And yeah, it's sort of. I get so frenzied on it almost, you know, like. Because I know through experience, I know that actually right now, priority one food and hydration more than sleep, more than a shower, because everyone, oh, you guys are like, oh, I'm gonna go for a shower and chill out. But no, no, no, I'm gonna go and eat and then have my shower and then I'm going to eat again. How many. There's a couple of times we got into like a weather spoons, didn't we? I went to have a meal on my own, then went and showered. I'm still in my dirty cycling kit. Everyone's looking at me like, who's this weirdo? But that was priority one. I knew you. I needed to eat, so I ate, went and Chad came back and had my second meal. So I never. I lost no weight on dancing Johnny Growth. I was never in a calorie deficit. And I mean, I'm still slow on the hills, right? I was waiting for you to bring that one up, but you didn't. So I was you saying save me the bother. So yeah, that was, you know, that's all part of it. And I really feel like now I want to share that knowledge with people. So I'm excited about. Yeah, putting on the series.

Really the series. By the way, I agree with Charlie. Sounds amazing. I think both of our bucket lists are huge. So that's definitely going to be on it. So in terms of nutrition hydration, with all the challenges that you, all the adventures that you've had and you also talk about one of your other pillars being experience, what have you learned really hard lessons in? So when it comes to nutrition and hydration, what has really made you rethink your strategy or seek out help?

Yeah, that's a really good question. The thing with nutrition hydration on 90% of the records I've done is I've had, I've had very little options. So there's been very few times where I've had a choice for nutritional hydration. So the first thing I've learned is it's better especially in the multi day stuff where you're going to potentially be in a calorie deficit like the ironmans. I was 8,000 calories a day was my burn rate. We monitored that with heart rate and actually what I was eating and my weight every day I was, yeah, I was going through 8, 000 calories a day. If I was 7,000 calories a day for a week I would maybe lose muscle and if I lost the wrong muscle I'd lose power, which meant I'd be slower, which meant I'd have less recovery and then that can be a downward spiral. So it got for me and this is, this is very, very niche because it probably wouldn't count for everyone. For me it's almost the first philosophy is it's better to eat the wrong thing than nothing. It because sometimes you think, oh well that's not so good for me actually for me it's often just a calorie number. I just, I'm doing multi day stuff. Yes. Am I going to perform the best on it? Probably not, but it'll stop me losing weight and, and that for me was sort of almost the most important thing. So on the iron hands I was downing 2,500Calories of full fat cream every single day, which meant I didn't lose weight. Well, I did. I lost 3 kgs in the 105 days, a kg a month pretty much, which for me I think is phenomenal. I started 2 kgs heavier the first two I got down to race weight which for me is about 68kgs and I got dropped to 67. You can actually see my time start getting a bit slower when I lost that last kg because that was my sword really. But you know, I still did pretty good. I mean I did a double Iron man and lost 3kgs or 4kgs like a couple of years ago in, in 48 hours. So yeah, I was pretty happy with that. So yeah, for me it was important to sort of just eat anything really. And that's sort of what I've learned in my stuff. But as I said it's, that's not really help most people listening to this who don't really do weeklogged month long things. And the other thing also is just I cut out the sugar stuff. Yeah, that's never really worked for me. I, I don't feel, feel good either. Doesn't give me energy. So I tend to just try and eat natural food or chewy chewy bars, you know, stuff that's a bit easier to chew. I don't really do gels. I have done them in the past and the faster things I'm doing now with higher heart rate, gels are good. The gels now very, very good. So I'm testing out different gels at the moment. So yeah, that's sort of, that's been my nutritional journey. But it's, it's basically just eat everything I guess.

You know, you're talking about, you know, this experience and you know, your gut has to get used to everything that you're taking on and if that's really limited, it's got to get used to it, hasn't it? What kind of limit? You talked about downing that cream but what other limited food choices do you mean? Like what kind of. Give us some examples of what that might have been. Other than. Other than.

Yeah, I mean, you know, so the, the. I've only done two things with a full support crew swimming the length of Britain and Iron 105. Everything else I've been self supported traveling across countries which is normally meant me just running into service stations or things. So like for example in South America, you know, I'm just running into a cafe, you know, the clock's ticking, I need to order quickly and sometimes what I would do there just because of a language barrier is I'd look at all the plates of people as I'm walking through, people are sitting down with plates of food and I could scan very quickly what I think would be the best for me. So it'll Be a bit of meat, either rice or. If it was, you know, if it was rice or pasta, I'd always choose rice, rice, potato. I'd probably choose potato or rice. I'd mix them up and then a choose a meat. But it's South America, so I'm looking at something that looks a little bit like a guinea pig. I'm like, well, I don't know. I'll have that, please, because that's the only dish I could see with meat on it. So, yeah, there's been that. And then, like in Russia, when I cycled across Europe, I did 1200 miles of Russia. And that was. You're legally allowed to cycle on motorways in Russia, which is stupid, but you are. So you have to. To break the record, otherwise you just won't break the record. So I'm just diving into service stations and it's, it's. I know it's a cliche, but literally their service stations was like, half of it was crisps and the other half was vodka. So I'm just like, oh, well, I'll just have crisps. So I'm trying to live on, like, crisps and rubbish. Just whatever you get in service stations, really, which is not. Not optimal, but you just gotta do it, really. You've got to do it. And. And you do get quite good at, you know, working out. You know, a bag of crisps is 500 calories per 100 grams, which is pretty amazing, actually. It's really. And it's got salt, it's got fat, it's got carbs. And, you know, I'll put a bite. A little hole in the crisps, crunch them up, squeeze all the air out, crunch all the crisps up, open the packet, and you can just pour them in your mouth and you can have a whole bag and like, 20, 30 seconds. Really?

That's a top tip.

Yeah. And with a bit of water in your mouth, you swirl it around. Choo, choo, choo, boom. You know, bananas, don't chew the banana. If you want slow energy, swallow them in chunks and that's like a slow release gel. So there's lots of those sort of things where I just run in and just grab whatever I can. And it's never optimal. It's never, never optimal. But as I said, it's better to eat the wrong thing than nothing. Because once you lose too much weight, the power goes, the speed goes, your cognitive ability goes, everything goes. You might just.

Just eat, you know, and it works for you. So that's, that's.

Yeah. Just about, you know, which is why supportive attempts are so much quicker than self supported. Because, A, you're not caring any, but B, you've got all the nutrition. You've worked that out before. You know what you can eat, you got someone feeding you. You know, like when I did the. The marathon leg of the Ironmans, you, Phil, who was my crew on the run, he was cycling next to me and he had bottles with powders in and crisps and some pasta meals and. And you just knew, like, 20 minutes, like, sure, drink now. And even if I was moaning, like, my stomach, oh, I don't want to. She's like, you do it, mate. You do it. You know, you're gonna, you know, hate me tomorrow if you don't. I'm like, okay, fair enough.

Fantastic. So I guess the big question is, you know, what. What's next? You know, you're talking about things that are in your calendar in 2035, but what big challenges are next in your mind? Are there things out there that still really scare you? Or maybe, let's say, excite you? Probably in the same sentence.

Yeah. I mean, I've got so many. I mean, the first thing I would say is I still owe Caroline quite a few sort of childcare days, so. Which I'm actually quite enjoying, to be honest. You know, it's payback time now. So, yeah, I don't know if I'm hungry for something very, very long where I'm away from the family. My boys are still young, they're only six and three, so it'd be nice for them to be a little bit older so that they can be part of the journey. And, you know, nowadays with connectivity, they can really feel like part of it. I've actually set up my TV at home so I can do video calls on the big tv. So if I'm away from the kids, you know, they're not just, like, chatting to me on a phone. Like, they're there, like, I can put my phone around and they can see where I am in the world. And that's quite exciting for them. And they're getting to an age now where they're starting to work out that, wow, Daddy's in this country. Wow, that's pretty cool. Well, the older one is. The young one doesn't really know yet, but, yeah, so. But then there's little stuff. Yeah, there's a little stuff I've had on my bucket list, which, you know, Are they harder than 105 ironmans? Probably not. I don't think I'll do anything as hard as that physically and mentally. Just because there was no off button, there's no averaging on that record. But that's still hard for me. You know, there's like the tunnel race, the run called the tunnel. It's one mile, it's a one mile tunnel which you run back and forth 200 times. 200 mile race. That would be very difficult for me. I've never done that before. So there's those sort of events that I'm quite excited about doing along with my youth sport work. I've just got super motivated to do more youth sport work. So I was talking to Charlie about. I own a particular website that I've got big grand visions for in the world of youth sports. So hopefully going to activate that. Yeah. Pretty soon. Really. To get that up and running. Yeah. So that's all part of these again, these long term, long term goals. But yeah, the terrier. Back to your original question. The Terry is still asleep after Iron man, let's put it that way. You're not woken up for anything crazy difficult yet, which my wife's very happy about.

And all the, all of your adventures, you've ended up inspiring literally thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. And but what I, what I'm interested in is what other endurance achievements completed by others have you been inspired by? Maybe something, you know, some things in recent years that people have achieved. Records that have been set that you've thought, wow, that was, that was really phenomenal.

So if everyone has broken all these big records is probably. There's only a couple that I look at and go, I don't think I could do that. One is Mark Beaumont's around the World in 80 Days on the bike. I've looked at the figures. I just don't think I could push that power to get that average speed. You know, he's 85 kgs, I'm 68. You know, my power because it's a flat course and someone bigger on a flat course is going to push more power. Yeah. You know, I can tuck smaller potentially. But you just have to have so many stars aligned to break Mark Beaumont's record. It's incredible that 78 days to cycle around the world is phenomenal, including transitions. Right. So you know, he's averaging 240 miles a day. Yeah.

Even on the days where he has to fly. I mean it was just. Yeah.

Absolutely incredible. Which means if there's a day he only does 200, he's got to do 280 the next day to average out Again, yeah, it's incredible. So that was amazing. And then some of Ross Edge Lee's big long swims recently where he's done 60 hours, mate, I'm like, that is fair. I think I could maybe do that if I really just threw all my eggs into. Into one basket, into the swimming basket. But that's been very impressive. His. His swims have been really, really phenomenal. So, yeah, those two of some of the recent ones. And then, you know, then there's some obviously really, really difficult records like Diana Nyad's Cuba to Florida swim. That was incredible. If anyone hasn't watched TED Talk, it's amazing. They made a Netflix brought out a film called Nyad about it. And that took him like 30 years or something. You know, it was incredible to achieve. I actually failed five times. Right. Such a good story. So, yeah, those are, those are some of them. Well, they're just coming to me. I had the hammer. Highest annual mileage record. Amanda Cocker has that record. She did. I want to say 80, 80,000, 85,000 in a year. 200. It's like 210 miles a day for the whole year on the bike. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, super. I think I could do that one. I think I could do that one. But it's all very impressive.

It's absolutely, absolutely incredible. And then, and then sort of switching this onto books. You've obviously, you mentioned that you've written eight books. I think that's right, eight. And I dare say there's. Well, I know there's another one in the pipeline, but I think it's aimed at your grandchildren. So share with us that the concept of that book.

You know what, So I bet you. And There's. I've had 100 success rate on this. I've asked everyone I've ever asked on this. I've said, how do you. Do you think your grandparents led a very unique and interesting life? Everyone else said, oh, the absolute. And you know, my grandparents took the steamboat from England and Ireland to Africa and landed up in Zimbabwe. Everyone, 100% of people say it, no matter how old they are. I've asked people who are now 16, 70, I've asked people who are 20. I was like, none of them wrote anything down, you know, And I was like, man, I wish they had just written down what they did. So now I've actually, I've written about what I'm 45, 50,000 words into it. And I think I might just call it Dear Grandkids, but it's literally a Book as written to my future grandkids. And it's telling them about my African childhood, my years at school, then my 10 years in London as a photographer, everything up till the adventure stuff. Because I've got the eight books now from then on, from 30 onwards. Right. But you know, there's all the stories about me as a kid growing up in Africa and at school and which I think would be fun for them to read. Like I wish I had those stories from my grandparents. So yeah, when I publish that book, it's sort of going to be a two parter publication. Well, like two pronged approach. One is I just publish the book and maybe people will read it. But the second one is I really want to actually more push this, this idea that everyone should write a Dear Grandkids book. You don't have to think. And we talked about this because, you know, the idea of writing a book, you get overwhelmed by it. But you know, I've sent, I've sent you the draft. I just wrote little chapters. This is the story about the hyena coming in the house. And this is the story about me nearly drowning the first time. And this is the story about me nearly drowning the second time or me nearly jumping on a lion. So I sort of just broken down into all these little one page, little mini stories. So yeah, I think, I think the book's going to be called A Diary of, Of a Kid from Africa and then sort of, you know, to My Future Grandkids or something as a subtitle. But I love it. I love writing. I love it. It's, it's.

I think, I think it's a really good idea. And what I really liked about it was so having written four books, I've written some of the kind of stories that are important to me, but there's other stories that just don't have a place in any of those books. Like the story of how Carol and I got together is not in any of those books and yet it should be written down for the grandkids. So I think it's a beautiful thing. And of course, and I will have asked you this right in the first time we had you on the podcast, but what books written by others have inspired you on your journey? Or do you find yourself recommending to other people?

Wow, that's a good question. I love just sports, men and women's autobiographies. And one that I really did like was Chris Froome's one because he really sort of, I feel like we had a similar connection. You Know Chris Froome's book, he grew up in Kenya and you know, there's him hustling, trying to get onto races, you know, in the back of his car with the bike, turning up at the wrong kit. And you know, he had this really amazing mentor in Africa to trained him and got him better. And his was a real zero to hero story which I really enjoyed. You know, that's probably one that sticks out because I have a kinship to his story also, having grown up in Africa and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I did enjoy Chris Shroom's. I mean it was written quite a while ago now, but I do enjoy that one.

Brilliant. And then we have a closing tradition on the podcast where we get the last guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that is going to be for. And I think Claire has got Joe Andrade's question for you.

Asks, what's something you've never shared publicly that helps shape who you are today?

Oh, that's a good question. Something I've never really talked about is from quite a young age I was like a real entrepreneur in my teens and I think that hustle as an entrepreneur, when I say entrepreneur. So at school I was just really hustling to try and sort of like make money. And I don't think that was the goal to make money. I just liked the idea of starting something and, and trying to do things. So for example, I became a house barber at my school with just, you know, for 50p to get your haircut, but it was clippers only. I wasn't good enough with scissors. So if you wanted something with clippers, I could do that. 50p. I also had a secret tuck shop. The secret I had a. So I hid this trunks at school and on the playground people would be, sean, I hear you've got some, you know, superseas, which is a sweet table suite you could buy. And I'd be like, hey, let's see, about five rand, whatever. So I did that. I then also became, you know, I was. I'd sell pick photos around the school. So on Saturday I'd go and photograph all the sports matches and then get the film developed. And then I'm around the dining wall on the Monday showing everyone a picture. I'm like, oh, Kevin, mate, look at this picture of you scoring a try. Come on. You know. And then I know, just give me cash, you know, or give me, you know, we trade and hang on, whatever. And yeah, I mean it was me. I wasn't really making any money. Actual money. But I quite liked the idea of just being in that little world and I think that sort of when I. That's coming back actually. So when I then got into photography and I started hustling for like more jobs and doing all that sort of thing, I got quite excited when the photography just really didn't pan out like I'd hoped. I really sort of became anti that for a while, probably for a Good, you know, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years really. And I'm finding that's coming back now and I'm really excited because I've got quite a few businesses ideas. You know, I talked briefly about this website I want to start is a couple of other books that are sort of more based around the 10.5 pillars and different products that I can, you know, give out to people for that and sell that that way. So yeah, it's, it's weird how I did it early on and I think that really helped me just again be resourceful in the way I think about things and approach things and then, you know, I think buried it for a bit. But it's coming back now and I'm very. I'm actually quite excited by it by starting all these little side projects like the Sean Conway adventure series, like this website I'm going to put together and various other things. So yeah, that, that's something I've actually genuinely never, never talked about the sort of. The time I used to be a hairdresser, sweetie, you know, like hustling about the bottom of my shoes. I felt like I was at the Great Escape, you know, I love, love.

The idea of this sort of emerging over the course of the next few years. I'm really excited to see where this plays out and, and in particular with the series obviously having benefited from being a part of that. Lads, enter John o' Groats ride. Can you give us any more sort of clues as to what that might look like or.

So I've not actually penned anything, so I'm actually, I think part of the journey is going to be putting it out to people to say if you had a week to cycle somewhere, where would that. With me, what would that look like? Is it across Iceland? Is it the length of Vietnam? Is it like seven days of the Tour de France? I don't know, you know, is it the whole Alps? Because you could pretty much do follow the Ark of the Alps in seven days, I reckon. Is it the Pyrenees? Back and forth, you know, whatever, you know, Is it the Atacama Desert? Is it the Sara So that's. It's sort of like really in the early stages of putting this thing together, which is going to be very, very exciting. I literally had, you know, I had an email about it. Someone approached me, you know, about a month ago and I sort of just didn't do anything about it because I had these other. Have these other plans which are. Which are not. Not happening now, which now allows me to have this conversation tomorrow, really. So I'm not. It's very early days, so you're pretty much first people to hear about. And I don't even think I've told Caroline confirmed the meeting half an hour before this recording.

So, yeah, well, I am definitely excited to hear about it.

Amazing.

And what we'll do is like this, this when this recording won't go out on the podcast for a few weeks. So if you've got a bit more substance to it by then or a link to a page about it, we can put that in the show notes for. But yeah, I'm very excited and yeah, I'd love to share my opinion of where I think those should be going as well. So that's really cool.

You're going to choose some hills to beat me up again.

I like the alpine adventure one, as I think we talked about sort of Geneva to Nice would be a. Would be a very cool one. And yeah, we want to see you work on the hills as well.

Did Montvant 2 a couple of weeks ago and I thought I was doing well. I think I was, you know, pushing 230. 240 watts up the whole way. You know, I'm quite light, so I was pretty happy with that. You know, that's nearly just under 3, 4 watts per kilogram. I'm pretty happy with that. And I got to the top thinking, surely I've done okay on this climb referencing. People often think I'm a really good climber, but actually I'm not because most of my records have been sort of time trials really. Like my Across Europe is pretty flat. Around the world is pretty flat. You know, most of them have been pretty flat. So I've never really exercised big hill climbing, which surprises people because everyone thinks I'm short and light. I'll be amazing, but I've just never done it, so. But this time I thought, well, I must be pretty good. And then I went to Australia later and my position on the leaderboard was 69, 900 top 70,000, though. 70,000 at 230 watts the whole way for two hours. I don't know How Just those. Those climbers are just another breed, aren't they? Wow.

Yeah. Did you. So. So how long did it take you?

One hour 57, I think.

And did you look as they did more Mon Ventoux in the tour this year?

54 minutes. 54 minutes. Wow.

That was incredible. That is. Yeah, it really. Yeah. Does highlight how amazing what they do is. Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you again, as always. Always, you deliver some brilliant stories, some humors, but also some amazing lessons not just in the world of endurance sport, but also in life and health as well. So huge thank you for everything you've done to inspire others. Huge thank you for sharing some of that with us today and can't wait to see where it goes next and to hear more about the entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Charlie. Thanks, Claire. It's been awesome. Nice one.

So what did you make of the chat with Sean?

Amazing. I mean, you've interviewed him right at the very beginning when this was Tribathlon, of course. So it was amazing. It was amazing to have a slightly different discussion with him as well. But my God, like, I think he just is, you know, if you had a dictionary definition of endurance, I think he would. He would be it, wouldn't he?

I actually think he doesn't get anywhere near the credit he deserves for. I mean, like, we only fleetingly talked about his swim from Lands End, John o', Groats, his fastest cycle across Europe, his furthest triathlon, because we talked about them in episode one. And I'd really encourage people to go back and listen to that original episode. I think you'll find it's a very different. Hopefully we've got. I've got a little bit more professional since I interviewed him, but just like we obviously only. We did barely touched on those. Those were huge achievements. But to then throw in Iron105 as well. Plus there's also so many more that we didn't even mention. Whether it's his original Lands Ends, John O Groats bike ride, whether it was him cycling, what I mean, the Heath mentioned he threw in the Central America piece, but we didn't talk about that at all. Cycling around the world, all of those sorts of things. Just incredible. So what were the lessons that you. You took from it?

Do you know? I mean, I really loved the bit actually. Obviously science backgrounds. I like a lot of. Bit of science he talked about, actually. You know, some of the, like the one, the 105, for example, brass lawns. He talked about, you know, a lot of people thinking, well, it's, I can't even comprehend it. And the fact that people almost disengaged from it a little bit, like, well, that's crazy. Like, he must be somebody different. So I really love the fact that he's trying to actually show people what is possible and actually what's impossible inside us. And you know, he was saying, you know, that's not just fiction. There is science to support this. It's factual, like you are capable of doing it. So I loved, I loved that part because actually helping other people to be able to achieve their goals, it might not be as big as that, but actually that anybody could achieve that. So I really, I really liked that. I loved his analogy, actually. I know, you know, there's lots of people have read about the monkey, can't remember the actual name of the idea. The chin paradox. Yeah. But I love this idea of his, like, creative side, which you can see coming out actually in that kind of fun side. And this analogy of the terrier of like, you know, I've just got to go and get it. I've just got to go and do it. And that's really interesting because I, I was thinking about business and also endurance athletes at this point and I just thought, I can see that in a lot of business professionals that really make it or an entrepreneur that really wants something and they go and get it. And you know, the same for an endurance athlete, actually, I'm just gonna go and do it. So I liked, I love that analogy. Interesting that his terrier is a little bit quiet in the moment as well.

Well, it sounds like he's worn out, Stella. Yeah, I mean, that's the same. That's the same.

Just cooking up something very new.

Yeah, I think, I think, but I think, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, how he said it's just tired at the moment. So it's not, it's not active, but it'll come active again. But I think, I think you're right. I think what I loved about the way he talked about goal setting, like, I loved the fact that he said, you know, even if your goal, if your current goal is to do the couch to 5k, put a 10 year goal in of 100 miler or 100 kilometer run, because it's like, it seems so ludicrous. But he's absolutely right. What you can achieve over the long term, we massively underestimate. We overestimate what we can achieve in the short term. So. And I loved his approach when he was doing the I am 105 of saying, well, okay, I need to get faster, but I can't just knock two hours off my time in the next two or three days. So I've got to just work on one idea to get to knock five minutes off and then one more idea to not another five minutes off. Because those, those, like we said, it's easier to find a hundred 1% gains than it is to find one 100% gains.

I thought that was my idea of micromanaging. Like I often talk with my clients about this, you know, this idea of actually looking at every single layer. And I guess that's some of the 1% as well, isn't it? But you know, actually what, what can I change right now that isn't a huge change, but just a small change because I've got all the data to show it. So what am I gonna tweak and tweak and change that? So I liked that along with there's no plan B. I was interested by this.

There's no safety net.

Yeah, I get, I, I, I could really see where he was coming from though, because actually if you give yourself, I don't know, let's say if you were, if you were cycling or if you've got a business plan and you say, well, you know, if I don't hit the target, we will go for this because this is the next best option. Or, you know, if you're given an option that on the way home from a 100 mile cycle, you can go the flat route or up over a hill, you know, a lot of people may, may duck out. So I do get that idea of like, if that is your goal, that is where you're going to go.

Well, as Tony Robbins said, if you're going to take the island, you've got to burn the boats. You've got to have, you've got, you've got, you've got to only have one option. And that's what, I suppose that's what it takes to achieve the insane levels of, of, of endurance that he, he's done. Really intrigued by his, his monkey and terrier kind of analogy of his two mindsets. And I really, I'm going to do a bit more, I've never kind of dug into, I meant when I was sort of chatting to him on, on the jog about it, I thought, I wonder what other animals are in that model. It's not a model I'm familiar with. You know, I talk a lot about the Colby A index and the print assessment and Things like that, which he sort of alluded to with, with whether you're a starter or a finisher. But, but I don't know much about, I don't know anything more about what animals would I have making up my, my mindset. So, yeah, I thought that was, I thought that was really, really interesting. Anything, Any final takeaways? Anything?

I think, I think one of the, you know, one of the great takeaways as well is, you know, having this, this idea of community and team he talked about. Actually it was after Covid, wasn't it, needing to get that community and team back. But actually it's so true that by having. We've talked about it a lot, haven't we? Like having the right people around you and you talk about it a lot in the trusted team about actually the team that you have around you, supporting you in your business. It's so important to have the right people in the right, not, sorry, in the right seats, but the right people in your business, you know, to support you and that snowball effect in one way or the other, you know, whether that's actually going to drag you down or that's actually going to help you to get to where you need to be and people then wanting to come in because it looks nice and the environment's great and they want to join you. So I really like that.

That tribe thing is really important. And in terms of nutrition, I mean, I remember sitting opposite him at breakfast when he's like emptying these packets of butter into his porridge so that he's, he's upping the calorie and like pouring sachets of salt into his glass of water. Yeah, like his, his order at McDonald's was one extra large milkshake and, and a fries. That was, that was it. So what did you, what did you take from his approach to nutrition?

I think a number of things I'd love, of course, I'd love to have dived in way deeper to that, but I can, I can kind of see how he's got like, he talked about his model, right. And experience. And I think this is really true. One, that when you, when you're doing stuff and you're not going super fast, you're at a low endurance level. You need that sustained energy. So I get, get why he's having what he's having. And actually he's absolutely right. If you're not getting those calories in a total amount of calories day after day after day is going to absolutely, you know, have, have that effect but from an experience point of view, because he's essentially, without probably even thinking about it, he's trained his gut to do it. So his gut can probably tolerate anything, you know. So actually, yes, we have all the theory and guidelines behind it, but that's actually proof that if you train yourself properly and train your gut as an organ properly, it will work. And you need to change what you're doing for the situation that you're in. So I'd love to have talked more about it, of course.

Well, I think, I think if, if you get the opportunity to join one of his bike rides and, and learn as to how he, or see it, it firsthand, it's just a totally different approach to anything I've ever witnessed before. Because I'm thinking healthy, he's thinking, I don't want to deplete any. I don't want any calorie depletion. So it's, it's fascinating to see, but a really brilliant interview. Inspiring guy, but also a great storyteller and with, with, with many, many amazing stories to tell. So, yeah, another great interview on the Business of Endurance podcast. And for everyone at home, keep on training.