First, Fastest, Furthest with Sean Conway

Foreign. Athlon podcast finding out how ordinary people do extraordinary things.

None of them are nice at the time, but you look back at them and you're proud of the achievement that.

Was Sean Conway, first, fastest and furthest. Welcome to the next edition of the Tribeathlon podcast, where we try and get under the skin to find out how people that are achieving the most extraordinary things are doing it. And in today's episode, I'm going to interview Sean Conway, an incredible guy, but I'll tell you more about him in a minute. But before I do, just want to remind you, on Instagram, please share a photo with the hashtag tribeathlon. That's tribe like the Tribeathlon Tribathlon photos while you're out swimming, cycling, running, competing, whatever it is, on your own or with your tribe. But just some amazing photos of where you're training and competing. And who knows, in time we may even have a prize for the best photo on Tribeathlon, but I'll certainly be mentioning my favorite each episode going forward. So, anyway, on to Sean Conway now.

Sean Conway.

I first discovered him when I read his book that tells the story. It's called Hell or High Water and it tells the story of him becoming the first person to swim from Land's End to John o'.

Groats.

It's an absolutely brilliant book. It's a fantastic story and what an incredible achievement. But Shaw wanted to be. Wanted to do the three Fs. He wanted to be the first person to do something the fastest and the furthest. So he then went on to do the furthest triathlon, which was a triathlon he created around Great Britain. An incredible achievement with a great documentary on Amazon Prime. And then also he wanted to be the fastest. So he set the world record for the fastest cycling across Europe. Again, another brilliant documentary on Amazon prime about that. He is an incredible adventurer. He's also done lots of other things and he's got amazing other things in the pipeline. And I'm sure you will enjoy the conversation and interview I did with Shaun, as much as I enjoy chatting to him. This episode is brought to you by Lucky Saint Alcohol Free Beer. Now, I drink a lot of alcohol free beer. I discovered it originally after a 142 mile ride through the Welsh mountains on.

A really hot day.

And it's just such a refreshing drink to have after a long ride, but you don't generally want alcohol at that point. So over the years I've tried most of the alcohol free beers I can find and my absolute favourite is Lucky Saint, the Branding looks brilliant. The bottle looks fantastic.

When it's poured into a glass, it.

Looks fantastic and it actually tastes amazing too good as most alcoholic beers I found. It's a brilliant product and I absolutely love it. If I'm going to drink alcohol free beer, that is the one I go to. It's just a really high quality product and if you, if you're coming back from a long ride or a long run, you want a refreshing drink, but you don't necessarily want alcohol because it's going to go straight to your head. And equally, if you're going out on a long ride or a long run in the morning, you don't want alcohol so that you wake up with a fuzzy head. So it's just a brilliant solution for those people that take their health seriously and their training seriously. So I genuinely love Lucky Saint. You can find that more@luckysaint.co. i hope you enjoy it as much as I do and if you hang on to the end of this podcast, I'll even have a discount code for you. So that's LuckySaint co. Just give it a try. This podcast is also brought to you by the Tribathlon app. The best place to find all of the running, swimming, cycling or combination events out there, the best place to find people to train with, and the marrying of the two, helping you find out where your friends are competing so that you can enter the event. Because we all know that if you enter a triathlon that your friends are doing, it's so much more fun than doing one where you know nobody. So go to tribathlon.com, download the app and find your next event.

So, Sean, thank you. Welcome to the Tribathlon podcast. Thank you very much for joining me. Now, I am a prolific listener of books. I listen to a lot of books when I'm cycling. I listen to a lot of books when I'm running. I am a dyslexic though, and therefore I read very slowly. So you are. You should be honored that this book is one of the only books I've read in quite a while. But it was absolutely brilliant. Helen Highwater I really, really enjoyed it, so I'm delighted that you can join us. So thanks very much for coming on. Let's kick things off by for those people that don't know you, can you tell them about your history, how you've got to where you are at the moment and just kind of summarize the craziness that you've been up to in the last 10 years?

Yeah, it's been wild for the last 10 years, but thank, yeah, thanks for having me. It's. It's an honor to be on 10 years ago. Long story short, 10 years ago, I used to be. Well, no, let's go back. Let's go way back when I was a teenager, I dreamt of being this amazing world traveling, world renowned National Geographic photographer. That was the dream. I just wanted to travel the world using the camera.

Growing up in Zimbabwe, I think, weren't you?

I was born in Zimbabwe. I have Irish family, so I've got an Irish passport. I then grew up in South Africa and then moved back to the UK with, with the English side of my family. So mum's side's English, Dad's Irish. Nearly 20 years ago now. So, yeah, in 100 years, sort of done a whole loop from England and Ireland down to Africa and back again. But yeah, growing up in Africa certainly fueled that adventurous side of my way of thinking, I guess. And, you know, I got into photography really young. I was probably 10 or 11 when I sort of started actively wanting to sort of take a camera wherever we went. I remember I had this rubbish. I think you got it free with a magazine subscription, you know, it had three exposure settings. I remember it was sort of sunny, cloudy and nighttime. You just turned the front of the lens. But I remember just being obsessed by it as a kid, you know, and then went on and did it at school and did very well. And that was going to be my thing, you know, I was just like, I was Sean the photographer, you know, from an early age, as sort of probably around 14, 15, it was just always like, oh, well, you just, you're going to be a photographer. That's your thing, Sean, you know, and you're good at it. Great. And then I sort of, you know, I think a lot of people in their 20s will probably relate to this. Well, certainly at the end of their 20s, you kind of, it's quite, I found quite difficult to make good decisions in my 20s based, you know, I didn't quite realize that I was still gonna live potentially another 70 years from when I was 20. Right. And quite realistically. So, you know, so in my 20s I had just this, like. I didn't think about that. So all I wanted to do is like, be successful now and earn loads of money now. And, you know, and it wasn't, you know, a lot of people say, oh, was say, oh, well, you know, did society pressurize you into sort of trying to live a certain way of life? No, society didn't it was all me, you know, I was just weak minded and didn't have much vision and although I sort of had this dream in my head, I never actually applied it. You know, I was like, oh I really want to work for National Geographic, you know, and that was the dream. But actually did I apply for any jobs? No, of course I didn't because I just got stuck in my own personal sort of drive just to kind of earn more money. Basically that was kind of the root of it already which inevitably, you know, doesn't end very well because you know, you earn the money and then you just spend more. Well actually you know what you do, you actually land up buying just more expensive versions of what you already own. And that kind of is just, that was a waste. It worked so hard to earn all this money and then all I did is bought a more expensive bottle of wine at the supermarket or bought a slightly more high resolution TV or bought a more expensive car. I mean they all kind of still do the same function, right? So I found my lifestyle really didn't go up at all with more money. In fact it went down because to earn more money actually usually comes with higher stress environment. You know, I'll self employed photographer, you know, the more clients you have, the bigger clients you have, the more stress they put on you and that sort of thing. So eventually turned 30 was like why am I not traveling the world? Oh yeah, I should mention I was a school portrait photographer. That's what I landed up doing by the way, which I mean you basically become a glorified passport photographer really. You just sort of, there's no creativity and it's just a numbers game. More children you photograph at schools, the more money you earn. That's as simple as that. Each time you press the button of a child, that child is worth some money to me. That was it. There was nothing else to it. And that wasn't very, very good for my mindset. So when I turned 30 I walked away from the business that I set up with my friend James. He bought my shares for £1 and that was it. I was 30 years old, I have no A levels and I didn't go to university. Photography was just a kind of a hobby that I just passion really that I eventually kind of became the way I paid my bills. So at 30 I was just, I was like, well what do I do? I was like oh well. And this was like I'm quite surprised now that back then I had the sort of the gumption to think of this as A concept. But basically my concept was I want to go traveling. I don't have any money to go traveling because I just, you know, I'd spent it over 10 years on better cars and a nice apartment. And then I was, you know, I was renting a nice flat rather than a rubbish one. And so I thought, well, how can I go traveling if I don't have any money? So I thought, well, I could save up some money sort of doing the math. Oh, I'd have to go and work somewhere that's low, low skill because I don't, I didn't, I don't have any A levels or anything. Photography I wasn't interested in. So I thought I can't do that. So I thought, well, you know what, why don't I try and break some sort of world record in the world of travel and, and you know, because I'd seen, you know, back, you know, even now people who rode the Atlantic and climb Everest and they have logos on them, you know, you're like, whoa, you know, Ben Saunders goes to the South Pole and he has a Land Rover on him. And I was like, well that's cool. You know, this must be a thing. Like it must like people must do these records and there must be companies that help them fund the expenses of it, you know, so that was literally, I thought, well it must be a thing, people must do it. So maybe I could do it. So the first thing I sort of thought I would try and do is the round the world cycle record back in. Well, I thought of it back in 2011 and I was going to do it in 2011 until I heard about a race that was happening in 2012, around the world bike race, the first ever one. And I entered that and thought, well, if there's a race it might even be better chance of finding a sponsor, you know. And that was it really. That was it. That kind of set me on this new kind of path and.

And you didn't complete that race or anything, did you? Had a nasty bike accident, didn't you?

Yeah, that was soul destroying, you know, like. So to put into perspective, it was around my 30th birthday so it was just. Which was April 2011, it was a few months after that where I just was like, I'm miserable. And it was all pretty quickly so it must have been sort of May, May, June. I packed it all in and I think it was like July, August when I sort of thought about this around the world bike ride. So between. So from quarter July all the way through to February. I was just training hard, trying to get sponsorship, which I got quite early on. I was quite, quite, quite lucky there to get the funding for flights and accommodation and things like that. Training 40 hours a week, which is, I mean 20 of those hours were always on Saturday. I was always sitting, doing 4am till midnight on Saturdays. So, you know, 20 hours a week really with one long day which I counted as training, which, which it was, of course. So yeah, I was putting everything into that ride and I started well, I head down to Spain, Morocco, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and I was in America doing my American leg. So it's 4,000 something miles in. Yeah, unfortunately, someone just on their mobile phone and speeding at 5 o' clock in the morning, you know, it's dark, it was raining, there was traffic lights ahead, so the red lights and the red tail lights, you know, I can understand why. And also, you know, I was cycling on a road that if you knew you would never in a million year cycle ever. But you know, I'm just following a line on a map, aren't I? You know, I was legally allowed to title on it, but it was suicide, you know, there was no hard shoulder really, it was busy. But I didn't know again, you know. Yeah, in Arkansas, in America, you know, but it was a terrible accident. I don't remember anything. I woke up in hospital the next day actually, well later that day, but the next day from when I remember. So I don't remember getting up. I went to bed, got up that morning, cycling along then got hit. You know, this wonderful family took me in and cared for me. Martin and Missy Carey, the driver admitted fault and you know, there was no, it was none of this sort of like, where's your insurance? We'll throw you out the back door of the ambulance. You know, none of that. The Americans were phenomenal. They were just the friendliest, kindest people. And actually even before and after the accident, I found American drivers super respectful to cyclists. Like genuinely like in the south, firstly, like in Texas, the hard shoulder is often wider than the main road and between the, on the white line they have these massive rumble strips that are so aggressive you actually can't even cycle over them. You actually have to come to a stop, pick your bike up and put them over there. They sort of these dug in divots into the, into the tarmac. So it's great. I mean that car, if you get, if your car goes on there, you sort of like scared you're gonna blow a tire, you know, so you really are Safe. And then the times when the roads are a bit quieter with no big hard shoulder, I found drivers would hang way, way back, you know, so, yeah, I mean, everyone says, oh, America's terrible, you know, because you do, unfortunately, you know, you do yell, you know, I got run over there. Mark Beaumont got run over there. James Cracknell got run over there.

I've had some experiences there as well. I haven't found them all to be good either.

Yeah. And, you know, and I don't know why, because for the most part, I found the drivers being to be pretty respectful. But, you know, you just get unlucky. Right. So. Yeah, so that. That one didn't end well and. Yeah, but I carried on, you know, I carried on because, well, I mean, unless you're Mark Beaumont, you only get one chance to cycle around the world. Well, actually, though, Nick Sanders, back in the 80s, he did it twice. He did it once and then thought he could do it faster, so he did it again. Phenomenal guy. He still currently has the record for cycling around Britain, which is about 5,000 miles. He did it in 21, 22 days back in 1980, I want to say 84. Guy Martin tried it, even. It's such a hard record to play.

That's incredible, isn't it, with all the tech today.

Nick Sanders, he's such a crazy guy, eventually gave up cycling, got into motorbiking, and he actually holds the unofficial world record for motorbiking around the world. I say unofficial because Guinness, when they looked at the speed he would have had to have done, said, this is irresponsible. We're not giving it. But he did it in 19 days. Developing. Crazy guy.

That's incredible.

You haven't lived too far from me here in Wales. So. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes.

You're in Wales now, are you? You're not in the Lake District?

No, I've recently moved to Wales. We just had. Well, my son's 11 months old and the lakes was amazing, but we were so isolated from the rest of the family. My wife's Welsh and my mum lives down in the Cotswolds. And, you know, and we were living in the middle of the lake, so it's not like, you know, you get to Kendall and you're nearly there, we're sort of an hour further in. So, yeah, we found. We just, like, our son wasn't seeing Granny and Granddad, you know, and Nana and cousins and that sort of thing. So we thought, you know, let's. Let's move a bit further south so that he can be near his grandparents and our cousins. And his cousins as well. And, and it's been great, to be honest. It's been amazing for him. And yes, of course, the Lake District is a phenomenal place to bring up children, but I think, you know, family is more important than, you know, living in a, in a pretty landscape.

Well, I'm married, I'm married to a Welsh girl as well.

So.

Where in Wales are you now then?

We're in North Wales. We're actually just inland from, from the border.

Oh, okay.

About 20 minutes from Chester.

Nice part of the world.

It's super convenient, you know, like, I fly away a lot. So actually Manchester Airport's 40 minutes from here. And you know the downside from the Lake District, firstly, it's so beautiful, you never go anywhere else, you kind of just stay at home. But you also certainly never go to Cornwall, for example. It's just, especially with the young children. It's just, it's almost a two day drive really, unless you really want to put. Push it. Whereas now, living in North Wales, you just that little bit closer to go everywhere in the uk, it's almost slap bang in the middle. You know, you've got Wales, you've got the Peak District, you can get to the Lake District pretty quickly. You're on the M5, M6 if you want to head to Cornwall. So, yeah, it's great.

And have you got, you mentioned Cornwall? Have you got some sort of affiliation with Cornwall? Because Carol, my wife, picked up this in a shop in Cornwall, she was just browsing and the lady said, ah, local hero. If your husband likes swimming or anything like that, you've got to buy that book. So hence I got it as a Christmas present. Have you got some link to Cornwall?

No, like personally, no, nothing at all. However, like, Cornwall was the beginning of my swim, right. And they were just the most heartwarming, welcoming people in Cornwall. And I spent quite a big chunk of Cornwall, you know, all the way up just to before Devon Heartland Point. So. And it was, it was real tough at the beginning, you know, beginning of that swim. I was getting seasick, the crew were getting seasick and. But yeah, people were letting me stay. Like this one time I swam ashore to have a break to sit out the tide and then I, the, the little support yacht couldn't come in and they had to go all the way to Newquay, which was ages away and I had nothing, literally. It was me and the girl in the kayak. M. Bell, she was in the kayak. And so we're on this beach, all I have is my wetsuit. Nothing. I have no phone, no wallet, no nothing. And she's the same. She's just in a kayak. So eventually we found this old. This old lady who said, oh, you can come and stay at mine. And she was probably about near 80. She said, oh, don't worry, you can come and stay at mine. I'm just. I need to go and have a surf first. In the book, she just went down and she did some surfing and then we went and stayed back at hers and, you know, she fed us and everything. It was great. So, yeah.

Got me into the reading the book so quickly was because we. We have a place in St. Agnes, so we're down in St. Agnes quite a lot. And just reading about you swimming that, that kind of stretch that I know so well, you know, I run, I cycle, I swim all along that stretch. But kind of reading, you know, your. And I mean, like the start of it, I mean. So for those of you, those of them that, those listeners that don't know, you were the first person to swim from Land's End to John o', Groats, weren't you?

Yeah.

And I mean, let's be honest, at the start, I mean, you nearly didn't get through day one, did you?

Well, I nearly didn't get to the start line because I needed £250 to fill my car up with diesel. So I had to go to the bank and ask for an overdraft.

Actually, that's one of the things I was going to talk to you about. And we can come back to you, perhaps, but the kind of, the amount of organization, but also sometimes the lack of organization before these things is quite amazing as well, isn't it? But, yeah. So tell us about our first day swimming from Land's End.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, firstly, my skipper didn't turn up. Through no fault of his own. He missed the bus from London. So he was the guy who was dealing with all the tides and when I can swim and when I can't swim. And I was meant to sort of, sort of set off at around midday, I think it was. I can't remember now, and I didn't quite sort of realize how important it was to really swim, especially at Land's End at that time. And, you know, I was faffing around with just, you know, interview, a few interviews. Speedo, my sponsors were down there and they were doing some filming and it kind of ran over, but I didn't think much, much of it. I was like, ah, 12, one, whatever. But, yeah, it turns out that, you know, the tides really are super unforgiving. And I made it, really did really good progress towards Land's End because the tide was running out from Senan Cove. So. Because that's the other thing, I didn't have a boat to take me to the start. Yeah, to get in at Sennan, which is a couple of miles away, swim to the start, turn around and swim back. And then when I try to swim back, it just. The tide was so strong. I was swimming in one place and eventually I had to swim near the edge and swim up and eventually I was knackered. So that was day one and that was super tough. And I remember people thinking, I remember Speedo. When I finished, I went out, I was like, where are the Speedo guys? They left, mate. They were like, oh, my God, this guy's never gonna make it. We're out of here. I don't think it was quite like that, but it certainly felt like it. But, yeah, and then I tried to swim the next day and we were just all seasick, you know, because by this time Jez had come in from London. So we went, we took the bus. It was hilarious. Like, really was. Like, I'm trying to scrape the barrel on, trying to make this, pull this off the ground. Because Speedo came on board with some funding, but it wasn't. It was. It would have been enough had I swum for as long as I thought it was going to take. It was going to take. Well, I thought it was going to take two, two and a half months, but it landed up being four and a half in the end, mostly due to bad weather, we had the support boats that was just not big enough to deal with sort of even sort of five, six foot waves, you know, it was just too small. So. Because you can kind of swim in anything. But if we'd had a bigger support boat, I could have swum in pretty much every day, really. But there was that. So, yeah, you know, there was times where I was, I remember, you know, jumping on a bus with my wetsuit just to kind of get to the start point where M and I had swam to and had to bury the kayak in the sand, you know. So there I am literally, like, waiting at a bus stop with, you know, with my £1 50, jumping on the bus, getting to the start point and then. And then carrying on. But, yeah, so those first few weeks were tough, you know, of course, because, you know, you're never good at anything the first time you do it and I just didn't train enough because, you know, you mentioned it earlier, there was, you know, there's a lot of, a lot comes across that I'm super unprepared, which is often true. However, in my mind, if you over prepare for everything when it goes wrong, you, you kind of know it's gone wrong because you've planned and prepared for that thing, whereas I like to leave some flexibility. Yes, you could go and prepare for the stuff that's going to quit, you know, make you fail. But you know, sometimes if you, if you don't, if you sort of let things naturally progress, if things are going wrong, you don't really know they're going wrong because you haven't really super planned that out and that, you know, that's things like, you know, how many miles I'm going to swim each day, where am I going to sleep each night, stuff like that. You know, you can't plan that too much otherwise because inevitably that's definitely going to go wrong.

You know, I think that's like a recurring theme to all of your challenges. There's certain things you go, why didn't you, why, why wasn't that something that you thought of beforehand? And yet I know there's huge amounts of stuff to plan for these things and yet actually I suppose you kind of made me think it's a bit like when I was traveling kind of after university. Part of the fun of it is the fact that you are kind of adapting as you go, aren't you? And you're kind of finding out what you need to learn, you know, along the way. But I mean, it is, it is absolutely incredible. And I mean, you know, being a swimmer, but kind of a swimmer as part of triathlon, I really enjoy open water swimming, but it can get a little bit monotonous, you know, you can't see where you're going, you know. And how do you get over that? I mean, clearly swimming from Land's End to John o'. Groats. Remind me how long it took you and how you dealt with the monotony of what formalised long day swimming.

I'm not sure I dealt with it very well back then. If I had to do that now, I've implemented much better coping strategies for dealing with that sort of thing nowadays, breaking things down, then the fuel, and the only fuel really was this fear of failing again. So I'd failed on the around the world bike ride. I actually, what some people don't know, a lot of people don't know is, but after I finished cycling around the world I tried to get back into real life. I was living with my mom in a one bedroom flat, a basement flat with no windows in Cheltenham, one bedroom. I was on the sofa in the living room and I tried to get back into work. I was queuing up at the job center. I was applying for photography jobs, although not with much passion. I really didn't want to get into photography but what I was interested in is sort of the cycling industry. So I was looking at sustrant cycling charities. There was a, I think it's called bikeworks which is a social enterprise, getting people into cycling, you know, trying to get people to cycle into work, bike mechanics, you know, anything to do with cycling. I was applying for loads of jobs all over the place, you know, and just getting nothing literally in. It was six months that I was, was sort of doing the job center, queuing up and going in every two weeks and telling them, you know, where I've applied for jobs and that. And in that time I didn't even get one reply email to say I'm sorry, you haven't got it like genuinely like I didn't get, I didn't get nowhere near an interview because on paper, you know, I wouldn't employ me really. You know, I have no A levels, I didn't go to university, you know, I'm this Zimbabwean, South African, Irish guy. I'm 32 years old and I have no CV, nothing because all I've ever done was photography. I worked in Snappy Snap's photo lab for six years part time while I was building up the photography and then I cycled around the world. So it's like this real weird CV if you could call it that. So yeah, so I mean that's actually what forced me into doing the swim because after a year of living with my mum, well, after six months of trying my mum was like, yeah, you should not be living on a sofa with your mother at 32, I think you should just do something. And I thought, well actually last time I had this stupid idea to cycle around the world and I managed to get people to back it financially and companies to get on board and help me with, help me achieve it. And when I did it I raised money for charity and all of a sudden I had, you know, schools going, oh, can you come and talk to the kids? And I got a real buzz out of that. I got a real buzz out of, I got a real buzz out of the whole thing. I got a Buzz out of the planning it. I got a buzz out of training hard and being fit and healthy. I got a buzz out of doing, not doing it. Although it's hindsight fun. You know, actually while I was doing it I found it pretty miserable, but actually I got a buzz out of that misery, if you know what I mean. And then I got, I enjoyed actually writing about it afterwards. So actually all those things, you know, when I actually sat down after not getting any other work, I thought actually I enjoyed this whole process of sort of being a non professional sportsman, which is, you know, I basically kind of am like an Olympian, but I just don't have the Olympics to go to. But I still have to look for sponsors, I still have to train, I still have to compete, I still have to win. And then once if you're lucky and you do win, like all the Olympians, you land up going and doing the talk circuit and inspiring kids and companies and you write books about your achievements hopefully. So it's a similar thing. I just don't have the Olympics so I got to basically think of my own Olympics and then win. It sounds kind of fun, but it's a fine balance because actually if it's too easy, no one's bothered to engage with you and it's too difficult, you either just become so sort of unreachable that it loses its your engagement with people. But also no one will fund the project basically if it's too crazy, which kind of went swim by them too.

And you came pretty close with that with the swim, didn't you? Because obviously you mentioned that Speedo sponsored you, but you were really scratching around trying to get the last bits of sponsorship and things like that, weren't you?

Yeah, I mean, just people. Yeah, I mean really, you know, this is 2000 and 2000 end of 2012, but mainly 2013. And it was a real interesting climate for sponsorship because social media was kind of building and you know, companies and brands knew that they could basically get marketing for free really through social media. That's changed a bit now. I think brands are now realizing that, you know, you can't just put free, free rubbish out on social media and get traction anymore. It's got to be good quality, everything. The consumer is really picky on quality now again, which for a while they weren't, they were happy to, to see rubbish. But because it was kind of on social media and live and real, it was like cool. Whereas now, you know, if you do that badly, people are like, well, he's not made an Effort. Right. So it's nice the brands are now actually investing a little bit more time and good video content and good brand campaigns and that which is really exciting because you know, there I am actually. I sound like I know what I'm talking about now but actually I just want to go out and break some records and raise money for charity and it's, you know, I'm just lucky that these brands and things are now a bit more willing to help out. But back then it was difficult, you know, and especially with something where the risk of not getting to the end was super high and also you couldn't, although social media was building, you couldn't leverage your entire sort of sponsorship campaign based purely around social media. Now some people can almost. I tend to stay away from it. I prefer to work with a brand on a bigger project rather than just likes and comments and views and insights. I like to work with them on a corporate social responsibility level and product design level and all these other cool things rather than just like oh how many people can view your video? And yeah, so back then it was like, well I might get in the paper if I get to the end, I might not. So it was a hard sell, I'm not gonna lie. I mean I wouldn't have sponsored me to be sure to be honest.

I mean the story of Easterming Britain is an incredible story and you kind of. It's a really, really good book and I really enjoyed. So I highly recommend that people read it because there's certain stages where you're thinking surely this is never, you're never going to actually. I mean you ended up finishing way later than you expected which meant the water was way colder, the conditions were way worse, particularly on the north west corner of Scotland. I can't remember what that's called but yeah, just absolutely incredible. And then from there you went on to. Now this is the one bit I haven't seen on Amazon prime. But you've went on to running Britain, is that right?

Yeah. So after I'd cycled it already I then swam it and then you know, obviously I also quite like just multi discipline things. I kind of get bored if I just do one thing. Loads and loads and loads. I like the challenge of bouncing around so I thought running would be the next, the next obvious thing in my head because I'd done swimming and cycling and obviously to complete the triathlon of Britain. Of course, you know, I was going to run it, you know, it was almost a no brainer. I actually attempted it first time in September 2013. No, 14. 2014. August, September 2014. I got 300 miles in and just. I tripped taking a selfie. It was pretty awkward, but I think, you know what, I probably would have got injured anyway. That was just the last straw on my right leg where the base had terrible patella tracking, my kneecap tracking, basically. And that was just the final straw. So that's pull out of that. Yeah, I was pretty gutted, you know, I was just like, ah. You know, I put a lot of energy and effort into trying to make you do that. And I kind of went home. Back to. Back to my mum still. Well, actually I just bought an old boat that I was renovating. So I was kind of living still, half with my mum and half on this old World War II gunboat that I got on ebay and in Worcester on the River Severn. And my mum was in Charlton, so actually it was quite convenient. I would, you know, just pop back and forth and when I needed a shower, I'd go back to mum, which.

Isn'T very often having watched the documentaries.

Then, you know, sort of February, March came round and you know, well, January, February. And I was like, you know, I'm just, I'm itching to get back on it. So I announced it again. I was like, all right, well, I tried the first time. Didn't happen. I'm gonna go, go again. And you know, I was ready to go. And then all of a sudden, yeah, Discovery Channel just contacted me out the blue, just randomly. And I said, oh, were you gonna do this run again? Do you mind if we send film crew and film you? And I was like, yeah, cool, why not? You know, I used to be a photographer. Sharing my story visually kind of sounded exciting, you know, in the form of creating a visual memory of it and. And yeah, and they did and it was great. You know, they. I was super. I was worried though, I have to be honest. I was worried that they would try and really dramatize it and make it big Hollywood thing and you know, like, ooh, add this, all this fake jeopardy and that sort of thing. But actually they were pretty good. Like most of the time they just gave me a GoPro and then sometimes they were hiding in the bushes and stuff. And then whenever I stopped, they would come and obviously they would be interviewing me. So there's just, you know, someone with a camera asking me questions how I feel. But most of the time I'll sort of self shooting and I have to say I'll be. I was super happy with the results. You know, they didn't turn me into the sort of character I then now have to pretend to be for the rest of my life. You know, I felt I was me in it. And they weren't forcing me to do stuff. They weren't making me do stuff again, you know, because I was worried I'd sort of run downhill. They'd be like, oh, no. Right, cool. Can you just do that again so that we could get it from a different angle? There was none of that. And that was super cool.

You know, I was going to ask.

You, how have you kind of got in?

How have you turned these events into being, you know, documentaries? But it sounds like that just came out of the blue then, did it?

Completely out the blue. Complete. I mean, since when? I finished the song. Ben Fogle was amazing to me. You know, like a week after, he invited me to this charity event in London. And, you know, I'm. I was. It was hilarious. It was in Mayfair. Glitz and glamour and expensive bottles of champagne around. And, you know, there was. I can't remember the charity angle, but they were launching a Alfred Dunhill, Johnnie Walker whiskey collaboration as well. And they gave me a. An expensive bottle with my name engraved on it. I was just like, what's going on here? Anyway, he was. He was super kind, you know, him and his wife Marina, they were like, oh, you know, you should totally. You know, we'll put you on to our book agent so you can get a good book deal for the swim because you deserve it. And, you know, here's some production people who might be interested in working with you in the future. And you know what? I have to be honest. Like, it was all, like, sort of almost publicly said and amongst group of people, you know, Ben was telling me this. And a part of me is like, man, that was just all talk, you know, I'm gonna get home tomorrow and I'm never gonna hear from ever again. So anyway, that night finished, and it was hilarious. Ben was like, oh, you know, where's your hotel? We'll put you in a taxi, off to your hotel. And I was like, no, sweet. I'm good. Anyway, because I was too embarrassed to tell him I was sleeping in the back of my car. I went to, like, this real fancy night in Mayfair, like, went up back to North London, and it was only a hatchback with two doors, so I had to, like, you know, sleep in the boot. Feet in the boot. It was great. I loved it. I loved it. But anyway, literally the next day, him and Marina would, like, emailing. Yeah, this is a good speaking agent who will get you a good book deal. And they have good connections with Random House Penguin, who I eventually went with. You know, this person will help you out with. Because loads of people are going to be wanting a piece of the Sean Conway pie. I was like, what? Really? Come on. But, you know, he was right. You know, people were just bombarding me and just wanting a piece of the action and piece of the action. And it was difficult. Like, there was some cool opportunities, but there was also people just really wanting to take the piss, really. And. Yeah. So, anyway, I had chatted with some people about some TV programs that I kind of. Super. I wasn't really into it. I didn't really feel like that's the direction I wanted to take it because a lot of them, ah, you know, you could sort of. It was more like presenter y kind of things and some weird reality shows. Like, there was someone wanted me to go into a. Into a forest in Alaska and build a cabin with a. Some celebrity that I'd never heard of, but apparently they were famous and, oh, it'd be great, you know, I think they were gonna call the show Cabin Fever or something. And I'm like. I'm like, the world thinks I'm a swimmer. Like, why am I. And they just wanted to capitalize on the fact that I was front page at the Times and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So I was kind of steering clear of that. But then when Discovery just said, listen, you do what you got to do. We're going to send cameras and film it, I thought, well, actually, that's kind of more in line with what I felt like I wanted to do. So, yeah, so I did that, and then I did the triathlon.

Turned into a triathlon. You kind of. For somebody that wasn't born in Britain, you kind of traveled it as well as any.

I mean, this is like. So I grew up, you know, with this sort of fantasy of Peter Rabbit and, you know, and just this idea in my head of what Britain was like was just this amazing, beautiful, lush island, you know, and. And it is, man. You know, so I've grown up with this fantasy of beautiful Britain and the rolling countryside and all that sort of thing. And. And it's true, man. You know, so I've always been super passionate about exploring Britain because, you know, we all go. It's so easy now just to go, well, I'm just gonna go travel everywhere else. And it's quite scary, you know, the amount of talks I do. And I say, why? Who's never been north of Edinburgh and the amount of people who are in their 40s, 50s, who live like in Manchester, you go, yeah, actually I've been to Edinburgh, but I've never been north of Edinburgh. I'm like, how?

Like, I've been to Australia, I've been to New Zealand.

Yeah. And I'm not saying don't travel abroad. I think, in fact, I think traveling to other cultures and exploring other cultures is one of the most important things all can do because it makes us more sympathetic with other people's way of thinking and you know, and that sort of thing. So, yeah, so traveling is super important. But also we live on an awesome island. You know, it's, it's safe. Nothing wants to kill you. It's beautiful. People are friendly and heartwarming and kind and yeah, it's amazing.

And that's one of the things that rings true in all of your, your book and your documentaries is that you just kind of have this to do with your nature, but you just attract generosity from all angles, don't you? You get people helping you because of what you're trying to do and because of the way you go about it. And there's just, they do make you kind of improve your outlook on humanity, I think, because there's so much generosity and assistance that goes on through these things. I think that's, that, that's absolutely brilliant. And you know, I think in the Edge, which was your. So that's the triathlon, isn't it?

And yeah.

So did Discovery Channel originally film that and that's now on Amazon or is that an Amazon? I don't know how that worked.

It was Discovery. So. Yeah, so I have no idea about what happens once, once I, once I get to the end and it's sort of like, right, that's it then I genuinely, I have no idea. They, what they, they've obviously done a deal with, with, with Amazon, which is great because it means more people can watch it. Because I have to say that was the one, the one slight disappointment I had was Discovery is, is a, is a, at the time it was a paid for subscription service in the uk, so it didn't like, it didn't reach as many people as I, as I was hoping, you know, I was sort of hoping it would land up on a free, like put on YouTube or something. Like at least then the whole world can see it for free and it's, it's more accessible, you know, and that was kind of annoying. So. It was, I mean, it was annoying. I don't want to sound ungrateful because, you know, it wasn't that annoying because it was. I still got to reach loads of people and it still went to 49 countries around the world. So, you know, don't get me wrong, but I found in Britain especially, Discovery Channel wasn't a huge big platform that everyone could watch, which is why it's great now that and it would have been back then. It's just Amazon prime wasn't really as big of a thing back then. Right. It's great that it's now on Amazon prime, but the last, the latest documentary I've done, I decided to work sort of do it, self produce it, work with an independent filmmaker. And we've now, for that reason is it is on Amazon and we've left on Amazon for a bit and now we've just put on Vimeo, just so that anyone in the world can sort of have access to that, which is great. I think that's a better thing for everyone, you know.

And is that Europe or bust?

Yeah, Europe or bust. So that was my. The dream of trying to get the third F in my three Fs of endurance. So I had this big dream of trying to get a world's first, a world's furthest and a world's fastest. And yeah, so this was the fastest one that I'd failed so many times at, you know, because it was your.

Sixth attempt, I think, wasn't it? Is that right?

Let me count now. Well, I don't really. I count the Land's End to John O Groat's attempt, even though it wasn't a real attempt. So I'd heard about the Lands End John O Groats cycle record, which was. It was at the time, 44 hours. And I thought, how close can I get to that? So I went down to Lands end. This is 2008, you know, I did no training. I didn't do training, but not really. And I had a massive 50 kg set up nearly. Anyway, I thought, I'll see how close I can get to two days. Anyway, 25 days later I rocked up John O'. Groats. So anyway, that put me in my place. But no, I sort of. I tried the round the world record. I tried Route 66 bike record. I tried the European first time round and I kind of tried Lands End, John Gross, but not really. And then. Yes. So Europe again was.

And this was absolutely brilliant. I really enjoyed this. Cycling is one of the three that I enjoy most. And the idea of cycling from Portugal to the Other side of Russia is just absolutely insane. And yet it's. I mean, you know, and the kind of challenges you have to overcome consistently. I mean, I mean, actually, I think the challenges you overcame, it came across more in the edge, the challenges you had to overcome, particularly with your rafty McCraft face, that clearly, you know yourself. I couldn't help but laugh. I was watching it on the iPad while my wife was watching Else couldn't help but laugh out loud when you said, who knew that fiberglass isn't waterproof?

It is waterproof, honestly, like a boat is fiberglass. I didn't realize there was this other resin coating. Not resin. They had this like. Can't even remember what it is now.

Gel or something.

Yeah, like the gel coats. Like, who knew that?

So your raw. The thing that's carrying all your stuff to keep it dry for the entirety of your swim is not even waterproof. I mean, you're like, that must. I mean, but it must be so frustrating. At the time.

It was, it was. Again, you know, it's these things where, you know, you have so much. You have so much planning to do in. At the beginning, you know, I'm just thinking, you know, sort of putting things away, like, right, what do I have to deal with now? And what can I fix if it breaks while I'm doing it? And so when I built the raft, I sort of put it. So I lived on the boats now I was living on the boat. So I just put it in the canal next to me and I saw it floated. You know, I didn't push it in and leave it for ages. And I thought I'd done it. I genuinely thought I'd done a good job. You know, I actually used. I used. It wasn't all fiberglass. I used plastic sheeting, which I fiberglassed the corners and the edges to. And in between that, I put spray foam and, you know, silicon sealant. Like, I really genuinely thought I just done a good job. But, you know, all you need. I was swimming four or five hours a session. You know, you need a pin prick, you know, a pin prick in the fiberglass and you'll. It'll fill up eventually.

Well, of course, the waves are just hitting it time and again, aren't they?

And that.

So even if it's robust at the start, it's going to take. It took a fair old battery.

Yeah, exactly. Because, you know, because I was swimming from east to west, all the waves are coming into me. So I'm swimming through the waves and every time the Wave hit the raft, it would tug back on my hips because the raft was attached to my hips by a bungee cord and. Yeah, but, yeah, it was. I left it too last minute, basically, to build the raft. I left it too last minute. I sort of had all this other stuff to do and I was like, oh, quickly do it. And that wasn't very successful.

Out of all of these incredible challenges, what's been your favorite so far?

None of them, really. Yeah, no, genuinely, none of them are nice at the time, but you look back at them and you're proud of the achievement. But people asked me this before, and what I normally say is cycling around the world is amazing. Like, you travel great distances fairly cheaply and you can, you know, you can just get around the world and with your own two legs if you want. You only really have to take, you know, maybe six months off your life, which in the grand scheme of your life isn't a big deal. And I still think it's one of the most important things you could do as a youngster, you know, and, you know, I say that now, but, you know, I would be pushing my son out the door to cycle around the world. I say that now, though. When he gets there, I'll be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's too dangerous. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you learn so much that. So that's fun while you're doing it. The record isn't fun. But then swimming the length of Britain, I think, was the thing that really changed my sort of overall perception of my ability, which then allowed me to do other stuff in life. So I think I'll always look back on the swim as being in a special place. And also, you know, the swim was still. I was. I was just trying to prove to myself that I could do something big, you know, there was no sort of. And there's no hidden agenda now, even. But still, you know, part of me is like, I love writing. So there's a part of me that now goes, oh, if I do this, I'll be able to write about it. Whereas the swim was just all about the swim. You know, there was no Altaria sort of side, you know, there was no, like, oh, if I do it, I'm going to get sponsorship deals and I'm gonna get blah, blah, blah, blah. And it still isn't that now. However, you know, I do have a family to support and. And I do love writing, genuinely, I love writing and I've got written six books. And so, you know, a little bit of me now thinks about the bigger picture, whenever I do a big challenge, because I genuinely enjoy it, I love creating a very powerful talk presentation to give to Microsoft and Google and that. I enjoy making those presentations. I enjoy writing the books, I enjoy going on podcasts, talking about these things, you know, so now I'm aware of all that. I sort of incorporate it into, into each challenge, which is great because I love it. But also there's that certain naivety of doing things early on, you know, and Mark Beaumont also says it, you know, just, you know, like doing stuff before social media was a bit big thing and before you had cameras on your phones and all that sort of thing, you know, like when I cycled. Cycled John o'. Groats. So paper maps. Paper maps. I remember I had a. One of my panniers was just paper. So I had paper maps, a camping guidebook, a British lowly planet and a book to read. Yeah. An actual physical world. And know that was just one pannier and then, you know, oh, and then I had another pannier which was just like two cameras. I had a big SLR and a small little point and shoot because I still had like a Nokia little silly thing that just had buttons, you know. So, you know, it was great. It was great to be, to have done it that way, but it's also great now to be able to share it more easily with, with photos and things like that.

And was the fact that the swim is, looking back, probably the highlight of what clearly been all amazing adventures but painful at the time, Was it also linked to the fact that the swim you were actually doing with other people, weren't you? You'd got the lady that was on the kayak, you'd got your skipper, which I know changed halfway through. You've got the. I think there was one other person on the boat. Was that part of it? Because obviously the one thing with endurance sport is it's very easy to make it a very lonely sport as, you know, particularly when you're doing your self supported stuff. Do you think that was a factor in it as well?

Truthfully, no. I hate people. I'm very much. I really enjoy doing stuff on my own. I actually found having a crew quite difficult actually because, you know, I spent half the time worrying that they were having a good time and. Or worrying that they were going to leave. Like if I lost, you know, one crew member, I couldn't carry on, you know. So I'm trying to make sure three people who are giving up their time for free because I didn't have Enough funds to pay. To pay them are going to stay, you know, so, you know, it's like, well, you know, half the time I'm just like, trying to balance me, you know, achieving the dream and achieving the goal. And then the other half is just like, oh, my God, are they happy? You know, are they gonna stay? You know, what are they getting out of this? It was important for me to know that they were achieving something within it, within the swim as well, rather than just following a guy with blue tack in his ears who can't hear you do one mile an hour, you know, like. So, yeah, I have to say, I found having a support group quite hard work. And also, I'm quite particular the way I do things. I'm a monkey terrier in my head and I bounce between them quite regularly. My wife hates it. Half the time I'm like a monkey and I, you know, I'm inquisitive, I test things, I try things, I break things, I try and fix things them. And I'm always a bit scatty until I find something to chase. And then I'm. And, you know, all of a sudden, nothing else matters. And it'll be little things, you know, like, you know, we'll be sitting around to dinner and she'd be like, quite fancy, my office. So my wife runs her own business and I'm in her office now, which is the White wars, because I've taken everything down because she's like, I quite fancy painting. Painting my office a slightly different color. That's just why it's a bit boring. And literally, like, halfway through, I was like, cool, right, what do you want? So literally, I went and bought some paint and I've already started up there, so I started doing the skirting. And literally, she couldn't have a conversation with me for the rest of the meal because I was just in, like, right, got paint your office mode. And I was just like, right, now I've got something to chase and I've got to do it. So, yeah. And so people find that annoying because they don't know if I'm a monkey or a terrier and how to deal with me. So it's just easier for me and for everyone if I just kind of do stuff on my own.

Very interesting. And on your website, you've got a list of things that you want to do. But do you know what's next? I mean, there's some amazing. I love the idea of running the length of Africa. And, you know, we're massive fans of South Africa. And, and obviously you growing up there, I can understand why kind of running to Cape Town would be incredible. But have you kind of decided what's next?

No, not really. The things on my website are sort of the long term goals that I want to do much later in life. You know, I'd love to live on an island. And you know, I have a saved search on Google for islands for sale in Scotland because every now and then someone sells like an island that's literally probably the size of your bedroom, but they sell it for like £10 or something and you can't do anything with it other than put a tent on it. And that's about it really. I'd love to sort of live maybe on a slightly bigger island, but I'd love to live on an island for a year and survive. You know, I'd love to do an Arctic triathlon. In fact, I was going to do that a couple of years ago, but in my head I had this dream about this beautiful, beautifully filmed art film about me doing this Arctic Iron man and you know, with, you know, like going into the frozen water and all that sort of thing. But actually someone then said actually the. To go that far north where you want those conditions, it's dark half the time because in the summer it's all melted so you don't get the feeling. So I was like, oh, actually that kind of like I wanted the. I want to do it, but I know I can kind of do it. But in my head I wanted to create this sort of like really beautifully filmed art film. So that's kind of why I haven't done that one for a while. And then I always thought I'd sort of do Africa later in life with kids, with older kids and you know, the whole family, why not? You know, and then, yeah, cycle, it's. Yeah, cycling is my favorite thing. So, you know, you never know.

Brilliant. I can't help but come on to nutrition. So I speak to a lot of people on this podcast and you know, I was just recently interviewing somebody that runs a company called 33 fuel, which is all about vegan based protein and super healthy, superfood based endurance products. And then there's, you know, other people, you know, kind of very nutrition focused. And then I watch your stuff and you're eating dog food, raw fish eyes, liquefying Sunday lunches. You know, is this kind of the act of desperation on route and you're normally a super healthy guy or do you just kind of like, because you do so much exercise, you just kind of eat whatever.

So I'm super healthy at home. Basically we're mostly vegetarian Monday to Thursday at home. So from Monday to Thursday we actually have one of those subscription box meals where they deliver all the ingredients to your door and it's vegetarian Monday to Thursday. Friday we have fish. Saturday's kind of like anything goes. You know, if the weather's good, we'll usually have a barbecue. And then Sunday we have a family roast. You know, granny and granddad come around and, and that's a good thing. But yeah, for the most time we were pretty, pretty healthy and, and generally, you know, if you can dig it out the ground, pick it off a tree or catch it, cook it and eat it, that's kind of the philosophy I kind of go, go for. So it's very rare that I'll have anything that's had, you know, some sort of process in between. Sometimes I'll have pasta every now and then, but we mainly just have potatoes, sweet potatoes, you know, have some bread sometimes. I've been trying to get into cooking my own bread, baking my own bread, which is kind of fun, although it doesn't taste very good at the moment, perfecting that art. So, yeah, so I'm super healthy. But you know, the reason when I'm doing a big challenge and I'm self supported, it's just desperation. You know, it's better to eat the wrong thing than nothing and you've just got to find what you can fit in your stomach when you can find it. And that's why I have in the past landed up eating, as you say, dog food and blending a Sunday roast to make it absorb quicker and things like that. But it's. Yeah, it's definitely not by choice. It's just desperation.

And what is your choice for fueling long, long bike rides or long runs? You know, is there a particular trick or is there a particular kind of food substance that you tend to go to that, you know, that really helps?

Yeah, so it's a mixture. It depends. It depends what you're doing. It depends on what your heart rate is. It depends, you know, how much power you're pushing out. You know, if, for example, I'm cycling and it's flat and there's no hills know, then I can kind of sustain on a pretty, pretty high fat diet. Once, you know, once my heart rate's above 145, I'm pretty much burning 100% carbohydrates. So you can have the best low fat, you know, high fat diet in the world. But you, if you're running a high heart rate, you're going to need some carbs for that. So there's a mixture. Sort of my go to fuel at the moment is so if I had ideal situations where someone can just hand me what I want at the moment. My breakfast smoothie is I have hemp seeds, flaxseeds, kale powder, spirulina, put some peanut, some almond butter there, some coconut oil, some fruit, you know, depending on how I feel, sometimes banana, sometimes just frozen fruit, various things, a bunch of honey and some oat powder as well to bulk it up. And that, that seems to be pretty good for me. I got a lot of fats in the, in the nuts and the seeds and then some carbs and a little bit of honey just for a little bit of faster carbohydrates and a little bit for the flavor as well. So you're not hating the experience, you know, so that seems pretty good. But peanut butter or any, any nut butters for me work pretty well, you know, and is that super high calorie and keep me going. The other thing is I have a salt deficiency. So I have to have tons of salts. I have to have nearly 40 grams of salt a day when I'm pushing it hard and I'm sweating, sweat, I lose about 3.4 grams of salt an hour, 35 and 30 degree heat when I'm sweet, when I'm sweating a liter an hour. So yeah, I'm just anything with salt, you know, I've. So crisps, for example, are actually pretty good for me. They've got high fat, high salt, high carbohydrate because a bag of crisps, you know, crisps are usually between 510 and 520 calories per 100 grams, which is amazing. You know, that's, that's up there with trail mix, which is usually around 6, 600 and something, you know. So, yeah, so again, depending what you're doing, depending what you're doing, but generally, you know, sweet potatoes, nut butters and some seed powders and things like that. I very rarely, if ever, in fact, my wife laughs I never have sugary things. I don't like chocolate, I don't like sweets like Haribo. I don't take gels and that sort of thing. I don't drink fizzy, fizzy, fizzy drinks. The only liquid I drink I have a 2 liter bottle. So every day I have one 2 liter water bottle with, with times written down the side, 7am to 9pm And I have to drink the bottle as I go throughout the day. And then I drink tea, wine and whiskey. That's pretty much what I drink.

Really good combination.

Yeah, I don't, I don't drink fizzy drinks. I don't drink fizz fruit juices. I don't drink any of that sort of stuff.

And what about when you're out on the bike? What's your go to?

Nothing. No, I don't eat often unless I'm going out for more than two hours. I'm going out for more than two hours. I'll probably try and take some sort of peanut butter thing. Sometimes I'll take a peanut butter sandwich, but do it on flatbread maybe. Just literally I'll have layered up with peanut butter. Little bit of, a little bit of honey on there and some salt. I'll actually sprinkle some salt into that and have it in my jersey back pocket. Otherwise, don't really like oat cakes. Like I'm so over the flavor of oats from the swim. When I sat in Britain, I was just eating raw oats because we couldn't boil. We didn't have enough. Like the stove was so crap it would take like an hour to boil up some oats. I was just eating raw oats and. And after that I just kind of lost the will to have anything. I would, so. But yeah, generally, in fact, I don't at the moment. I'll go for a two hour run. I'll do a half marathon now and I won't take anything. No water, no food, nothing. And it's slow. I'm taking two hours to do a half marathon and I still won't take anything. And I kind of like it that way at the moment it's not ideal and I come home a bit dehydrated, but I try and fill my belly up beforehand and I kind of prefer the freedom than running with a pack or carrying a water pole.

You know, one of these ultra runners that's literally eating pizza on the run.

I would do. Yeah, like Dean Venazas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean's a machine. Oh yeah. 100%. Pizza is actually great. It's got a lot of carbs, got a lot of fat. Usually a bit of protein there as well, depending on what pizza you get. Oh yeah. If I'm going long and I need to do something 100%, yeah, I'll order a pizza or stop it and do something. But again, it's not ideal, you know. Again, you know, if you, if I had, if I had it my way and I had a support crew on doing something. I would create some sort of smoothie, a bit like what I just explained, and probably use that to fuel me throughout the day with slight variations, because if you get flavor fatigue, you just. You just vomit everything up again. And that's, that's not fun.

And then a beer at the end of the day, because I book in the TV programs, there's always a beer at the end of the day or at 2,000 miles, whichever. But let's basically deserve it at that point.

Well, you know, so I'm basically, I'm just conforming to the old school Tour de France nutritional strategies. If you see some of the footage of the old school with a Tour de France used to be long stages, like 500 miles, they. Yeah, it's amazing. You should see they used to have wine tables on the side of the road. And these riders would ride especially towards the last sort of hundred miles where they're tired and they'd be going forever and they'd get wine and be necking wine and be putting wine in their jersey back pockets. It was phenomenal. And I thought, oh, there we go. I'm going to give that, you know, I don't overdo it. You know, a beer or two at the end of the day kind of makes you a little bit relaxed. As long as you stay hydrated, you know, it doesn't. It's not great for your muscle recovery either, to be honest. But you kind of still feel the pain, but you just care less about it.

You know, it's good for the mental.

Side of the recovery, if nothing else, isn't it?

Yeah, exactly.

And there is a general theme in your, in your stories where you seem to try and take regular shortcuts, and I'm not sure I've seen one actually pay off yet. There's like, you know, you're trying to go across, what was it, the pools area where you bought a dinghy and that kind of backfired. And then short, you know, there's like multiple examples of shortcuts. But have you got any shortcuts for people that, you know, that want to get better at endurance sport? That you'd say those were the sort of things that kind of made the biggest difference whether they were big or small ideas?

I do get asked this a lot. You know, the problem with like, proper endurance stuff is unfortunately there is. There's no real shortcuts, you know, and, you know, you speak to the runners, you know, the people who are going for sub 100k races, you know, they'll be varying their training. You know, they're going to be doing hit sessions, they'll be doing some power sessions, they might do a bit of CrossFit and stuff like that. But the people doing your hundred miles and more running races, they very rarely do anything else other than just run because, you know, you've got to be robust. Once you're robust, once you get to that level that you can compete and complete a hundred mile race. Yeah. Then you can sort of do stuff of variety and it's good to just keep your muscles, you know, do use, do different things. But yeah, I mean I also, I kind of also am a bit anti this whole concept of like taking shortcuts, even though I try many times while I'm doing them. But I think, you know, what tips if you want to do stuff. I think I fall into this category when I'm wanting to do big endurance events. I think I need to just be going out and doing one big long run a week. You know, if I'm like, yeah, if I can run a half marathon every Saturday, I'm going to get better. But actually it's often better just to chip away at it, you know, just chip away. It's like when I write my book, I used to think, oh, I need to commit three weeks of writing and now I'm going to do the writing. But actually I do what Hemingway did. He writes 300 words a day in the morning, before 9am and that's done, you know. And actually I find, you know, to train for endurance stuff certainly at the beginning, of course you have to be going and doing your long days, but just chip away at it at the beginning, you know, enjoy it, you know, because I find sometimes, and I think this is the biggest reason people quit too early on when they're trying to do an Ironman or an Ultra, is they go up too big at the beginning and then realize how hard it is and go, oh, well, I'm never going to be able to do it. So they pull the plot plug. Whereas actually if you just go out and run at the moment, you know, I'm actually only going up, okay, I'm doing a big week this week, I'll do 100Ks running this week. But before that I was sort of doing, you know, 30, 30, 40Ks a week, you know, just every day doing a little bit here and there and that, that kind of just keeps you kind of like ticking over. It makes you start enjoying the process and that sort of thing. But if you want to get better quicker. Then just go do it. Just go and do it. You know, when I ran the length of Britain Day 1, I barely managed a half marathon. By the end I was running 40, 50 miles, you know, and that's in a 30 day period. So in a month I went from struggling to do a half marathon, and this is with a 7 kilogram rucksack as well, to being able to do a double marathon, but within 30 days, which is phenomenal. I mean, it hurts a lot. You know, don't get me wrong, it wasn't fun and it wasn't the best way to do it, but certainly you can probably push yourself a little bit harder than you think. But then again, then a curveball in that situation is injury. You know, you've got to balance the injury, injury gods and keep them sweet as well. So. So yeah, but I'd say just, just kind of just chip away at the block at the beginning and, and do it because you love it rather than want to do it so that you keep loving it rather than sort of going out too hard too soon, you know, and that sort of thing.

I think that's great advice. When I was talking about this with guy called Mitch Phillips, who's the head of sport at Reuters, and he was saying his thing was there's no such thing as junk miles. If you're enjoying it, then actually it's doing you good. Even if it's not doing you as much good as doing a particular drill would do you, you're not getting faster because of it then actually it's still doing you a huge amount of good. And I would completely buy into that. Other than your six books and the programs that are on, the documentaries that are on Amazon, are there any particular books that you that are your go tos that you thought you've read and you've gone. That's been really helpful. Or books, or not even books, but necessarily podcasts that you kind of regularly recommend to other people or any particular sources that have helped you along the way.

Man, I've been devouring books lately and it's. What's the last book that I read was really good? Anna McNuff. Her books are great. So she's done read two of hers. One was when she ran the length in New Zealand and the other one was when she cycled all 50 states in America. She's got a really great way of sort of talking about her adventures and she writes really well, you know, really, really well. Jamie MacDonald, her fella, he, you know, just finished his book Actually, yesterday when he ran across Canada. And actually, it's sort of his. His backstory of that. James Cracknell and Ben Fogle's books, they've done together, the Crossing and the Race to the Pole. They were quite fun because they were sort of. They both write them, so it's an alternate, you know, ways of thinking, fighting against each other, which is great. I think the best book I've written, read, written, read in the last sort of year, it was probably two years ago now when I read it again, was Shackleton's book, you know, that just his journey was just, wow, you just like you. I would have given up and just gone, right, I'm dead. There we go. That was it. I had a good go at it, but they just had this belief that they were gonna survive. And just, like, how, like, how did you just think it was worth carrying on, you know, like, yeah, yeah, everyone to read that, or. I think it's probably on audible as well, you know.

Brilliant. Well, I'll be adding all of those to my reading list. My reading list is expanding rapidly. But fortunately.

And the other one, actually, another really good book is George Mahoud. When he did Lands End to John o' Groats with no money and literally started with no clothes, he had his underwear at Land's End Hotel, and he was trying to get to John o' Groats with no money. It's amazing. He was going into pubs and offering to wash their dishes, food. It's really well written.

I mean, what I love about what you're doing and the books that you're talking about is. And I haven't really. I mean, one of the things that I loved about doing the Ironman and doing this sort of stuff is it's taken me to parts of the world that I wouldn't have ever gone to ordinarily. Certainly your trips have. And, you know, I massively enjoyed the traveling I did after university, but I hadn't really thought about how the linking of the traveling and the endurance sport. But you've certainly nailed that combination. And I can absolutely see why. It's compelling to keep doing more and more, because both are just absolutely brilliant.

Well, exactly. And I'm not a very good traveler because the monkey in me doesn't like it, nor does the terrier in me, because I find I get bored easily and I have nothing to chase. So that's why adding some sort of physical challenge within the world of travel kind of, you know, allowed me to sort of, you know, scratch my terrier's belly, as it were, which. Which gave me that focus and that. That really helped.

Brilliant. And my very last question, which is actually from my youngest daughter, Bronwyn, a good Welsh name, is just watching. She was watching part of the Europa bust with me, and she said, he's trying to be aerodynamic. Why the beard? Now, I think I know the answer from hel and high water, but why the beard? When you're trying to be so aerodynamic? Does it just not make any difference?

Well, actually, it doesn't make a difference if you specialize. Did a wind tunnel test for beards, and because it's in front of your chest, actually, your chest is bigger than your beard anyway, so apparently it made no difference. But leg hair was 40 seconds per 25 mile at race pace. Obviously, the slower you go, the less of a margin it makes, apparently. Yeah, leg hair was a. Was a big one.

Yeah, I thought myth. I thought it was all down to avoiding road rash.

But that too is that too. But according. If you read. If you watch the Specialized video, that's what they. That's what they claim. But, you know, I grew it on the swim for jellyfish, and then after that, just got too lazy. And then met my wife. And we had a rule. It's quite good, actually. When we met, literally, I think it was within like, a few hours, we sort of made this pact that because we met at the Kendal Mountain Festival up in the Lake District, and we're sort of sitting down chatting to each other and. And, you know, we knew. We kind of, you know, we sort of planned a date for coming up. So I knew I was gonna have a date, this Welsh hottie. And. But we actually. And she said it. She said, we're going to date, but the rule is we're not allowed to Google each other before. And I thought, actually, that is. That is brilliant because, one, I look way cooler on the Internet than I am in real life, so I want you to be disappointed. And it's great. And you know what? We've never even then we've kept this sort of rule that we can't look. Search each other online. I think we were married before. We were actually Facebook friends as well. You know, like, it was super important, and it's great. So anyway, basically, my wife's never seen me without a beard, and she quite likes it. So I'm worried if I do get rid of it, I'll also get divorced.

Fantastic Bullet. Sean, it's been an absolute pleasure to get to know you a little bit better. As I said, I absolutely loved the book. I really enjoyed watching the Amazon things. I highly recommend everybody else check them out. I think the best way to find out a bit more about you is it Sean Conway.com I think. Is that right? Yeah, everything's there. And a whole load more stuff I didn't know about you as well. So it's been absolutely brilliant. A huge thank you for for taking out time to share some of these stories with us.

Anytime, mate. Yeah, thank you for inviting me on. It's been great.

What an incredible guy and what a lovely guy, but he's just achieved the most amazing things and he makes it sound so easy just to go and cycle around the world and actually that sounds like quite a good idea. But I would love to do it. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. So much to learn from such an amazing guy. And also what's interesting is how he's turned what he loves into his career and how he's made a career out of doing these adventures. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed chatting to him. Don't forget to share your Instagram photos with the hashtag tribeathlon. I just want to see those amazing training photos with you and your tribe. This podcast was brought to you by Lucky Saint Alcohol Free Beer. You can find out more at luckysaint.co. it is my absolute favorite alcohol free beer. I said if you held on I'd give you a discount code. That discount code is lucky try 20. So lucky spelt as you'd expect. Try spelled T R I and then two zero. Go to luckysaint.co. use the discount code Lucky Try 20 and you'll get a lovely 20% off your order. I hope you enjoy your alcohol free hangover Free beer. Don't forget to download the Tribathlon app for more amazing podcasts, but also to help you train, compete and to build your tribe. Sam.