Colin O'Brady

00:013, 2, 1, boom. Hello Colin, welcome back. What's up, man? Good to see you. I brought a book. I wrote a book. I wrote this book last time since I saw you last. The Impossible First? Indeed, indeed. Yeah, about my uh solo journey across Antarctica and kind of diving deep through my whole life and kind of what brought me there and other expeditions and the ups and downs of it all. And you're coming back from another crazy trip, right? I am indeed. What is that nonsense that you did on a kayak? What did you do? So, uh after I got back from The Impossible First, the Antarctica crossing, right about the time I saw you last year, um I got a funny phone call actually of all things. People asked me, you know, "What's the next expedition going to be? What are you going to do?" And I said, you know, "I just walked 54 days by myself across Antarctica. Give me Give me a minute.

00:48Give me a minute to uh Right. relax." And uh I get a phone call via buddy of mine from college connects me to this uh this guy, uh this Icelandic guy. I've never met him before. His name's Fiann Paul. Don't know his story. I do now. He's an absolute legend. Um and he says, "Hey, man, you were just in Antarctica, right?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "I think we should go back to Antarctica." And I was like, "All right. Well, what are you thinking?" He's like, "In a rowboat. I think we should row a boat from the southern tip of South America to the peninsula of Antarctica across Drake Passage." How far is that? About 700 miles. see what that looks like on a map? Um and I said, "Please delete my phone number." 700 miles rowing a boat. Uh yeah, so Drake Passage is known to be um you know, in seafaring one of the most treacherous, if not the most

01:35treacherous, kind of passageway in the world. You know, you've gotten you know, the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Southern Ocean kind of all converging between the Antarctic Peninsula and the southern tip of South America. So, you got 40-ft swells. You got, you know, crazy waves, icebergs as you get close to Antarctica. Um and the uh the mission or the goal was to see if we could There it is right there. That's it. That's it. area? That whole area, yeah, right there. From there to there. Um all the way down, yeah, the main the main peninsula there of Antarctica. So, ultimately, uh it took us uh just less than 2 weeks to do the entire row, but it was a a long journey in the planning from that phone call all the way through to that year, but it was a it was a 2-week or 12-day crossing. So, in the 2 weeks, you had to have 2 weeks worth of food, 2 weeks worth of drinking water

02:18on the boat. Yeah, so well, water actually, we have a desalinator. So, off of off of uh solar panels, everything's you know, solar. There's no you know, engine, no sail, nothing like that. It's just completely human-powered rowing. They have a portable desalinator? Yeah. How big is it? Um it fits inside one of the tiny little So, the boat's tiny. The boat's like 20 25-ft long, three guys rowing at a time. So, there's six of us total in the team ultimately. Um you know, barely anywhere to sleep in these tiny little compartments like the size of like, you know, sleeping in the back of a you know, hatchback of a Honda Civic or something like that. Um but uh but yeah, so you got this desalinator that's basically kind of in one of the central compartments. It was probably like, I don't know, maybe 2-ft by 2-ft square, something like that. Um and I mean, it doesn't doesn't

03:01make a lot of real fast. You can make 10 L of water in like, you know, an hour or two depending on the sunlight and how hot the sun is, but but it I mean, it gets it done. Yeah, it gets it done. Does it taste like whale dicks? What does the water taste like? It was weird. As we got closer to Antarctica, I think it started messing up because it got real salty. Like it wasn't doing quite as good of a job. The water near Antarctica was like 1° C or 33° F and practically freezing cold water and I think that was kind of starting to tweak out the system. Um but drinking salt water? As we got closer, it was like it was still potable, but it was like, "This isn't working as well." But early on, I mean, it worked just fine. Like it was pretty much, you know, cold cold drinking water. Like bottled water. Yeah, exactly. But then How could Does it only do it for a certain amount of

03:42time? Does the filter get filled up or anything? Um it worked for the entire uh 12 days that we were out there. There's guys who've gone on longer, you know, rowing expeditions across the Pacific or the Atlantic or longer stretches of ocean um that, you know, you works the entire time. Um but it is one of the things that that breaks down. So, we had extra spare parts. Fortunately, we didn't have to use any of them, but uh yeah. No, it uh it worked. And then yeah, of course, we had to bring food for the entire time as well um on on there. So, that was, you know, a key part of it. How much food? So, there were six of us, like I said. Um pretty much all the compartments were full. Um you know, there was a tiny little compartments. We basically ate two things. So, we uh we had freeze-dried meals. So, like Mountain House freeze-dried meals. Uh we had this

04:22little Jetboil that we were kind of as crazy as the waters. Like it's 40, you know, 40-ft waves. We're bouncing around on this trying to hold a Jetboil to try to boil some water. It was pretty tough, but um some close calls with that. But we also um had these bars. So, last time, I think we talked about last time I was on here, I had these uh kind of custom nutrition bars that that were made. Um And so, that worked really well for me in the Antarctica crossing. We had done all this kind of blood work. that again? Like how you made How those made? Yeah, so um when I was doing my Antarctica crossing, one of the kind of challenges is basically, can you take enough food with you? Cuz what I was doing was called unsupported. So, no resupplies of food or fuel, you know, crossing the landmass of Antarctica 54 days. And so, I wanted to get like the most optimized nutrition. Um and so, I

05:02worked with this company called Standard Process, who's all like a whole food supplement company. And they've got all these sort of doctors, um food scientists and this. And I went in their lab for a year and they did all this kind of custom blood work on my body, um trying to figure out, you know, basically my exact sort of uh physiology. And they created these bars based on all of the research that they did um that basically were these really high-calorie bars cuz it was the most high calories that I needed to optimize space. Um and they were kind of They were all They're all plant-based. And And then they have And I know there's What's in them again? You know, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, you know, sort of uh different phytonutrients and a particular macronutrient blend that I needed. It was about 45% fat cuz I needed the high fat. Um about 40% protein. Um and then

05:4415 What's the What's the math on that? Uh 15% uh carbs. Um and so, uh excuse me, sorry. I I alternated the protein-carb quotient there. But um but yeah, it worked really well for that. And so, when I was doing the row, I called up Standard Process again. They've been amazing partners of mine. They were like We were like, "Hey, I'm doing this row. Um those bars worked so good last time." And like I just said with, you know, trying to boil water and, you know, all this stuff is really challenging on the rowboat. The best would be to have this really kind of high optimized nutrition that we could use again for a project like this. But the parameters are different. You know, the humidity's different, the temperature's different. There's six of us now. There's not just one of me. You know, can we optimize it for that?" So, they kind of made a specialty blend um

06:21of the bars again um that they've called the Colin bars. They could probably come up with a better name. Um but uh it worked really well. online anywhere? They're They're not for sale. Um we've we've talked about uh doing that. So, maybe in the future, but uh you can you can see online on their website like all the different supplements and stuff that went into it. So, you can kind of buy the component parts. But yeah, one day we might we might make them, but they've been kind of just custom for these two projects. But they've worked really, really well, particularly in the rowing. So, I mean, they worked amazing in the Antarctic crossing as well. But in the rowing, it was 90 minutes of rowing on, 90 minutes of rowing off continuous 24 hours a day. So, there's We're kind of in two sets of three, six of us total. Three people rowing, three people resting. And in

06:57that 90 minutes that you're off, that's also when you got to you know, eat, drink, sleep. It's your only time to rest, basically. And so, as much time as you can kind of optimize eating and stuff meant more sleeping. And so, to have these bars, get done with a 90-minute rowing shift, be able to eat, you know, a 1,000-calorie bar, highest, you know, quality nutrition in your body. Um I mean, Standard Process nailed it again. It was amazing to, you know, have these bars and have it work really well for all of us to kind of optimize not just the food, but also the efficiency of sleep cuz the sleep got crazy out there. Like I can imagine. Yeah. So, you're you're basically sleeping every 90 minutes for, you know, 1 hour or so? Yeah, exactly, ish. Like if you can get it. And like when once the swells start cranking up, like you're in this tiny compartment. Like I don't know if we can

07:40pull up a picture of the boat for a visual. There's some on my Instagram. covered at all? Um not covered. Like really not covered at all. Like so, well, there's covered in the tiny compartment. So, the rowing part's not covered at all. So, when you're rowing, waves are splashing up like over top of you. I mean, you're getting completely soaked. Like you're getting, you know, completely soaked the entire time. And then the tiny compartment, you know, it's like it's like lower than this table. Like you'd be like kind of crouched down like in there. Um Yeah, so that This is the rowboat right here. So, that's us. So, that's the floor. Is that where all the food is stored underneath you? Yeah, underneath there's compartments. You can see that tiny little kind of compartment on either side. One's smaller and one's bigger, the back one. That's where we'd sleep. Well, the

08:17bigger one That's where the waves It's hard to believe that there's 12 people in that little thing. No, six people. Six people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, um so you got, you know, three people in the three people rowing and three people in the compartments any time. Think if you kind of scroll up to the top, maybe there's one of just that shows like the whole boat um or like what it looks like maybe there. There's a kind of a shot of it. Um so yeah, so you can see in there like the back little compartment, that's where I was um that I was alternating with this guy Fiann who I mentioned, the Icelandic guy who was the captain of the boat, really experienced ocean rower. Um and uh we alternated inside this little cabin. And then the other four guys, they alternated two people cuz that one's a little bit bigger in the front. That's the bow cabin in the front. Um

08:56but they're like you're like head to toe in there or you're crouched into a little ball. It's not It's not glamorous at all. Did you know these guys at all before you did this? So, uh not really. Uh not really. Uh yeah, it was uh a deep dive into the team. And after doing something solo, I was pretty excited to do something, you know, as a team and doing something in a completely, you know, exploring a completely different kind of avenue um of exploration. The ocean is something I'd never done before. And I had actually Not only did I not know these guys, um a couple of them I went to college with, but we like really loosely knew each other. Like I kind of like maybe like I'd recognize their face a little bit, but it didn't We weren't like good friends or anything like that. Three of them I'd never met in my entire life. Um and I had also have never rowed

09:32a boat in my life ever before. Um and so, when Fiann uh he called me up and told me about the project, he's the one of the most world's most renowned ocean rowers. He's got, you know, 30 world records or something like that. Um complete legend. He's rowed boats across every single ocean. This was like the kind of the last, you know, big ocean that he'd never crossed. No one you know, no one had ever done it just like this before. And so, he kind of said, "Hey, I wanted this idea, but the logistics are super complicated. Like going to Antarctica has all this sort of like treaties that you need, all this paperwork, getting a boat down to South America, importing it through the Panama Canal, etc." I mean, it's like a tough thing, and he'd been like kind of thinking about it for a year or so, and he said like, "Hey, I've seen you pull off some big projects

10:12together. Can we kind of team up?" And I know, you know, your team has got really good at figuring out these logistics. Would you be interested? And I'd actually looked at ocean rowing um a couple years ago as something that I always wanted to do one day. And so, it's kind of a after I kind of got that first call, I guess I said like I kind of like, "Dude, I just got back from Antarctica. I don't want to go back there like tomorrow." Uh but, you know, of course, the curiosity inside of me got the best of me, and I called him back up, and I said, "Hey, let's do this. What are you thinking?" And kind of dove into it um from there. Kind of my my team kind of wrapped our arms around the sort of like logistic and building out the project, and he was definitely the visionary of um something he dreamed up, and it was super cool to team up uh with him after doing something alone.

10:48Now, this thing that you did when you walked across Antarctica, um very impressive, incredible. But, I'm sure you've seen the National Geographic article that they wrote about you. And they said that there was another man from Was it Norway? That had done it already. Yes. That wasn't the first time someone had gone across Antarctica. And he had gone actually a further distance. Yeah. So, something I've been talking about super openly, including in my book, which is uh the Nat Geo article, you know, it's a little bit unfortunate. Um I actually just published a 16-page letter um um asking Nat Geo to retract the entire article. And the reason it's 16 pages is unfortunately the entire article they wrote is just so riddled with inaccuracies and kind of misrepresentations and omissions um that, you know, we had to kind of ask them say, "Hey, look, you know, you kind

11:38of got this wrong. I was never properly interviewed for it." But, one of the things, you're talking about this guy Børge Ousland, this Norwegian guy. Absolute freaking legend. So, what this guy did um in 1996, so you know, 20 some years before that I attempted my crossing, is he crossed Antarctica um from the edge of the coastline, crossed the ice shelf, all the way across the land mass, across the other ice shelf, um roughly 1,800 mi. And what he used to propel himself was he used a kite um for a good portion of the time. And it's an absolute extraordinary project, and what's really weird about sort of this National Geographic article a number of senses is one of the premises of it was saying, you know, "Colin never talked about Børge Ousland. Like, he never talked about him in his book. He never mentioned him. He never this." And in my book, what's really

12:24bizarre and why we're asking for a retraction cuz it's just really in in factual is that, you know, here I am on page 49 of my book. Literally, it says, "The Norwegian adventurer Børge Ousland in many ways defined the terrain of astonishing modern Antarctic feats, becoming the first person across Antarctica solo when he traveled 1,800 mi in 63 days from 1996-1997. Not only did he cross the entire land mass of Antarctica, but he also crossed the full Ronne and Ross ice shelves from the ocean's edge. Ousland's expedition has deeply inspired me and was unsupported and he hauled all of his food and fuels with no resupplies." So, as weird as like the journalist like wrote this article but didn't read my book. not surprising. and I had done, I don't know, a lot of there's a lot of speculation. Um I had did this big project in the film project around the row is with Discovery. I don't know if

13:10Nat Geo is coming at Discovery or whatever, but it it's it's really bizarre. I mean, we could talk about all the different kind of fine points of that. But, the big distinction, and like I'll say it, I've said it shouted from the route rooftops, but I'll say it here again. Børge Ousland is absolutely incredible. Like, I'm in awe of the guy. What he did in '96 is phenomenal. That's why I write about it in my book. That's why I've written about it on my social. The day after I finished my crossing, I wrote about it on there as well, and I said, "Wow, so many people have inspired me. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. The only way I was able to do this." Right, but this says impossible first, right? So, he did it first. Right. So, the difference is is there's kind of two really specific distinctions in the world of polar travel. There's unsupported, which means not using

13:51um not using uh not getting sorry, not getting resupplied with food or fuel, like I was talking about with the food. And then, there's unassisted, which means not using anything to propel you other than your own body. So, that's called human-powered alone. So, what he did is considered assisted um in that he used a kite. But, he was able to go twice the distance of me, which is amazing. So, he crossed did he use the kite? Cuz what I'd read that he had only used the kite in a few instances where the wind was Right. So, that's another one of the things that the National Geographic article um unfortunately got wrong. And in my 16-page uh letter that anyone can read, it's on my website colinobradley.com/blog letter to Nat Geo, or it's linked to my Instagram. Um it's not like a he said, he said thing where I'm like, "Oh, hey, this got wrong." It's just actually really kind

14:38of documented and sourced document that has links to everything. Um and one of the links that shows is actually his entire kind of project afterwards in the aftermath of him talking about it, including talking about um with ParaWing, which was the one of his sponsors, the guys actually built and manufactured the kite. And they're talking about how he used it for about at least a third of his journey, six 600 or so miles, um as well as, you know, he was able to use the kite going 125 mi in a single day, um which is, like I said, it's amazing. It's really incredible what he did in the time that he did it. It's just really kind of an apples and oranges um comparison when it comes to polar travel and the distinctions uh of that um in the world further, but he used some assistance. Yeah. So, there's basically these different distinctions in the world of polar travel, and that's another one of

15:24the things again um I'm not sure how they got this wrong. I uh I in in the link on the 16-page thing, I show the text message when the journalist asked me, "Well, tell me about these definitions of unsupported and unassisted." Um and I sent him the link, and there's these links. It's it's kind of published thing on this website called Antarctic Logistics um and Expeditions, the main sort of expedition um facilitator, the person who like runs the logistics down there. And it's very clear. Unsupported means no use of resupplies. Unassisted means no use of kites or dogs. And so, the thing that I did solo um that people I guess have gotten somewhat confused about or at first was I was the first person across the land mass of Antarctica solo, unsupported, no resupplies, and unassisted, no kites. What Børge Ousland did is he was the first person to cross Antarctica not just the land mass, but

16:13also the ice shelves. So, there's frozen ocean on these ice shelves. Um so, from the coast, crossed the ice shelf, across the land mass, and across the other ice shelf. And no one yet, including myself, has ever done a solo unsupported unassisted crossing of both the land mass and the ice shelves. I hope someone does it, man. It'd be amazing. I had 375-lb sled, and I almost ran out of food at the end crossing the land mass. Um and uh if uh you'd need maybe a 600-lb sled or something like that, or maybe a more optimized food solution that no one's thought of yet. But, um hasn't been done yet. How big was Ousland's sled? Similar size to me. So, he was out there for I think he was out there for 63 days. But, roughly I was out there for 54 days. So, we were not out there a lot difference in duration of time. So, the sled really did make a big difference then if he's going that much

17:03further than you. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, so so one more time, you were out there how many days? out there 54 days. And he was out there 60 63 days. Okay, that's not that different. Right. And so, he, like I said, on a some of the days he talks about it openly that he went he does it in kilometers, but if you calculate back to miles, like 125 mi in a 15-hour period of time. That's unfathomable to just walking pulling a sled. They're just two different things. It's like difference between sailing across an ocean and rowing a boat across the ocean. Why do you think National Geographic got that wrong then? Because the way they wrote it, it was, you know, it's they made it look like you're just a fame and that, you know, there was a bunch of other explorers and outdoors people that were in support of the fact that Ousland was the only one the first one to do it. They didn't make

17:49this distinction. And they actually made it seem like as if the the sled was an ingenious solution. But, it seems like that was a planned thing, and that was an engineered thing, and that it wasn't something that he built up on the fly. This was the method that they used to help him get across the snow. Totally. And if like I said, if you look in the letter that I wrote, it's got links to the actually the manufacturer. They kind of talk about it as being this elegant solution as like he put a kite up randomly. out, "Hey, I got an idea." Yeah. But, it's like a fully manufactured thing. It's a legit kite. And like I said, this is not me knocking on that. I actually think that project it's one of the project that inspired me the most to do what I did. It is amazing. It sounds amazing. Can we see what Ousland does Is there any photograph of Ousland's kite?

18:32I want to see what it looks like. Yeah. Um it's Whenever someone does something extraordinary, like there's no doubt just what you did. 50 How many days again? 50 54 days? alone. crazy. It's crazy. And for anybody to on that is nuts. So, and you're the first one that's ever done it just pulling that thing. And you showed us what it was like last time you were here. Totally. And some of the areas where you had to pull it, it seems like an insane physical undertaking. Totally. I mean, so yeah, it was uh it was it definitely tested me to the edges of my potential. There was many times um that it felt impossible. I think I we talked about it last time, but the second chapter in my book is called Frozen Tears because on the first hour of trying to pull my sled, 375 lbs fully loaded of food and fuel, I started crying. Like, I literally started crying. The tears are freezing in my

19:18face. It's all type of pathetic feeling. I mean, it was really, really brutal and really challenging. And you one of the things for sure in the National Geographic article, they're not they're not disputing that I did this. It's not like they're saying you didn't walk 932 mi by yourself across Antarctica. They kind of like grudgingly gave you credit for doing something really freaky. They also didn't mention the difference between the time it took you to travel that and the time it took Ousland to travel a far greater distance, or that he used that kite to go more than 100 mi in a day. Those are pretty big important things. Totally. And I think that yeah, hopefully you can pull up a picture of the Housen cut with the kite. It's It's It's linked in there. finding his specifically. I'm finding kites there, but not with Tilly him. Yeah, there's There should be

20:02Yeah, we'll find it in a second. But, you know, it's like I said, it's an unfortunate thing. You know, I wrote this letter. The editor of National Geographic actually responded and said they're reviewing it. You know, I think they're going to hopefully do the right thing. The facts are pretty clear on this one. we can pressure them by just explaining it here. Here it is. Here's this. Okay. Yeah, that's a big difference. That's a big ass kite. Yeah. I'm sure that has a lot of power behind it, too. And I bet that really helped him. Totally. And it was You can ski with those things. Like the fact that he's got skis on and he's getting pulled by that kite. I mean, you're gliding. Yeah. You're not propelling yourself. They're both really cool Hold on. Go back to that, Jamie. Go back to that. Look, he doesn't have poles in his hands. No, he's just holding on to the kite being pulled

20:46along by it. So, he's probably strapped to that kite. Yeah, it's like if you imagine like a kite board, like a kite boarding on the water or something like that. strapped at the waist. He's holding on to that that kite. But, it's pulling him while he's on skis. Yes. Whereas, what you did was pull with trekking poles. Yeah, I had trekking poles and you know, cross country skis with skins, but just to give me tracks and so I didn't sink too deep in the snow. But, I'm just walking basically. Just pulling it with my own body fully. He's not doing that. It's a different thing. And I'm sure I'm sure there was times where you had to walk, right? Yeah, yeah. He man hauled for parts of it as well, like a significant distance. But, a lot of it when the wind was with him, you know, he put up his kite and pulled along. And it's that he was able to go more than 100 miles in a day makes me go, "Wait a

21:30minute. What?" Yeah. It's Yeah. Come on. That's a different thing. Totally different thing. That's a different thing. National Geographic do not recognize that that's a different thing. That he can go on the snow pulling 300 lbs more than 100 miles at how 100 and how many He went 125 in one time in 15 hours. ridiculous. Yeah. That's a totally different thing. Completely. Completely. National Geographic, Jesus Christ. Yeah. I I mean, they should they should have been really clear about that. Cuz they were trying to make it out like some elegant solution that he occasionally used, not big deal. But, what he really did was what he did was amazing. There's no doubt about it. No doubt. what what we just saw on that image of him getting pulled by that giant ass kite on skis strapped to this harness with all the weight behind him also being pulled by that giant ass

22:19kite. That's a different thing. 124 miles in a day pulling 300 plus pounds, get the out of here. Yeah. It's hard to walk 124 miles in a day. Let alone with nothing on your back. Yeah. Zach Bitter who holds the American world record for the fastest 24 hours ever run, ran it full clip in 11 hours. He ran 100 miles. So, 124 miles in 15 minutes while dragging hundreds of pound or 50 minutes, I said 50 minutes. 15 hours. 124 miles while dragging hundreds of pounds of gear all in 15 hours is insane. Yeah. That's insane. Yes. If Zach Bitter can run 100 miles in 11 hours and break a world record or an Ameri- Is it a world record or American record? American record. American record. Yeah, that's a crazy record. Yeah. 100 miles in 11 hours is crazy running. And that guy did 124 with hundreds of pounds of gear and a sled in 15 hours. Exactly. That's a different thing.

23:25Just two different things, man. things. And so World record correction. Zach world record. Yeah, Zach won the world record. He had the American record first and then he broke the world record in his latest attempt. Zach Bitter's a monster. Yeah. Shout out to Zach. Um, but him being able to do that running is incredible. That guy being able to go further in just 4 hours longer pulling hundreds of pounds of gear, come on National Geographic. They're just two different things. and it's not unimpressive. It's incredibly impressive. I mean, the guy has steel resolve to be able to do that and get all the way across the ice shelves and all that that he had to do. Absolutely. And I mean, the biggest thing for me is unfortunately that was, you know, portrayed in a certain way. I don't know if it wasn't fact checked or what that, but like for me, the whole purpose of any of this, the whole

24:14purpose of writing the book and sharing it with the world and being on, you know, talking to people, you know, via your podcast or whatever, like my whole goal is to inspire other people to step outside of their comfort zones, do things in their life, challenge themselves. Like it's This is not about me. It's not about notches in the belt. a little bit about you. You wrote a book. I like it. Have you written a book? No, I have not. Really? That surprises me. I started writing a book at one point in time, but I had uh I had a deal with a book publisher and the notes were so brutal, I gave them the money back. Really? Yeah, I was like, They were like they didn't like it? me to write essentially the way I write stand up. Uh it to be like set up punchline, set up punchline. I was like, "This is not how you write things, guys." Like they wanted it they Different without the intonation of the

24:56voice and the Yeah, they actually wanted to take my stand up. They offered to just take my stand up and transcribe it into a book. I said I'd never do that. And they're like, "Well, George Carlin did it." I go, "It's cuz he owed the IRS a billion dollars. Come on, man. George If you asked George was it a good idea, I bet he would say no." Yeah. You know, he needed money. George Carlin was like deep in the hole with the IRS. He did a lot of things I'm sure he didn't want to do. Yeah. But, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to write a book that way. Well, I'll tell you, I have walked across the landmass of America by myself. I've rode a boat. I've done some other crazy in my life. But, the hardest thing I've ever done is write a book. Really? Yes, man. Is that hard? It really was, you know. I'm proud of I'm proud of the outcome, you know, I really poured my heart and soul into it.

25:36But, it was challenging. I've been journaling since I was a little kid, like since I was 12 years old. So, going back through all my journals and thinking about, you know, there's the Antarctica piece of this, but it's subtitle is from fire to ice. I talk about, you know, being burned in this fire in Thailand, being told I would never walk again. Normally, going through all these pieces of my life. But, one of the things that happened when I was in Antarctica, which it was interesting to me, maybe you'll find it interesting, is as I was out there by myself in this empty white landscape, 24 hours of daylight, endless white nothingness, my mind started filling in with all of these memories. So, I deleted almost all my music. I'm in silence. I'm full solitude. Like if I said to you, "Hey Joe, remember the day you graduated from high school?" And like something's going to pop in your

26:15mind right now. We're going to keep talking and you're going to move on from that. But, when I was walking out there by myself, all of a sudden one popped in my head like, "Hey Colin, remember that your first swim race when you were a little kid?" And all of a sudden like I'd be back there. Like I could like dive in and I could see my mom on the edge of the pool deck and the you know, the wind's blowing across my face and I can see the kid next to me and I can taste the chlorine in my mouth. if this sort of memories like a lucid dream were coming back to me throughout for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time. So, the book itself, it reads about Antarctica, but it intersperses the way my experience was in Antarctica, which was actually going back in through my life in this kind of tapestry of sort of visceral memories and flashbacks of other expeditions and childhood and the

26:55ups and downs in my personal life and kind of all of these things kind of conspiring into one. But, it was it was wild to go deep into the brain like that. Um I'm sure. We should probably point out we've had a podcast before and this podcast that we did before was right after you got back from this journey in Antarctica and you described the whole thing in Thailand. You described getting burned and how you never thought you were going to walk again and all that stuff. So, we should tell people. So, stop right pause. Go back to the other one. And then come back here again. Um, what did it upset you when the National Geographic article came out? Like what did you feel like well, they just got it wrong. Let me let me straighten them out. You know, it's one of those things. I'd be curious to hear your perspective on kind of media and stuff like this. You've been around,

27:37you know, doing type of stuff like more longer than me. But, it you know, it hurt my feelings obviously and I was kind of just it was bizarre because it was so factually inaccurate. And National Geographic is you know, a magazine or an outlet that I've looked up to throughout my entire life. It's just like a really beautiful you know, platform. And so, I was just surprised. I was surprised that I was never asked for a proper long form interview this. I was surprised that I was never contacted by a proper fact checker. There was just some things that were just like weird and out of place. And you know, I guess it was a freelancer. I don't I again, I don't know the whole story behind it. it is. That's If I had a guess. Look, there's very little in like praising people. There's a whole lot in taking people down. Yeah. If they could find that you did something that you

28:21did something incorrect or you lied about something or exaggerated about something. I mean, they made you out to be a liar. Yeah. I I read it and I was like, "Wow, like they're they're saying he's a liar." They're saying how much of it is fiction. They literally said fiction. But, how much of it could be fiction if you really did walk 54 goddamn days across Antarctica? only that, the kind of weird parts about it is not only that, but I also had a GPS on me the entire time. It was completely transparent. Every 10 10 minutes the entire journey were live for the city. The New York Times covered it. They had my GPS tracker up live. The map of my route is in the first page of my book, let alone online 24/7. There's been hundreds of articles written about this by outlets who have fact checked and researched or whatever. So, for Nat Geo to make all these claims, it's like

29:06saying like Colin somehow tricked every person ever from every news outlet that's covered this and fact checked it and reported on it and had editors of the book and this some hacked his G- I mean, it's like a crazy conspiracy weird like kind of stains on it. everyone How do you say his name? Auslund? Auslund had done it. Everybody knew that Auslund had done it. Maybe they just didn't understand the details of it. So, they started complaining, "Hey, he didn't do it first. Auslund did it first." And this guy's like, "I got a story." So, he goes to try to go after you, but then realizes like, "Ah, it's kind of he kind of did it first, but the other guy did it." Well, let's just say that the kite was cool. Right. kite. But, I mean, he did even weirder things like in the first paragraph or second paragraph of the entire article he takes a quote from page 50 of my book and a

29:55quote from page 214 of my book and parses them together as if they're a single statement and I'm like they're about two completely different things that I'm talking about and you're like dude. That's what people do man. You want to sell dirt. You know or he says like Colin made up this thing about no rescue zones. No one's ever written about the fact of in Antarctica talks about me getting picked up in Antarctica like I can call an Uber. He literally says in there uses somebody else's quote he says I mean getting picked up in Antarctica is like calling an Uber which is by itself just Really said that? He said that in the article which is just crazy. That's hilarious. try getting an Uber in the woods in Montana. Okay? I'm like I'm like an Uber and then the craziest thing and again That is so crazy. So sad. is just factual it's it's not you know it's it's I just tried to not be too

30:41defensive or anything about it but it's just The good news is this will reach way more people than that article. Yeah it's but the I'll say one last thing about it the irony of this is if you Google Borg Ousland in 2018 right after or 2019 right after I finished my crossing he's interviewed about all this and in a quote I link to this in my you know my letter it him saying there are parts of Antarctica particularly in the large sastrugi zones which is exactly what I was talking about where rescue is impossible. Like he the guy who uses against me is also quoted saying the other thing but then he says it's like the whole thing is just you know it's crazy man. so much money in on someone. That's that's what it is I'm sure. I'm sure this guy well I'm sure this guy wrote that article is probably a little bit of a hater. Yeah. You know probably saw you and like the this guy. You know.

31:26It's it's the world we live in unfortunately. I try to you know keep my head up like I said I wrote this book to inspire other people to step outside their comfort zone and do amazing things. right? I got paid for it as well. Yeah but it's also like Is that is that so wrong? No you definitely should get paid. You should get paid for the whole thing. But the fact that they're trying to diminish what you did and what you really did do was walk by yourself for 54 days through Antarctica. And then we one of the things he was even saying something about it was on a road. Yeah. like hey why don't you walk dragging 300 lb on a road? Like does that matter? Everything's covered in snow and ice. Like what road is this? Yeah so there's basically this 300 mile stretch which is the last third of my part of my journey which by the way was on my GPS which by the way I talk about

32:15my book which by the way I widely acknowledge and it's called the South Pole Overland Traverse. And so the South Pole Station the US or sorry the US research station that's at the South Pole is resupplied throughout the summer season from the coast and they drive this kind of bunch of tractors basically up this area called the Leverett Glacier. And it's not like a paved road. This is them driving over ice and snow and like filling in crevasses along the way etc. And there's some tire tracks and some flagging that are out there. So first of all I've traveled already traveled almost 600 miles without any of that. And then as I get there and we know this is part of it and I've talked about widely with all the polar experts all of the people that make the classifications and unassisted refers specifically to kites and dogs. And they're trying to make this claim that the road somehow

33:01quote unquote air big air quotes road basically some rutted up tracks in the snow you know I'm I'm out there. paved road No there's not a paved road out there and the thing is Antarctica is so brutal we showed some clips last time me sitting in my tent in 50-60 mph winds that it was like Yeah. When that blows over imagine driving a tractor over snow and then 50-60 mph winds come in. What do you think happens? It's blown over immediately. So I never saw these tracks I never saw these vehicles I never saw I saw some flags of course I saw some rutted tracks but I link to it on my letter to this really not much different than walking on flat ground. No not at all and still there's still this sastrugi there's so there's still huge bumps of snow and all the a lot of the time it was white I was completely white out I couldn't see 5 or 10 ft in front of me so it's not like I

33:43could a lot of times these flags are every 100-400 m it's not like I'd even see those. So it's just a shame and I've been very transparent about the fact that I used that route. It was the safest route it was the only route the logistic company wanted to support and it falls completely in the distinctions of what is known as unassisted and he tried kind of makes this claim about that's not true or people are rethinking that and one of the weird things is Rethinking it? Right so they're they're now because of some of this the polar community have gotten together after my project. So my project squarely falls in the definitions as they were followed all of the rules and all of this. Now now they're sitting together and they're saying you know maybe we should rewrite some of these rules or make certain definitions different. Which by the way if they want to change rules that's totally fine.

34:28The problem is it would be like this. This is like with them calling me sort of like a liar or something would be equivalent of this. With Major League Baseball got together and said you know what all games in baseball are going to be 10 innings now instead of nine innings. And all of those guys over the last 100 years that played 200 thousand games or whatever who played nine innings they cheated they lied they didn't play the full game. Like they you know they cheated just like You know If they want to change whatever distinctions or classifications or stuff forward looking And what would the distinctions be that they would change that you can't do it on a road? think they're trying to make it finer grained which is like there would be like a kite distinction. There would be a no supported distinction. There would be a distinction for using you know

35:09partial of a if there was a flagging or or this like you know road which by the way is not a road to be clear it's Did he mention this road? I don't I don't there's there might if you if you Google of at no point in time was it like flat ground? No it's ice and snow where a tractor you might see like some wheels and in fact Lou Rudd who is the other guy who I was racing out there in Antarctica he wrote a whole blog post about that's linked to in my letter and you know of course he he did the exact same thing as me by the way the exact same thing same distinction and you know I finished a couple days ahead of him but what he did was absolutely incredible is this is this race we talk a lot about it book and a ton of respect for that guy as well friend of mine and you know he you know writes about this you know quote unquote road of the South Pole Overland Traverse

35:53as it's actually known and he's like it's rutted up tracks like you couldn't even in the parts where I saw tire tracks it's like actually worse than actually cuz you don't slide across it the snow is all rutted up it's chunked up it's actually like tripping you it's like even worse than he on broken ice versus powder. Yeah so this journalist and all these other people who are saying this this is not like they've like been out there before it's not like they you know It's a it's an attractive thing to say. Part of his journey was actually on a road like oh that guy. There's a road in Antarctica? Yeah but that's how it it sounds. It's when you say part of it was on a road it sounds like like this is the road oh Christ that's it. That's the road but that ain't not really a road man. That's just flat snow. Exactly and that would be like the best case most of the

36:37time it's wind blowing across it. Like that's on the perfect conditions perfect sunny day But look to the left and look to the right like it doesn't make it difference. It's the same. That's really deceptive that they they wrote that. Yeah. It's really deceptive cuz they made it seem like oh and then he gets to the highway and he's just walking. It's like hey try to put my thumb out like you know pick up a bus. he still went 54 days across Antarctica. And I know they acknowledge that in a small way in the article but they really uh like just that just the description calling that a road like that is I mean sort of technically a road. There's no ground man it's just all ice and snow. Yeah. You don't see the ground. Exactly and like I said I was transparent about that was my route asked all the people they're like yep you're within the rules you're doing the

37:24right thing no one's ever done this before and then you know Damn everybody's a hater. Yeah that's the world we live in unfortunately. You know that expression? No tell me that. Throw crabs in a bucket none of them ever get out because when they try to get out the other ones grab them and drag them down. Yeah exactly exactly. They pile on top of each other the other crabs just get down here with me. I can't walk 54 days you can't either Just drag you. Onward onward onward. Onward is nice but man it's really disturbing. Have you thought about suing them? You know. Drop the hammer son. Call the Jews. Yeah yeah. You know any you know any good Jews or attorneys? You know hopefully is that racist to say? I don't think it is because they're positive. They're really good at it. Some would some would say they're not. That it is racist or anti-Semitic. Yeah. Do you have a Jewish

38:12attorney? I do not have a Jewish attorney. You do? Yeah. You should get one. All right. I'm sure there's some Irish attorneys that are awesome too. That's a weird one right? Like racism when it's positive like if you say black guys have big dicks people will get mad at you. I'm just saying they're awesome like you know. That's true. That's a weird one like it's not really racist just saying someone's really just like Italians make really good pizzas is that racist? I love pizza. I do too. Um sorry we got way off track. So so put this stuff aside have have you have you considered legal action or you You know the like I said I published the 16 page this 16 page document that's on my website. I sent it to the editor of National Geographic. They have acknowledged that they've received it and like I said it's been a holiday weekend so they've had a few days to have it and hopefully they do

39:01the right thing. You know it is you know ultimately it's it's defaming. It's ultimately painting the wrong picture and like I said it's online. Their version is in print as well as online or just online? Oh their article is just online. Yeah. Would they take it down? yeah. Yeah but the problem is then not then someone's already seen it. Exactly and you know people I mean people like writing on my Instagram like you liar I hate you I hope you die and you're like whoa man like that you know and and that hurts man like I'm a human being like it it hurts my feelings to see that particularly when it's about something that's completely not true like people are saying like I heard you took a Uber out there and you like just walked on this road and stuff you're like and like you know That's hilarious. Yeah but you know That is the problem with those kind of articles. That right

39:45there in a nutshell is that especially people that sort of peripherally look at them. Exactly. Yeah, you don't really go through it extensively and examine what this guy is saying. Yeah. So, hopefully it doesn't come to legal action. Hopefully they do the right thing here. They've reviewed the facts and we can move on. Dude. Yeah. Call a lawyer. Yeah. Make it happen. Um So, now you get through this, right? You write your book and you get in this this rowboat journey. Has the rowboat journey been done before? So, the rowboat before um there's a storied history of ocean rowing. So, ocean rowing um you know uh Sure, the Polynesians. Yeah, I mean it goes way back, but even a kind of as a sport um and uh you know maybe the polar community wants to do this in more formally, but there's something called the ocean rowing society that has you know the records of different rows going

40:32back over time. Um there's this race across the Atlantic um that happens called the Talisker Ocean Talisker Whiskey Ocean Race um across the Atlantic from um from the or is it go from from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean every uh winter that happens. So, ocean rowing I mean it's a subculture. It's a small subculture, don't get me wrong. But it happens. Like it's a thing, you know, there's there's boats, there's races, there's competitions. gone through that path? Yeah, so Drake Passage had never been rowed fully and completely before. There was a guy um who's legend as well. Um I wish I wish he was still alive cuz I'd love to sit down more than anything. This guy's name is Ned Gillette. Um a true true like explorer. I mean actually got um killed uh in the late '90s I believe when he was climbing in the Himalayas or in Pakistan. Um he got shot um by

41:17someone who came through the camp. I don't know the whole story. It's a super sad story, but he's done all of these projects, you know, before social media and stuff like this. This guy was out there doing these badass things and he made this boat uh called the Sea Tomato and he took it down to Chile um to try to kind of do a what was like kind of a hybrid row and sail. And so, he has a sailing mast on there. He's got oars. He's got four guys with him. They try it the first season. They actually can't even launch their boat off of Cape Horn. So, they wait a whole other year and then the second year they launch the Sea Tomato um under sail. to wait a year? Cuz the weather I mean Drake Passage is not We'll get to that, but it is gnarly, bro. Like it is like I mean people you know as you say going around the horn, people say that in sailing. Like Cape Horn is known to just

41:59be like just treacherous, brutal water as the two these oceans kind of collide and these huge standing waves come up. So, a whole season they sat down there with their rowboat and didn't even launch it. Then the next year came back him and four guys. How small's the window where you can make it across? So, uh basically the best time of year to do it would be December-January because that's the Southern Hemisphere summer. Um and so, the temperature is a little bit warmer. You've got longer days. We purposely did it over the um summer so or the summer solstice. So, December 21st, you know, that'd be June 21st for us in the Northern Hemisphere. Um the longest day of the year. We still had night um you know, a few days a few hours of darkness every single night, but we at least had the longer days because once it gets dark and there's waves coming at you from every single

42:40direction. I mean it is scary, man. It is This is the Drake Passage obviously as seen from a bigger boat than mine, but you know that. Can I see what it was like in your boat? You have a video of your video? pull up my Insta That's insane. pull up my Instagram How many people die out there? I mean it I don't know the numbers, but um well the a plane crash happened the day we were leaving and 38 people died in a plane crash in Drake Passage as we were about to depart on our rowboat. It's a whole that's a whole other whole other crazy story, but um but you know, there's definitely I mean there's shipwrecks out there. There's boats that have gone down. There was a a cruise ship I think that went down in the 2000s um In Drake Passage? Passage, yeah. And a cruise ship. I hope I don't get that story completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure a big boat went down in the last 10 years or so.

43:28a cruise ship doing there? What What do you want to see that? do the They go to the peninsula of Antarctica. So, actually there's quite a few uh cruise ships. Um yeah, so here here's me So, it's actually fairly calm sometimes. So, I mean some of the times. If you see Yeah, you got some swells, but I mean You'll see this next part. So, this is me in the tiny little cabin. Um I mean waves coming over. They're crashing at us. cabin in the the where closest to us? Yeah, closest to us is the little cabin that I was in. There was just one of us in there. And this is uh so, this is us putting out something called the sea anchor. Um that's when the waves got so big or the wind and swell was against us so much that we couldn't row anymore and it's like throwing a parachute that basically like kind of tries to hold you in place. Um yeah, I mean you look at the swells coming over

44:11What is it? So, it's like a huge parachute, basically. It's in the water? And you put it in the water and it fills with water and it holds the boat in the place. I mean not very well. Even in this is if we had the volume up, it's me basically uh talking about how we're getting pushed back in the wrong direction, but we can't even we don't have the strength to row against it anymore. Um just getting hammered. Um but the sea did it push you back? I think that time it pushed us back like 15 or 20 miles. Um Whoa. So, you lose 15 or 20 miles of progress. Yeah. And that one That was the longest sea anchor I believe. We were on it for 26 hours. And so, what happens is like as you saw in the boat, there's three people rowing, three people in the cabins at any given time. And the cabins are tiny when you're even with the you know, one person on one side like I was,

44:50two in the other side. Like you're like smashing there like a sardine. But then when you put the sea anchor out, no one's rowing anymore and that you know, open decking it's like really dangerous to just be sitting out there. So, we all try to get in the cabins, but like this Icelandic dude who's the captain, Fiann Paul, I mean he's like amazing row you know, 6'2 broad shoulders, whatever. All of a sudden the two of us are jammed inside of like the smallest little compartment. It's like 2 ft around 3 ft wide by 3 ft tall. We're like spooning each other. We're wet. We're cold. We're in there for 26 hours that time. How did you guys poop? Uh so, if you look that's me Yeah, that This one shows kind of the wave the big swell. I'm the I'm the one in the back there. Um and uh I'm sitting right next to a really fancy toilet, a little something called a 5-gallon bucket. Oh,

45:35that's what you did. You pooped in a bucket. Pooped in a bucket. Not not too fancy. Yeah. Um and uh and then then then the fish can snack on that. But you know, you obviously get Not only were we spooning under sea anchor smashing these little things and then and oftentimes those other the other guys in the other compartment when either three um three of them were inside the compartment at a time and one would be sitting out um and taking shifts or they sometimes smashed four in there. Um but I mean they're like literally on top of each other. So, we got close, but then also obviously there's no space on the deck. So, it's like, "Hey, man, just turn your head away. I'm going to be you know, pooping a basically a foot away from you while you row in this bucket. Like don't mind me." Those Mountain Houses will create some horrible smells out of your body.

46:12I've had those Mountain Houses while hunting. They're rough. Especially for me cuz I don't eat a lot of carbs. It's just It's all like you know. They taste good though. They do taste good. Yeah, they Especially when you're in the middle of the ocean. I bet they're delicious. I loved them. Yeah, yeah. They're really good. That That and the bars. I was happy with with the eating was good, but uh When you're halfway out there, was there any point time where you're like, "What the is wrong with me? Why am I doing this?" Yes, 100%. So, one of the things like you know, people have asked me was you know, "Solo Antarctica crossing harder than the row or whatever?" And it's like they're very different. But one of the things that was so brutal about this, Antarctica and the crossing was was a lot colder than the Drake Passage row. It was about average temperature when we were out

46:50there was probably like in the low 30s. You know, dipped below a few times. But the ocean temperature like I said, it's 32, you know, 33, you know, just above freezing. There's icebergs in the water when we're getting close to it. And you're just getting splashed the entire time. So, from like minute one, hour one leaving Cape Horn, we are soaking wet. kind of equipment are you wearing? What kind of gear are you wearing that keeps you from getting really cold? So, we we started out um in just this Gore-Tex. It's this thick like sailing Gore-Tex, basically. And that worked pretty well for the first few days. But one of the other cool innovations um that Fiann thought of having done so much ocean rowing is he was like, "Dude, the only way this is going to work is if we have some sort of drysuit. It's just too cold." But you start looking at drysuits and you're like, "You could

47:36never row. You can't be functional like wearing like this like crazy drysuit, right?" And so, he basically says he he spends the year One of the things that he did is he found this like Polish manufacturer and we all got our bodies measured, you know, 25, six different measurements and all this. And basically created these custom drysuits that were a lot thinner than a typical drysuit, but kept us dry, but also allowed us to have the mobility on the oars. And it was really actually built for the sitting position and the leg you know, the leg press and the arm motion and all of that of rowing. Um so, it was awesome innovation and we got just I mean thank god we had those cuz we were getting soaked. I mean we were getting so so so soaked out there. And in the 90 minutes you would think like, "Oh, in the 90 minutes {quote} rest phase, you would get in there you know, maybe change

48:20clothes or something like that." No, absolutely not. Like the We had these suits on. We're soaking wet. We'd get in the cabin. We're all sharing like one sleeping bag. Like I had just one sleeping bag that Fiann and I were alternating. It's soaking wet after the first day. There's just like it's basically like if I showed you what it looked like on the last day, you'd be like, "I wouldn't sit in there for 1 minute, let alone like try to sleep." There's like no There's like water like the brown water on the bottom. Like and you're just like, you know, it's the smells from us living in and out of there for this I mean it was grimy and wet and cold, but these suits um suited us pretty well. The one thing that was great, you know, obviously we were clipped in for safety. So, we were clipped into basically these ropes that you saw on the edge of there. So, if we

48:57were going to get knocked off um the boat, hopefully we would you know, be able to clipped in or the boat itself actually fully self-right. So, if it rolls over, it hypothetically rolls back over the top. We had some close calls, but we never fully rolled it and thank god. Um but we did test that. But one of the things about the suits is the suits um basically have like neoprene booties. It's all like one kind of one piece like you would have in a drysuit, which was awesome for keeping us you know, safe and dry. But I didn't take the suit off for the last six or seven days at all. And so, when I finally took the suit off, my feet like you think about your fingers getting like pruny maybe like you know, in a swimming pool for a couple hours or hot tub or something like that. Like imagine 7 days of wet and cold and sweat and like all the things. Like when I took

49:42the suit off, like I almost threw up on the ground cuz it was just like gnarly festering skin and like like skin was ripping off of my feet. Like it was nasty. until you could recover from that? Um I don't know exactly, you know, it's hard to put the point on like oh, I'm recovered, but it definitely took a few weeks to just kind of get everything back, you know, the the stability back in body, mind, and all of that. So uh yeah, it was it was interesting for sure. What are you going to do next? Cuz I know you. You're one of those dudes. You have to keep doing these things. Like once you've done two of these things, you're going to keep doing these things. Yeah, I did a couple before that, too. But uh I think last time your advice to me was stop. Stop while you're ahead. you're Yeah. Um But you didn't listen, obviously. You don't listen to me anymore, anyway. Just

50:30keep doing what you got to do. You know, look, like I'm passionate about these things. It's it's super fun. Um I do them because I like testing the edges of my potential. I like exploring different places. Like I'd never Like I said, I'd never rode a boat before, and that kind of take this project on and say, you know, I've done expeditions before. I've pushed my body in, you know, deep and interesting ways. But one of my biggest curiosities is certainly about the mind, but, you know, particularly like growth mindset. Can I say like I'm not a rower, but in the course of a year of training, I'm going to train myself up, get on a team with some amazingly, you know, accomplished watermen, and learn the skills required to, you know, make this crossing. And it was cool to kind of prove that out this year because I think that that really applies across so many things. And I'm

51:14just a generally curious person. Um and I think I'll keep pushing myself and pushing my body cuz that's one of the things that I love to do. But I think that curiosity throughout my life is going to be, you know, uh a lifelong path of of diving into sort of different things and taking them on. I think that to me one of my biggest sadnesses, one of the things I like to say to people is like, you know, people come to a certain point in their life and they're like, you know, I'm I'm a lawyer or I'm good at math or I'm terrible at art or like I could never do comedy cuz I'm not the funny one. Or I'm like, you know, these limiting beliefs inside of us. It's like, I could be like, dude, I've never rode ever in my life. I'm you know, 34 years old, you know, I've never rode a boat, but actually like but like doesn't mean I can't learn now to row a boat. Um it seems pretty straightforward. Yeah,

51:56exactly. How hard could it be? You do a little leg action, too. What did you do to prepare for it physically? So, um the physical the physical prep was was pretty cool. Um I don't know if you remember from last time, but um I have this coach, his name is Mike McCastle. Um and he's just this legendary guy. He's uh you know, done 5,800 pull-ups in 24 hours. He's pulled a uh truck across Death Valley. Yeah, he's a total total legend. Um and he trained me up for Antarctica. I mean, I came to him and I said, "Hey, look, like I'm not the most experienced polar explorer. I got to pull this 375-lb sled. Like what do you think? How can you train me up?" And he came up with such cool training um methodologies for that. Like he had one of the things he had me doing for Antarctica was he had me, you know, I was doing planks with my hands in ice buckets. And, you

52:42know, as my heart rate's getting jacked up, he's having me hold that. And all of a sudden, he's like, "All right, get out." And I do in a wall sit, but now my feet are in the ice buckets. And he puts a weight plate on top of my legs. And he's like, "Okay." And then he hands me these LEGOs. And he's like, "Solve these LEGO problems until you don't solve this LEGO and build this little like, you know, aircraft little LEGO man or whatever, you know, you can't get your feet out of the ice bucket." I'm like, "What the hell is going on?" But he's like, "Look, you're going to be in Antarctica. Your life is going to depend on you ti- you know, securing your tent right or tying down the ropes properly or this and that the other thing. You're going to be cold. Your hands are going to be frozen. You're going to be tired. But you're going to need your mind and your dexterity to be there. Yeah,

53:17there's a there's a picture of that of Mike bringing me through that. And so with the row, it was super cool to come to him again and say like, "Hey man, like there's no blueprint for this. Like there's no blueprint for this. There's no one that's done a fully human-powered crossing of Drake Passage before to the Antarctic Peninsula. Like there's some ocean rowers, but this is different. Like how should we prepare for this?" And Mike, it's not like he's like, "Well, I know everything about ocean rowing." But that same curiosity, that same growth mindset, I trust his, you know, sort of ability to train me. He's like, "I don't know, man. Like let's start thinking through this." And so in the gym, I mean, we did all sorts of creative things. He brought the ice back. He started putting a rowing machine on BOSU balls, like half BOSU balls, basically. And I'd start rowing,

54:00you know, doing the normal rowing motion. But he'd start shaking it around because basically the ocean is going to be moving me around so much. So just the rowing motion isn't going to prepare me for the lateral movements, you know, the the the lats, the obliques, you know, the all the kind of side-to-side stability stuff. Then he took it one step further, which is he actually shows up at my house, knocks on my door at 2:00 in the morning. I think he had prearranged it with my wife. Um knocks on the door and he's like, "Get up." And I'm like, "What? What What's happening?" He's like, "We're going. We're training right now." And he gets me He's got those BOSU balls, but now it's the middle of the night, so I'm sleep deprived. I'm kind of disoriented. Now he's got me on the BOSU balls, and he had brought these buckets of ice water. So I'm rowing this thing. He's shaking

54:37around. It's the middle of the night. He starts throwing ice water on me. And we're doing these laps. Yeah, here I am uh you know, getting into this. Uh the Yeah, you could check these out. The Discovery Channel did like 50 It says training for the Drake The Impossible Row, episode 3. You could find it online. Jamie, it's on the Discovery Channel YouTube page. YouTube, they have a whole playlist with all these videos. Okay. Yeah, so there's 14 of these videos training all the way through the whole project. Discovery put them online. They're actually doing a feature-length documentary this spring. But yeah. What did you do for rowing for the specific muscles of rowing yourself? Did you lift weights? Did you do rows? Did you use a rowing machine? What you use? Yeah, so the rowing machine on the BOSU balls, that's like in the gym. Also a lot of deadlift was really useful. And

55:18then a lot of stability stuff. So Mike would have me do certain things. Like we'd have, you know, like a seated row or something like that. Or monoliths, I thought that was the most interesting cuz it was going to be destabilized. So the waves are usually coming from any They change directions, but at any given time they're coming generally from one direction. So you're either leaning in really hard to your left side or you're leaning in really hard to your right side. That's a difference to the ocean rowing than just like a pure river rowing. And, you know, he would have me basically like holding imagine like a like a like a deadlift bar. Mhm. And then I'd have my eyes closed. I'd be holding it there in kind of an isometric motion. And then he would pull the plate a light plate off one of the sides. And so I'd have to stabilize and catch, you know,

55:58either my left side or my right side. So a lot of stabilization and balance stuff. And then the other piece that was huge, you know, Mike, you know, admittedly doesn't know a lot about rowing specifically in terms of the technique of rowing. And the technique of rowing is actually very specific. And so a friend of mine, a guy named Chris Voida um from Portland. Um he I called him up and he's like this champion rower, collegiate rower, rowing coach. And he took me out on the Willamette River in Portland in a single-man like rowing scull. So very different than an ocean rowboat. You know, ocean rowboat's a lot bigger, different different waves. But he taught me on the river the actual purity of the rowing motion. So a lot of the training and the physical aspects of getting stronger was with Mike and the mindset and the ice and all the things we did there. But certainly the stuff that we

56:39did um on the row on the river in in the Willamette with Chris was was huge for me to actually understand the motion cuz just like you when you're like, "How hard can it be?" And just kind of push your arms, you know, back and forth. It's a pretty complicated motion. It's a full-body thing. It's a It's a very coordinated thing. You know, you're powering out of different things. And certainly on river rowing, you're having to you know, square what's called squaring the blades and um you know, you got to be taking the blades out of the water and, you know, turning them so they could slide across the top and get back in and glide and all that kind of stuff. So there's a lot there's a lot to the motion. And so it was a a short period of time. I didn't take my first stroke in a rowboat until July in in the in the in the river and then August in the ocean rowboat when we

57:22came together as a team for the first time to train in Scotland. And then I was rowing across the Drake in December. So it was a a pretty short period of time to kind of learn learn about rowing and get stronger. But it was a fun process to dive into something completely new. So all from August, September, October, November into December, did you train and row all the time? Um you know, quite a lot. But there was other things going on. I was writing this I was writing a book. I was writing the book at the same time. I was writing the book at the same time. You know, I was traveling, doing different things. But yeah, I mean, obviously the training was a core focus. Um but uh it wasn't like I was like every day all I was always doing is rowing 10 hours a day or something like that. There was you know, other things going on. I'd imagine you would need some pretty

57:59spectacular endurance to do that. 90 minutes on the hour every 90 minutes. Yeah, so you got 90 minutes on, 90 minutes off, 90 minutes on, 90 minutes off. for doing it that way? Just like to not burn yourselves out too much, but Yeah, so like I said, Fiann, you know, has, you know, a lot of ocean rowing experience. And from his other expeditions, we kind of collectively talked about it as a team. And he was just like, "Okay, you know, this is what he felt has worked the best for people to, you know, do a long stretch, get enough rest." But, you know, obviously maybe the first day or two, you think, "Oh, I could row for 4 hours at a time or something like that." And you get longer stretch of rest. But over time, like your body really starts to wear down. And so he kind of, you know, felt that was the happy balance. And it definitely I mean, I was delirious. We

58:43were all delirious and sleep deprived. And it got weird out there for sure. But I think it was the best. My body actually held up pretty well. And I felt like Did you hallucinate at all? It was yeah. It was so wild. Like it The things going on in my mind, the the night time like the night shift was really crazy. So at the night the late nights weren't super long. You got about 3 hours of darkness every single night. But that meant at least one 90-minute shift was complete darkness. And so I know where you're going. That that part is like I mean, it's weird enough to be out in this tiny little boat bobbing around in the middle of the ocean, knocking back and forth. Um but all of a sudden, it gets completely dark. And like you can see nothing. And so waves kind of come out out of nowhere. It's very very disorienting. I was rowing. So on my shift, it was myself, a guy named

59:26Jamie who's from Scotland, and a guy named Cam Bellamy, South African guy who I have I got a funny story about him. He's an absolute legend. Um so it was the three of us out there rowing on our shift and the other shift was Andrew, John, and Fionn. Um and on our shift in the middle of the night, I don't know how it started but it was on the first night that we were out there. It's kind of like you know you've been rowing all day and then all of a sudden now you're wet and cold and it's dark. Like you're just like it's just like this sucks. Like those are those moments when you're like having your lowest moments. And we uh you know you might make fun of me but we started singing, man. We just started singing out there. fun of you for singing? I don't know. Why would I make fun of you for rowing across the ocean? you go. Um you know we started singing. Like I I

60:02think I just started belting out one day uh you know I was I was actually born on a hippie commune. Um my mom played Bob Marley Redemption Song throughout my entire birth. There was like you know people watching my birth on my futon. So I started oh pirates, yes they robbed us sold I to the merchant ships. We're just belting it out. No I mean I my voice is terrible but we're having fun. end of the trip? Um you know no. Uh it was intense. I mean working hate you? I don't know. You have to ask them I guess. No no. We honestly it was it was a crazy social experiment. We've got guys from four different countries, three different continents. No one knows each other super well. Few of them um had done a project before in the past so they they know each other a bit better but in general um we weren't you know it's not like it was six guys were like oh we've done a

60:47bunch of stuff together. We're bros. We've all hang out. Um and it really you know required some really diligent um kind of human dynamics to bring it all together. One of the things we came together in Scotland in August and we rowed the first time. That's the first time we all met each other. We came together. That's where our rowboat was. We were getting it custom built and built out. Um and then uh then that was the only time we saw each other in person. We had these Skype calls and stuff and then we got down to Punta Arenas which is where we staged it out of um uh in Chile in southern Chile there. That's kind of we got our rowboat. We imported it. We're getting everything going. And those 10 days were in preparation were some of the absolute hardest of the entire project. Getting to the start line, right? And you know there's gear everywhere. We're

61:31trying to figure out how it all fits. Like you know where how we're going to fit all this food in here and our personal gear and there's nowhere this and we're trying to pack the boat and like you know tensions are elevated. Everyone's kind of like nervous. Like the reality of what we're about to do is setting in. And um you know there was kind of some some breaking points and and to credit where credit's due one of the guys named Andrew Town absolute amazing guy. Um he's actually a management consultant. So he's like a lawyer businessman management consultant and uh he's like he's like facilitates all these conversations in his work and he sits us down and he goes hey guys like we need to have like a real conversation about like teamwork and what's going on cuz there's six of us in this tiny little boat life on the lines. We come from different cultures,

62:09different backgrounds, different things. Like let's set some intentions. And you know at first I think we're all maybe a little bit skeptical but he sits us down and we have this conversation about like you know let's talk let's talk let's talk real. Like what are our real fears going into this? Like what are our vulnerabilities? What are our weaknesses? How can we trust one another? And you know we all were very honest with one another and I think it really set the tone for the entire thing. One of the guys is a school principal. He's got a two-year-old daughter at home and he's like hey guys like I want to do this. Like I want to be a part of this project but like here's some of my fears. You know and and for me I'm like look like we got to have a communication. We got to be able to say to each other if we're having a bad day we got to just be honest. Like

62:44hey I'm not having a good day but it's not cuz like I'm a bad person. You know we got to support one another. And really having that facilitated conversation as a team early on before we were out in the water and the intensity I think carried us through and I'm so so so grateful to Andrew facilitate that conversation cuz that was a really turning point in the group dynamics. And so the Discovery Channel was their idea for this thing? Did they come to you guys? Yeah. So that the whole Discovery thing is is really cool part of this. Um so uh basically what happens Fionn Fionn had the idea for it. This you know legendary you know ocean rower and um but the component parts of putting it all together really complicated. One of the reasons is because the so say you owned a yacht or something like that and you're like you know what Colin I want to take my yacht

63:27to Antarctica. Like that's not really something that you can just do. There's a whole bunch of environmental protections and laws and things like that. There's like specific boats that have like permeating that's called this it's called the IAATO treaty. Um and it's basically what governs like tourism in Antarctica. And the reason they do that is because of sort of environmental concerns in Antarctica and so really good thing. But turns out like my ocean rowboat is not like part of like the full treaty of Antarctica. And so the only way to do it and be like well within the rules and like above board within everything that's going on in Antarctica all the environmental protection is to have one of the IAATO certified boats um there and a part of this. And so what we realized is we needed what was called a supervising vessel. Not a vessel that would you know give us

64:10support in the middle and hang out with us and we could jump off and take a hot shower but a boat that's basically overseeing the totality of the project and also has like us being like fully permitted throughout that. And so we're like okay like that's interesting. There's going to be this other boat out there. We got to figure out who this is. It's super expensive. We got to raise the money to make sure we can have that. You know all these types things. The only way it can work. We kind of got set to work on doing that myself. My wife Jenna she builds these projects with me. Blake who works with me and a bunch of people kind of working on kind of the details of it. And we quickly realized like wow what an amazing opportunity. If we have this other boat out there we can film this thing. And I've wanted to film my pro some of my projects and share them really widely before but when

64:49you're walking across Antarctica dragging a 375 lb sled and the whole purpose of the goal is to be solo. It's not like you can have like a cameraman just like hanging out there like shooting you. You know I mean although there's just a road so there's just people hanging out there. LOL. Yeah. LOL. Um but uh basically um that's when we said hey like let's see if someone would be interested in coming on as a media partner of this and really filming this um in a big in a big way. And so um we got to talking with Discovery. Um they got on board of it and it was a really cool vision. It was kind of a combined vision of theirs and ours. Through all my other projects I mentioned the GPS through my last you know Antarctica crossing and my other previous world records before that I always carried this GPS and share it in real time. I have this nonprofit where you know during the row there was

65:32600,000 school kids and school curriculums we built around like ocean and environmental learning and stuff like that all incorporated into the kind of daily um following along with the science and curriculum. And so I always wanted to share the projects in real time. And so we talked to Discovery and they were like this is super cool. Let's do three different things at once here. So we invest in all this satellite technology with Iridium the Iridium satellites and they were able to basically allow us to do social media during the time. So if you're like sitting at home on Christmas Day as we're arriving in Antarctica like you're watching me bouncing around on this you know rowboat you can follow the whole thing. And then And who's doing this? The other boat? So I yeah they they have the satellites on the other boat but we have I'm shooting the social media and the content on my phone.

66:11is powered how? It's a prop it's like a nor it's like a 120 ft like boat with like a proper engine and stuff like that. that they were with you too so if goes sideways Absolutely. Absolutely. So um definitely had that as the they they never they never you tell them to carry the food too? Because so the unsupported part of the project like means the second we launch like they couldn't touch us. If they touched us in you know catastrophic it's over. It that's the end of the thing. Um and so uh my wife my wife was on board that. She runs all the British projects for me in the background. Anyways that she was actually so she crossed the Drake in this larger boat which by for Drake Passage standards is still a much smaller boat. Um there was six guys you know who were five guys who ran the boat and then five guys on the Discovery film crew but they rigged our ocean rowboat

66:52up with all these GoPros and batteries and all this kind of stuff. So we were completely self-sufficient on the um and just had to like switch out memory cards and stuff ourself but what ended up happening is there was a social media component happening live and then what Jamie just pulled up in the video of me training there's these 14 episodes on Discovery Go that are online right now and they're all like five to 10 minutes long that kind of tell the story in mid-form episodes which is cool cuz that was coming out concurrently. So while we were out there they were putting these piece of content sent up by the satellites that people could see. And then this spring a couple months from now they're going to have a long-form uh documentary that comes out about the entire thing and there's definitely um been some really cool footage of ocean rowing expeditions in

67:30the past but to have a boat out there and to be able to shoot it from the perspective um of not on the rowboat. Someone's on the rowboat it's weird like you've seen boats in really big swells but because the perspective on the rowboat it's kind of moving with it you can't kind of tell how big it is. But I think there's a video of like actually last video maybe I posted on my Instagram where you can see the boat or my boat just completely disappearing and going up and down and completely disappearing in the waves. And they're able to shoot back and get drone footage and all this sort of stuff. So the the feature length documentary should come out in a couple months um will be really cool on Discovery. That's awesome. Um is this a crazy thing that you've done? And it it begs the question. When you do crazy things like does this change you as a person? Does like

68:11walking across Antarctica is one. Rowing across the Drake stretch is what it's called Drake Passage is another. Like is this changing you as a person? Like what are these cuz these are experiences where if you told someone hey you're going to sleep 90 minutes um at a at a clip and then you're going to row for 90 minutes and you're going to poop into a bucket and you're going to sleep like a sardine with a bunch of other dudes on this boat. You're not going to sleep much. You're probably going to hallucinate. Sometimes you're going to row in the dark. Sing songs. Yeah. But you'll get through it though. A couple weeks later you'll be done. Yeah. Like these these are weird things that you're doing that's sort of changing your personal life experiences are so much more extreme than the average person's. Yeah. 100%. I mean you know one of my reasons for doing this for sure is to

69:01test the limits of my own potential and grow. I'm not doing them just to like so that I can be the exact same person on the other side of Antarctica or the other side of Drake Passage. It's it's to take that learning and you know I've been asked like a similar question I guess before but my answer or the way that I kind of think about it is I've started to think about life like the I mean how do I say this? I've started to think about life in the totality of life experience between like say a numerical one and 10. Like one being the worst day of your life and 10 being the best day of your life. And, you know, one might be, you know, a day that if a family member passes away or one might be being wet and cold and freezing in an ocean rowboat, you know, spooning with this other guy and you know, been in a bucket and being exhausted and tired, you know, like just like

69:43rough moments in your life, right? And 10 is this hedonistic joy, the most pleasure-filled day ever. It's just happy, joyful. Maybe you've succeeded in something you've accomplished, like all this kind of stuff. And as I've kind of looked around at the world, people say, "What are you afraid of? You must not be afraid of being alone or you must not be afraid of, you know, these hard challenges or stuff like that." I'm like, "Well, maybe not, but what I'm really afraid of is actually living a life range-bound between four and six." I think too often people, you know, the typical life experience, unfortunately, cuz we have some creature comforts, particularly in the Western world, where, you know, you can live a life and just stuck between four and six. So, maybe the happiest day of your year, your week, it's like the Super Bowl and your team wins the Super

70:25Bowl and you crush a couple beers with your buddy and you high-five him. You're like, "Oh, that was awesome. Like, that was cool." But it's not 10. I mean, it's a six. And then like maybe the worst day of your week, it's like a Monday and your boss yells at you or something like that and you're just like you're like, "Oh, man, like that's kind of a bummer, but you know what? I don't really give a about my job anyway. So, like I'm not really that bummed about it. It's just like is. I'm just kind of like in this like life of like quiet desperation in the middle." And I think a lot of that has to do with because we're hedging or we're afraid of the ones. We're just like, "I don't want to experience a one. I don't want to experience discomfort. I don't want to experience pain." Like anything to do that. But what I've realized, I think of it like kind of a pendulum, like

70:58swinging the totality of life experience, like to get to the 10s, you also need to embrace the ones. Like, the totality of life and the experience, it's not I'm not experiencing these high highs or these hedonistic joys or these beautiful flow states or things like that, you know, in spite of the ones, in spite of the challenge, but it's because of them. Yeah. By pulling my sled, you know, 53 days on my 53rd day of pulling my sled across Antarctica, I get there, my hips are poking out, my ribs are sticking out, I'm exhausted. I can barely pick my duffel bag up to put it in my sled. My body's completely compromised. I'm exhausted. But then I tap into the deepest flow state of my entire life. I find this place in my mind, in my body, in my soul, and, you know, I pushed 32 hours without stopping to the finish line. And I wouldn't have gotten there had I

71:48not pushed myself, had I not, you know, gone through this difficulty. You know, I like to say that, you know, pain is mandatory. These challenges are painful, straight up. Pain is mandatory. Make no mistake about this. Obviously, things I'm doing are painful, they're hard, whatever. But the suffering part is optional. Yeah. You know, you don't have to be in these moments so long and be like, "Oh my god, this is horrible. I'm in this and why did I get myself out there? This is terrible. Blah blah blah blah blah blah." and go down this path. You're like, "I'm doing this because when I step outside of my comfort zone, I grow. And as I grow, I can share that with other people and hopefully have that ripple effect of positivity and inspiration that's lasting in the world for others as well." Yeah, you mentioned one of my favorite quotes ever, the Thoreau quote, "Most

72:27men live lives of quiet desperation." It's a great quote and so damn true. I think you're right. I think you really need very difficult things in your life in order to appreciate real comfort and relaxation. Absolutely. think you hit it if you just if you your whole life is just soft cushions and everything's made out of allure and people are feeding you grapes. I think you live like an I think that I I think you know, we don't like that because no one really suffering is hard. It's hard. It feels uncomfortable, but you don't realize that unless you suffer, you don't appreciate calm. You don't appreciate peace. I think there's just far too many people out there seeking comfort. I agree with I think that it's funny because people are going towards that. They're hedging against discomfort. Like, okay, well, how to make this as comfortable as possible? And then they sit there and

73:15they're like, "Why am I unsatisfied? Why am I not happy?" And it's like because you're hedging against discomfort, because you're trying to make like you said, it's poor education really. People are not educated on what it takes in order to be fulfilled in life. The idea is that material possessions or some modicum of success is the goal. It's not. You know, difficult tasks is what make you make do something that's hard to do. Do something that's interesting. Do something that's complicated and intricate. Do something that requires you to stretch your boundaries. Absolutely. why I'm asking you because you're doing you're stretching your boundaries into some weird life, you know, death-defying sort of thing. Yeah. You you've done two of these so far. Like, what is next? You going to do ultramarathons? You going to try to climb mountains? Like, what are you going to do? So,

74:03you got something going on. I uh I I did a big mountaineering project before any of this uh before these last two projects I did um something called the Explorer's Grand Slam. So, I climbed the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents and went to the North and South Pole for the last degree of latitude faster than anyone's done that. So, that was 139 days back in 2016. So, Everest, Denali, Kilimanjaro, etc. back-to-back. Um the next actual physical project that I have, uh it's not, you know, some, you know, world record-breaking thing or anything, but uh my wife uh so, one of the things that we do, um we have this nonprofit as I mentioned and love speaking to young people, kind of opening their minds to the outdoors and being stewards of the land and really um inspiring young people to think about, you know, doing hard things and testing themselves. Uh

74:43it doesn't have to be in the outdoors at all. It could be anything, music, art, culture, whatever it is, but to to aim high in their life. And one question we started asking young people um was this question, which is, "What's your Everest?" You know, it's a really obvious metaphor for kids. It's like, you know, "What's your big goal? You know, what what is your Everest?" Um and kids are amazing in a gymnasium. I get, you know, kids raising their hand going, "You know, my Everest is to be the first person in my family to graduate from college." or, you know, whatever amazing things kids, you know, dream of um and help facilitate them towards those goals. Um but about a year ago now, um my wife, who's not, you know, didn't grow up, you know, climbing mountains, didn't grow up as as an avid athlete or anything. She's been wildly supportive of of work we've done. A lot of the book

75:20is really about our love story and building these projects together. But she looks at me and she goes, "Colin, my Mount Everest is now to climb Mount Everest." And so, we are going back in April. I've climbed Mount Everest once before from the Nepalese side, but we're going to go back um and climb Everest. We'll be there in April, May of this year. So, in a couple of months uh to climb Mount Everest from the north side. Um and uh for really for me, the that that's to be a support support a facilitator uh of her goal. So, the next thing I'm doing kind of in the athletic or outdoor space is actually to uh support Jenna in uh climbing K2 literally her Mount Everest being Mount Everest. Um and it's really cool to see her, you know, just someone so close to me commit to a goal. It's an audacious goal for her. For her back, I mean, she's amazing. She's strong. She's

76:05fit. She's trained. She's ready. But like just like six months ago I never rode a boat, you know, a year ago, yeah, she's climbed some big mountains. But to say, "Hey, I want to climb Mount Everest." was a massive goal for her. think you're going to do stuff together? Like, do some death-defying thing together? Are you Are you going to get her addicted to this now? You know, I think uh we'll see. I think uh for her this this uh I don't want to say it's one and done, but I'm I'm sure that uh you know, I don't think she has the huge desire to keep doing these types of thing. I think the next journey for both of us probably after that is a a parenthood, having kids. yeah, that's that's a journey. Um Everest seems very commercialized now, right? I I watched some of the footage of the from the pictures and stuff like that. line of people trying to summit. It's It's a weird thing now, right?

76:47Yeah, so that's from the south side. That's the side that I climbed in 2016 from Nepal. That was that photograph was taken from that. What a wild and bizarre thing that was. Um to say the least. It's a traffic jam. Yeah, so on the north side um there's less crowds, what we will be climbing from. Um but also that day, I mean, look, that I don't have the answer to the problem. That certainly was a problematic thing that happened up there. It's kind of a weird perfect storm a little bit where it was actually really stormy for a while and then people got delayed and the ropes were delayed getting in and then all of a sudden there's one good day and everyone goes at the same time. So, um again, I don't know what the solution is, but everyone going up at the same time on the same day on one day in May is obviously clearly based on that picture like not the answer.

77:26Yeah, people did die that day. Um I don't know the exact count, but people did die that day because they got, you know, stuck out there and couldn't move one way or the other. Yeah, when I was climbing in 2016, um it was actually a a a somewhat crowded day, nothing like that photo, but it was a a more crowded day and uh I was climbing uh with a Sherpa by the name of Pasang Bodhi, incredibly strong guy. When we summited together, it was his seventh time on the summit, just an absolute legend. Um and him and I talked about it and we were behind all these people and we actually made the decision, you know, we we talked He said, you know, we got to weigh the kind of pros and cons here. If we stay behind people, you're moving as slow as the slowest person in this line and it's just like you seen those photos. It's just not a great situation. It's It's cold. You can get frostbite and all that

78:07kind of stuff. And so, we actually made the choice to unclip um from the ropes, the fixed rope there on the first half of the summit day um all the way up to a section called the balcony. We actually climbed unroped, but beside the people cuz we actually made the call that we said, you know, actually climbing unroped of this section felt safer. You know, risking a slip or a bad fall with no ropes felt safer than being stuck behind some other people. And then eventually it did get too steep and too falling off. Um yeah, that's the photo that uh Nimsdai took. That's a crazy picture. But I never saw anything like that and that's I mean, that's definitely the exception, not the rule on Everest. But the fact that exists is just horrible. I mean, there's horrible. I you know, there's nothing good to say about that other than it's just uh it's tragic for sure.

78:51Um so, you know, I think that uh again, I don't know what the solution is. Um I'm proud of Jenna for setting this goal and you know, I think that people should, you know, set that goal. I think people, if they if that's what they want to do, great. If they want to climb mountains, if they want to do anything in their life, I don't want to stop people from doing that. But certainly a situation like that where people are stuck on ropes and dying in a situation where that shouldn't happen like that is uh a terrible thing. So, um this book, The Impossible First, it's out now. People can go get it, right? Yeah, it's out now. Came out a month ago. Are you going to write a book about your robot experience as well? Do you think I should? Why Why not? it. The book is also audio book, so if you don't like reading and you like listening instead, you got the audio

79:29book. I narrated it myself. Yeah, yeah. I narrated it myself. It's out it came out a month ago. Just hit the New York Times best sellers list, so yeah, yeah. Well, congratulations. Um don't die. Come back again next time you do something else crazy. Yeah, you got it, man. Good? No? Something? Jamie looked over at me like something's going on. Uh so, The Impossible First, it's out right now. Go get it, folks. Thanks, Colin. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thank you. Woo. That's crazy, man. That's real.