In this episode of the podcast, I catch up with my good friend Colin who is back from a trip to Antarctica. We talk about his solo crossing of the continent, the challenges he faced, and how he managed to get back to civilization after 54 days and 54 nights rowing across the Antarctic Ocean by himself. It's an incredible story, and I hope you enjoy it! This episode is brought to you by Anchor.fm/TheImpossibleFirst. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to bit.ly/OurAdios and use the promo code: PODCASTONE at checkout to receive 10% off your first pack! Thanks to everyone who helped make this podcast possible and all the hard work that went into making it possible. We really appreciate it and look forward to seeing you in the next episode of The Impossible First! xoxo, Colin and the team at the Impossible First. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and tell a friend about this podcast! if you're a podcaster and/or have a story you'd like to be featured on the next podcast episode, we'll be looking out for you! in next week's episode! Thank you so much for listening and supporting the podcast. Cheers, Colin and the crew at The ImpossibleFirst. - Cheers! Timestamps: 3:00:00 - What's next? 6:30 - What are you waiting for? 7: What's the next expedition? 8:15 - What do you want? 9:00 | What's your next project? 11:30 | What s your favorite thing? 12:00 13:30 15:15 | What does it taste like? 16:00 // 16:30 // 17:20 17:40 | What is your favorite drink? 18:20 | How do you think you're going to do? 19:40 21:00 / 22: Does it taste good? 22:40 // 22:00 + 23: Is it better? 25:40 / 27: What s the worst thing you like it? 26:30 + 30:00? 27:00 & 27:30 / 28:30 & 29:30? 32:00/35? 35:40 + 35?
00:00:13.000Yeah, about my 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.
00:00:22.000And you're coming back from another crazy trip, right?
00:00:31.000So, after I got back from the Impossible First, the Antarctica crossing, right about the time I saw you last year, I got a funny phone call, actually, of all things.
00:00:41.000People were asking me, you know, what's the next expedition going to be?
00:01:30.000Yeah, so Drake Passage is known to be, you know, in seafaring, one of the most treacherous, if not the most treacherous kind of passageway in the world.
00:01:38.000You know, you've got the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Southern Ocean kind of all converging between the Antarctic Peninsula and the southern tip of South America.
00:02:02.000So ultimately, it took us just less than two weeks to do the entire row, but it was a long journey in the planning from that phone call all the way through to that year, but it was a 12-day crossing.
00:02:13.000So in the two weeks, you had to have two weeks' worth of food, two weeks' worth of drinking water.
00:02:19.000Yeah, so, well, water actually, we have a desalinator, so off of solar panels, everything's, you know, solar, there's no engine, no sail, nothing like that.
00:02:28.000It's just completely human-powered rowing.
00:03:14.000As we got closer to Antarctica, I think it started messing up because it got real salty.
00:03:19.000It wasn't doing quite as good of a job.
00:03:20.000The water near Antarctica was like 1 degree Celsius, so 33 Fahrenheit, practically frozen cold water, and I think that was kind of starting to tweak out the system.
00:03:40.000Does it only do it for a certain amount of time?
00:03:42.000Does the filter get filled up or anything?
00:03:45.000It worked for the entire 12 days that we were out there.
00:03:47.000There's guys who have gone on longer rowing expeditions across the Pacific or the Atlantic or longer stretches of ocean that works the entire time.
00:04:45.000Like how you made, how those were made?
00:04:47.000Yeah, so when I was doing my Antarctica crossing, one of the kind of challenges is basically, can you take enough food with you?
00:04:52.000Because what I was doing was called unsupported.
00:04:54.000So no resupplies of food or fuel, you know, crossing the landmass of Antarctica 54 days.
00:04:59.000And so I wanted to get like the most optimized nutrition.
00:05:02.000And so I work with this company called Standard Process, who's all like a whole food supplement company.
00:05:06.000And they've got all these sort of doctors, food scientists and this.
00:05:09.000And I went in their lab for a year and they did all this kind of custom blood work on my body.
00:05:13.000I'm trying to figure out, you know, basically my exact sort of physiology.
00:05:17.000And they created these bars based on all of the research that they did that basically were these really high-calorie bars because it was the most high calories that I needed to optimize space.
00:05:26.000And they were kind of – they were all – they're all plant-based and ended up – and I know there's – And what's in them again?
00:05:32.000Coconut oil, nuts, seeds, different phytonutrients in a particular macronutrient blend that I needed.
00:05:39.000It was about 45% fat because I needed the high fat, about 40% protein, and then 15% carbs.
00:05:49.000Excuse me, sorry, I re-alternated the protein-carb quotient there.
00:05:53.000But yeah, it worked really well for that.
00:05:55.000And so when I was doing the row, I called up Standard Process again.
00:05:57.000They've been an amazing partner of mine.
00:05:59.000They were like, hey, I'm doing this row.
00:06:30.000We've talked about doing that, so maybe in the future, but you can see online on their website all the different supplements and stuff that went into it, so you can kind of buy the component parts.
00:06:38.000But yeah, one day we might make them, but they've been kind of just custom for these two projects.
00:06:41.000But they've worked really, really well, particularly in the rowing.
00:06:44.000I 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.
00:06:52.000So we're kind of in two sets of three, six of us total.
00:06:55.000Three people rowing, three people resting.
00:06:57.000And in that 90 minutes that you're off, that's also when you've got to eat, drink, sleep.
00:07:01.000It's your only time to rest, basically.
00:07:03.000And so, as much time as you can kind of optimize eating and stuff meant more sleeping.
00:07:07.000And so, to have these bars, get done with a 90-minute rowing shift, be able to eat a 1,000-calorie bar, highest quality nutrition in your body.
00:07:15.000I mean, Standard Process nailed it again.
00:07:17.000It was amazing to 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 because the sleep got...
00:08:37.000So yeah, so you can see in there, like the back little compartment, that's where I was.
00:08:41.000I was alternating with this guy, Fionn, who I mentioned, the Icelandic guy, who was the captain of the boat, really experienced ocean rower.
00:08:48.000And we alternated inside this little cabin, and then the other four guys, they alternated two people, because that one's a little bit bigger in the front, though it's the bow cabin in the front.
00:08:56.000But you're like head to toe in there, or you're crouched into a little ball.
00:09:06.000Yeah, it was a deep dive into the team.
00:09:08.000And 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 of exploration in the ocean, something I'd never done before.
00:09:18.000And I had actually, not only did I not know these guys, a couple of them I went to college with, but we like really loosely knew each other.
00:09:23.000Like I kind of like maybe like, oh, recognize their face a little bit, but it didn't.
00:09:26.000We weren't like good friends or anything like that.
00:09:27.000Three of them I'd never met in my entire life.
00:09:30.000And I also have never rode a boat in my life ever before.
00:09:35.000And so when Fionn, he called me up and told me about the project, he's one of the world's most renowned ocean rowers.
00:09:42.000He's got 30 world records or something like that.
00:09:46.000He's rode boats across every single ocean.
00:09:47.000This was kind of the last big ocean that he'd never crossed.
00:09:51.000No one had ever done it just like this before.
00:09:54.000And so he kind of said, hey, I wanted this idea, but the logistics are super complicated.
00:09:59.000Like going to Antarctica, there's 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.
00:10:37.000My team kind of wrapped our arms around the sort of like logistic and building out the project and he was definitely the visionary of something he dreamed up and it was super cool to team up with him after doing something alone.
00:10:48.000Now, this thing that you did when you walked across Antarctica, very impressive.
00:11:13.000So, something I've been talking about super openly, including in my book, which is the Nat Geo article.
00:11:19.000You know, it's a little bit unfortunate.
00:11:20.000I actually just published a 16-page letter asking Nat Geo to retract the entire article.
00:11:27.000And the reason it's 16 pages is, unfortunately, the entire article they wrote is just so riddled with Yeah.
00:11:56.000From the edge of the coastline, across the ice shelf, all the way across the landmass, across the other ice shelf, roughly 1,800 miles.
00:12:04.000And what he used to propel himself was he used a kite for a good portion of the time.
00:12:08.000And it's an absolute extraordinary project.
00:12:11.000And what's really weird about sort of this National Geographic article, a number of sentences is one of the premises of it was saying, you know, Colin never talked about Borg Ausland.
00:12:18.000Like, he never talked about him in his book.
00:12:23.000What's really bizarre and why we're asking for a retraction because it's just really ineffectual is that, you know, here I am on page 49 of my book.
00:14:21.000So that's another one of the things that the National Geographic article unfortunately got wrong.
00:14:26.000And in my 16-page letter that anyone can read, it's on my website, colinabrady.com slash blog, letter to Nat Geo, or it's linked to my Instagram.
00:14:34.000It's not like a he said, he said thing where I'm like, oh hey, this got wrong.
00:14:37.000It's just actually a really kind of documented and sourced document that has links to everything.
00:14:42.000And one of the links it shows is actually his entire kind of project afterwards in the aftermath of him talking about it, including talking about...
00:15:16.000So he traveled further, but he used some assistance.
00:15:20.000Yeah, so there's basically these different distinctions in the world of polar travel, and that's another one of the things, again, I'm not sure how they got this wrong.
00:15:28.000In 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.
00:15:35.000I sent him the link, and there's these links, it's kind of a published thing on this website called Antarctica Logistics and Expeditions, the main sort of expedition facilitator, the person who runs logistics down there.
00:15:46.000It's very clear, unsupported means no use of resupplies, unassisted means no use of kites or dogs.
00:15:52.000And so the thing that I did solo, that people I guess have gotten somewhat confused about at first, was I was the first person to cross the landmass of Antarctica, Solo, unsupported, no resupplies, and unassisted, no kites.
00:16:07.000What Borga Auslan did is he was the first person to cross Antarctica, not just the landmass, but also the ice shelves.
00:16:15.000So there's frozen ocean on these ice shelves.
00:16:17.000So from the coast, across the ice shelf, across the landmass, and across the other ice shelf.
00:16:22.000And no one yet, including myself, has ever done a solo, unsupported, unassisted crossing of both the landmass and the ice shelves.
00:16:34.000I had a 375-pound sled, and I almost ran out of food at the end, crossing the landmass.
00:16:40.000And if you'd need maybe a 600-pound sled or something like that, or maybe a more optimized food solution that no one's thought of yet, but it hasn't been done yet.
00:17:14.000And so he, like I said, on 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 miles in a 15-hour period of time.
00:17:23.000That's unfathomable just walking, pulling a sled.
00:17:27.000It's like the difference between sailing across an ocean and rowing a boat across the ocean.
00:17:31.000Why do you think National Geographic got that wrong then?
00:17:34.000Because the way they wrote it, it was, you know, it's...
00:17:37.000They made it look like you're just a fame whore and that, you know, there was a bunch of other explorers and outdoors people that were in support of the fact that Auslan was the only one, the first one to do it.
00:17:48.000They didn't make this distinction and they actually made it seem like as if the sled was an ingenious solution.
00:17:55.000But 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.
00:18:03.000This was the method that they used to help him get across the snow.
00:18:59.000I mean, so yeah, it definitely tested me to the edges of my potential.
00:19:03.000There was many times that it felt impossible.
00:19:05.000I think we talked about it last time, but the second chapter of my book is called Frozen Tears because on the first hour of trying to pull my sled, 375 pounds, fully loaded of food and fuel...
00:19:20.000I mean, it was really, really brutal and really challenging.
00:19:23.000And one of the things, for sure, in the National Geographic article, they're not disputing that I did this.
00:19:28.000It's not like they're saying, you didn't walk 932 miles by yourself across Antarctica.
00:19:32.000They kind of grudgingly gave you credit for doing something really freaky.
00:19:36.000They also didn't mention the difference between the time it took you to travel that and the time it took Auslan to travel a far greater distance or that he used that kite to go more than 100 miles in a day.
00:19:47.000Those are pretty big, important things.
00:21:20.000He manhauled 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.
00:21:26.000The fact that he was able to go more than 100 miles in a day makes me go, wait a minute, what?
00:21:35.000National Geographic did not recognize that, that that's a different thing, that he can go on the snow, pulling 300 pounds, more than 100 miles, how many?
00:21:57.000Because they were trying to make it out like some elegant solution that he occasionally used, not a big deal, but what he really did was amazing.
00:22:07.000But that, what we just saw in that image of him getting pulled by that giant-ass fucking kite on skis, strapped to this harness with all the weight behind him also being pulled by that giant-ass kite, that's a different thing.
00:22:49.000Hundreds of pounds, or 15 minutes, I say 15 minutes, 15 hours, 124 miles while dragging hundreds of pounds of gear all in 15 hours is insane.
00:24:06.000And I mean, the biggest thing for me is, unfortunately, it was portrayed in a certain way.
00:24:10.000I don't know if it wasn't fact-checked or what that, but for me, the whole purpose of any of this, the whole purpose of writing the book and sharing it with the world and talking to people via your podcast or whatever, my whole goal is to inspire other people to step outside of their comfort zones, do things in their life, challenge themselves.
00:24:34.000I started writing a book at one point in time, but I had a deal with a book publisher, and the notes were so brutal, I gave them the money back.
00:25:34.000You know, I really poured my heart and soul into it, but it was challenging.
00:25:37.000I've been journaling since I was a little kid, like since I was 12 years old.
00:25:39.000So, going back through all my journals and thinking about, you know, there's the Antarctica piece of this, but the subtitle is From Fire to Ice.
00:25:46.000So, 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.
00:25:51.000But one of the things that happened when I was in Antarctica, which...
00:25:55.000It 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.
00:26:07.000So I deleted almost all my music, I'm in silence, I'm in full solitude.
00:26:10.000Like if I said to you, hey Joe, remember the day you graduated from high school?
00:26:14.000And like, something's going to pop in your mind right now.
00:26:15.000We're going to keep talking and you're going to move on from that.
00:26:18.000But when I was walking out there by myself, someone would pop in my head like, hey Colin, remember your first swim race when you were a little kid?
00:26:22.000And all of a sudden, like, I'd be back there.
00:26:25.000Like, I could like dive in and I could see my mom on the edge of the pool deck and the, you know, the winds blowing across my face and I can see the kid next to me and I can taste the chlorine in my mouth.
00:26:33.000I mean, visceral memories, like a lucid dream were coming back to me.
00:26:37.000Throughout for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time.
00:26:41.000So 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 visceral memories and flashbacks of other expeditions and childhood and the ups and downs in my personal life and kind of all of these things kind of conspiring into one.
00:26:59.000But it was wild to go deep into the brain like that.
00:27:03.000We 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.
00:28:18.000If they could find that you did something, that you did something incorrect, or you lied about something, or exaggerated about something, I mean, they made you out to be a liar.
00:28:55.000The map of my route is in the first page of my book, let alone online 24-7.
00:29:00.000There's been hundreds of articles written about this by outlets who have fact-checked and researched or whatever.
00:29:04.000So for Nat Geo to make all those claims, it's like saying, like, Colin somehow...
00:29:08.000He tricked every person ever from every news outlet that's covered this and fact-checked it and reported on it and his editors of the book and some hacked his jeep.
00:29:17.000I mean, it's like a crazy conspiracy weird kind of stance on it.
00:29:46.000But, I mean, he did even weirder things.
00:29:47.000Like, in the first paragraph or second paragraph of the entire article, he takes a quote from page 50 of my book and a quote from page 214 of my book.
00:29:57.000And parses them together as if they're a single statement.
00:30:00.000And I'm like, they're about two completely different things that I'm talking about.
00:30:08.000Or he says, like, Colin made up this thing about no rescue zones.
00:30:12.000No one's ever written about the fact of in Antarctica, and he talks about me getting picked up in Antarctica like I can call an Uber.
00:30:18.000He 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- He really said that?
00:30:25.000He literally says that in the article, which is just crazy.
00:30:38.000It's not, you know, I just try to not be too defensive or anything about it, but it's just...
00:30:42.000Well, the good news is this will reach way more people than that article.
00:30:46.000Yeah, but I'll say one last thing about it.
00:30:48.000The irony of this is if you Google Borca Auslan...
00:30:52.000In 2019, right after I finished my crossing, he's interviewed about all this.
00:30:56.000And in a quote, and I link to this in my letter, him saying, there are parts of Antarctica, particularly in the large Sestrugi zone, which is exactly what I was talking about, where rescue is impossible.
00:31:06.000The guy who's 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.
00:31:14.000There's so much money in shitting on someone.
00:32:06.000Yeah, so there's basically this 300-mile stretch.
00:32:09.000It's the last third of my part of my journey, which, by the way, was on my GPS, which, by the way, I talk about in my book, which, by the way, I widely acknowledge.
00:32:17.000And it's called the South Pole Overland Traverse.
00:32:20.000The South Pole Station, the U.S. research station that's at the South Pole was 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.
00:32:36.000This is them driving over ice and snow and filling in crevasses along the way, etc.
00:32:40.000And there's some tire tracks and some flagging that are out there.
00:32:43.000So, first of all, I've already traveled almost 600 miles without any of that.
00:32:48.000And 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.
00:32:58.000And they're trying to make this claim that the Road somehow, quote unquote, big air quotes, road.
00:33:03.000Basically, some rutted up tracks in the snow.
00:34:07.000So they're now, because of some of this, the polar community have gotten together after my project.
00:34:13.000So my project squarely falls in the definitions as they were, followed all of the rules and all of this.
00:34:18.000Now, now they're sitting together and they're saying, you know, maybe we should rewrite some of these rules or make certain definitions different.
00:34:25.000Which, by the way, if they want to change rules, that's totally fine.
00:34:28.000The problem is, it would be like this.
00:34:30.000This is like, well, them calling me sort of like a liar or something would be equivalent of this.
00:34:34.000With Major League Baseball got together and said, you know what?
00:34:37.000All games in baseball are going to be 10 innings now instead of 9 innings.
00:34:41.000And all of those guys over the last hundred years that played 200,000 games or whatever, who played nine innings, they cheated, they lied, they didn't play the full game.
00:34:50.000If they want to change whatever distinctions or classifications or stuff forward-looking, great.
00:34:56.000And what would the distinctions be that they would change?
00:35:00.000So I think they're trying to make it finer grained, which is like there would be like a kite distinction.
00:35:04.000There would be a no supported distinction.
00:35:07.000There would be a distinction for using, you know, partial of a, if there was a flagging or this like, you know, road, which by the way, is not a road to be clear.
00:35:20.000But at no point in time, was it like flat ground?
00:35:24.000No, it's ice and snow where a tractor, you might see like some wheels.
00:35:28.000And in fact, Lou Rudd, who's 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.
00:35:34.000And, you know, of course, he did the exact same thing as me, by the way.
00:35:37.000The exact same thing, same distinction.
00:35:39.000And, you know, I finished a couple days ahead of him, but what he did was...
00:35:42.000Absolutely incredible is this race, and we talk a lot about it in the book, and a ton of respect for that guy as well.
00:38:47.000Like I said, I published this 16-page document that's on my website.
00:38:53.000I sent it to the editor of National Geographic.
00:38:56.000They 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 the right thing.
00:41:50.000Because the weather, I mean, Drake Passage is, we'll get to that, but it is gnarly, bro.
00:41:54.000Like, it is like, I mean, people, you know, as you say, going around the Horn, people say that in sailing.
00:41:58.000Like, Cape Horn is known to just be, like, just treacherous, brutal water as the two of these oceans kind of collide and these huge standing waves come up.
00:42:06.000So a whole season, they sat down there with the rowboat and didn't even launch it.
00:42:08.000Then the next year came back, him and four guys.
00:42:11.000How small is the window where you can make it across?
00:42:15.000So, basically, the best time of year to do it would be December, January, because that's the Southern Hemisphere summer.
00:42:21.000And so the temperature is a little bit warmer, you've got longer days.
00:42:23.000We purposefully did it over the summer solstice, so December 21st, you know, that'd be June 21st for us in the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year.
00:42:32.000We still had night, you know, 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 direction, I mean, it is...
00:42:59.000I mean, I don't know the numbers, but 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 road.
00:44:19.000Even in this, if we had the volume up, it's me basically talking about how we're getting pushed back in the wrong direction, but we don't have the strength to row against it anymore.
00:45:38.000Yeah, and then the fish can snack on that.
00:45:42.000But you obviously get, not only were we spooning under sea anchors, smashing these little things, and oftentimes those other guys in the other compartment were either three Three of them were inside the compartment at a time and one would be sitting out and taking shifts or they sometimes smashed four in there.
00:45:56.000But I mean, they're like literally on top of each other.
00:46:36.000So, one of the things, like, you know, people have asked me, was, you know, solo Antarctica crossing harder in the row, whatever, and it's like, they're very different.
00:46:43.000But one of the things that was so rude about this, Antarctica and the crossing was a lot colder than the Drake Passage row.
00:46:49.000It was about average temperature when we were out there was probably like...
00:46:52.000In the low 30s, you know, dipped below a few times.
00:46:54.000But the ocean temperature, like I said, it's 32, you know, 33, you know, just above freezing.
00:47:00.000There's icebergs in the water when we're getting close to it.
00:47:01.000And you're just getting splashed the entire time.
00:47:04.000So from like minute one, hour one, leaving Cape Horn, we are soaking wet.
00:47:09.000And what kind of equipment are you wearing?
00:47:12.000What kind of gear are you wearing that keeps you from...
00:47:15.000So we started out in just this Gore-Tex, this thick saline Gore-Tex basically, and that worked pretty well for the first few days.
00:47:23.000But one of the other cool innovations that Fionn 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 dry suit.
00:47:33.000But you start looking at dry suits and you're like, you could never row.
00:47:36.000You couldn't be functional wearing this crazy dry suit, right?
00:47:40.000And so, he basically says, 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, 6 different measurements and all this, and basically created these custom dry suits that were a lot thinner than a typical dry suit,
00:47:55.000but 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 that of rowing.
00:48:07.000And we got just, I mean, thank God we had those because we were getting soaked.
00:48:12.000I mean, we were getting so, so, so soaked out there.
00:48:14.000And in the 90 minutes, you would think like, oh, in the 90 minutes, quote unquote, rest phase, you would get in there, you know, maybe change clothes or something like that.
00:48:32.000It'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 one minute, let alone try to sleep.
00:48:43.000It's the smells from us living in and out of there.
00:48:45.000I mean, it was grimy and wet and cold.
00:48:48.000But these suits suited us pretty well.
00:48:50.000The one thing that was great, obviously, we were clipped in for safety.
00:48:54.000So we were clipped into basically these ropes that you saw on the edge there.
00:48:57.000So if we were going to get knocked off...
00:48:58.000The boat hopefully we would be able to clip in, or the boat itself actually fully self-right, so if it rolls over, it hypothetically rolls back over the top.
00:49:06.000We had some close coals, but we never fully rolled it, thank God, but we did test that.
00:49:11.000But one of the things about the suits is the suits basically have like neoprene booties.
00:49:15.000It's all like one piece, like you would have in a dry suit, which was awesome for keeping us safe and dry, but I didn't take the suit off for the last six or seven days at all.
00:49:26.000And so when I finally took the suit off, my feet, like you think about your fingers getting like pruney maybe like, you know, in a swimming pool for a couple hours or hot tub or something like that.
00:49:35.000Like imagine seven days of wet and cold and sweat and like all the things.
00:49:41.000Like when I took the suit off, like I almost threw up on the ground.
00:49:44.000Because it was just gnarly, festering skin, and skin was ripping off of my feet.
00:49:56.000It'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, the stability back in the body, mind, all of that.
00:50:41.000Like I said, I'd never rowed a boat before and to kind of take this project on and say, I've done expeditions before.
00:50:48.000I've pushed my body in deep and interesting ways.
00:50:51.000But one of my biggest curiosities is certainly about the mind, but particularly growth mindset.
00:50:56.000Can I say, 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 accomplished watermen, and learn the skills required to make this crossing.
00:51:08.000And it was cool to kind of prove that out this year because I think that that really applies across so many things.
00:51:13.000And I'm just a generally curious person.
00:51:16.000And I think I'll keep pushing myself and pushing my body because that's one of the things I love to do.
00:51:21.000But I think that curiosity throughout my life is going to be, you know, a lifelong path of diving into sort of different things and taking them on.
00:51:28.000I think that to me, one of my biggest sadnesses and 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, I'm a lawyer, or I'm good at math, or I'm terrible at art, or I could never do comedy because I'm not the funny one.
00:52:54.000And he's like, solve these Lego problems.
00:52:56.000And until you don't solve this Lego and build this little, like, you know, aircraft Lego man or whatever, you know, you can't get your feet out of the ice bucket.
00:53:39.000And 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 ability to train me.
00:53:53.000He started putting a rowing machine on BOSU balls, like half BOSU balls, basically.
00:53:59.000And I'd start rowing, you know, doing normal rowing motion, but he'd start shaking it around because basically the ocean is going to be moving me around so much.
00:54:05.000So just the rowing motion isn't going to prepare me for the lateral movements, you know?
00:54:09.000The lats, the obliques, you know, all the kind of side-to-side stability stuff.
00:54:13.000Then he took it one step further, which is he actually shows up at my house, knocks on my door at 2 o'clock in the morning.
00:54:19.000I think he had prearranged it with my wife.
00:54:21.000Knocks on the door and he's like, get up.
00:54:32.000Now he's got me on the BOSU balls and he had brought these buckets of It says training for the drake the impossible row episode three you could find it online jamie it's on the discovery channel youtube page What did you
00:55:20.000So Mike would have me do certain things like we'd have, you know, like a seated row or something like that.
00:55:24.000Or monathons, I thought that was the most interesting because it was going to be destable.
00:55:27.000So the waves are usually coming from, they change directions, but at any given time they're coming generally from one direction.
00:55:32.000So you're either leaning in really hard to your left side or you're leaning in really hard to your right side.
00:55:36.000That's a difference to the ocean rowing than just like a pure river rowing.
00:55:39.000And, you know, he would have me basically like holding, imagine like a deadlift bar, 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 either 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
00:56:10.000and so A friend of mine, a guy named Chris Woida from Portland, 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 skull.
00:56:24.000So very different than an ocean rowboat.
00:56:25.000You know, an ocean rowboat's a lot bigger, different, different waves.
00:56:28.000But he taught me on the river the actual purity of the rowing motion.
00:56:31.000So 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.
00:56:38.000But certainly the stuff that we did on the river in the Willamette with Chris was huge for me to actually understand the motion.
00:56:47.000I just like you when you're like, how hard can it be?
00:56:49.000Just kind of push your arms, you know, back and forth.
00:57:05.000You know, you've got to take some blades out of the water and, you know, turning them so they can just glide across the top and get back in and glide and all that kind of stuff.
00:57:15.000I didn't take my first stroke in a rowboat until July in the river and then August in the ocean rowboat when we came together as a team for the first time to train in Scotland.
00:57:24.000And then I was rowing across the Drake in December.
00:57:26.000So it was a pretty short period of time to kind of learn about rowing and get stronger.
00:57:31.000But it was a fun process to dive into something completely new.
00:57:34.000So all from August, September, October, November into December, did you train and row all the time?
00:57:40.000You know, quite a lot, but there was other things going on.
00:58:13.000Yeah, so like I said, Fion has 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, this is what he felt has worked the best for people to do a long stretch, get enough rest, but obviously maybe the first day or two,
01:02:13.000And, 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.
01:02:21.000Like, what are our real fears going into this?
01:02:49.000And 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.
01:02:56.000And I'm so, so, so grateful that Andrew facilitated that conversation because that was a really turning point in the group dynamics.
01:03:01.000And so the Discovery Channel was their idea for this thing?
01:03:05.000Yeah, so the whole discovery thing is a really cool part of this.
01:03:09.000So basically what happens, Fion had the idea for it, this legendary ocean rower, but the component parts of pulling it all together are really complicated.
01:03:59.000Is to have one of the IEDO certified boats there and a part of this.
01:04:04.000And so what we realized is we needed what was called a supervising vessel.
01:04:08.000Not a vessel that would give us support 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 us being fully permitted throughout that.
01:04:19.000And so we're like, okay, that's interesting.
01:04:21.000There's going to be this other boat out there.
01:04:45.000And I've wanted to film some of my projects and share them really widely before, but when you're walking across Antarctica, dragging a 375-pound sled, and the whole purpose of the goal was to be solo, it's not like you can have a cameraman just hanging out there shooting you.
01:04:57.000I mean, although there's just a road, so there's just people hanging out there.
01:05:01.000L-O-L. L-O-L. But basically, that's when we said, hey, let's see if someone will be interested in coming on as a media partner of this and really filming this and sharing this in a big way.
01:05:15.000And so we got to talking with Discovery.
01:05:20.000It was kind of a combined vision of theirs and ours.
01:05:22.000Through all my other projects, I mentioned the GPS through my last, you know, Antarctica Crossing and my other previous world records before.
01:05:28.000I always carry this GPS and share it in real time.
01:05:31.000During the row there were 600,000 school kids and school curriculums we built around like ocean and environmental learning and stuff like that all incorporated into the kind of daily following along with the science and curriculum.
01:05:42.000So I always wanted to share the projects in real time.
01:05:44.000And so we talked to Discover and they're like, this is super cool.
01:05:47.000Let's do three different things at once here.
01:05:49.000So we invest in all this satellite technology with Iridium, the Iridium satellites.
01:05:53.000And they were able to basically allow us to do social media during the time.
01:05:57.000So if you're sitting at home on Christmas Day as we're arriving in Antarctica, like you watching me bouncing around on this rowboat, you can follow the whole thing.
01:07:28.000There's been some really cool footage of ocean rowing expeditions in the past, but to have a boat out there and to be able to shoot it from the perspective of not on the rowboat.
01:07:36.000You've seen boats in really big swells, but because of the perspective on the rowboat, it's kind of moving with it.
01:07:40.000You can't kind of dwell how big it is.
01:07:42.000But I think there's a video, actually the last video maybe I posted on my Instagram, where you can see my boat just completely disappearing and going up and down and completely disappearing in the waves.
01:07:50.000And they're able to shoot back and get drone footage and all this sort of stuff.
01:07:54.000So the feature-length documentary should come out in a couple months.
01:08:23.000Because these are experiences where you told someone, hey, you're going to sleep 90 minutes 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.
01:09:11.000I've been asked a similar question, I guess, before.
01:09:14.000My answer, or the way that I think about it, is I've started to think about life and the totality of life experience between, say, a numerical 1 in 10. 1 being...
01:09:27.000The worst day of your life and 10 being the best day of your life.
01:09:31.000And, you know, one might be, you know, a day that 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 shit in a bucket and being exhausted and tired, you know, like just like rough moments in your life, right?
01:09:45.000And 10 is this hedonistic joy, the most pleasure-filled day ever, just happy, joyful, maybe you've succeeded in something you've accomplished, like all this kind of stuff.
01:09:53.000And as I've kind of looked around at the world, people say, what are you afraid of?
01:09:58.000You must not be afraid of being alone or you must not be afraid of, you know, these hard challenges and stuff like that.
01:10:03.000But what I'm really afraid of is actually living a life range bound between four and six.
01:10:09.000I think too often people, you know, the typical life experience, unfortunately, because we have some creature comforts, particularly in the Western world, where, you know, you can live a life just stuck between four and six.
01:10:20.000So maybe the happiest day of your year or your week, it's like the Super Bowl and your team wins the Super Bowl and you crush a couple beers with your buddy and you high five and you're like, oh, that was awesome.
01:10:56.000But what I've realized, I think of it like kind of a pendulum, like swinging the totality of life experience.
01:11:00.000Like, to get to the tens, you also need to embrace the ones.
01:11:05.000Like, 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.
01:11:19.000By 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.
01:11:29.000I can barely pick my duffel bag up to put it in my sled.
01:12:04.000You know, you don't have to be in these moments so wanting to be like, oh my god, this is horrible, I'm in this, and why did I get my stuff out there, this is terrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, and go down this path.
01:12:11.000You're like, I'm doing this because when I step outside of my comfort zone, I grow.
01:12:15.000And 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.
01:12:23.000Yeah, you mentioned one of my favorite quotes ever, the Thoreau quote, most men live lives of quiet desperation.
01:14:05.000I did a big mountaineering project before any of this.
01:14:08.000For these last two projects, I did something called the Explorers Grand Slam.
01:14:12.000So 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.
01:14:18.000So I was 139 days back in 2016. So Everest, Danali, Kilimanjaro, etc., back to back.
01:14:23.000The next actual physical project that I have, it's not some world record-breaking thing or anything, but my wife, so one of the things that we do, we have this non-profit, 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 Inspiring young people to think about,
01:14:40.000you know, doing hard things and testing themselves.
01:14:43.000It doesn't have to be in the outdoors at all.
01:14:45.000It could be anything, music, art, culture, whatever it is, but to aim high in their life.
01:14:48.000And one question we started asking young people was this question, which is, what's your Everest?
01:14:53.000You know, it's a really obvious metaphor for kids.
01:14:55.000It's like, you know, what's your big goal?
01:14:59.000In a gymnasium, I get, you know, kids raising their hand going, you know, my Everest would be the first person in my family to graduate from college or, you know, whatever amazing things kids, you know, dream of.
01:15:06.000And help facilitate them towards those goals.
01:15:09.000But about a year ago now, my wife, who's not, you know, didn't grow up, you know, climbing mountains, didn't grow up as an avid athlete or anything.
01:15:18.000She's been wildly supportive of the work we've done.
01:15:20.000A lot of the book is really about our love story and building these projects together.
01:15:23.000But she looks at me and she goes, Colin, my Mount Everest is now to climb Mount Everest.
01:16:21.000I think for her, this, I don't want to say it's one and done, but I'm sure that, you know, I don't think she has the huge desire to keep doing these types of things.
01:16:29.000I think the next journey for both of us probably after that is a parenthood, having kids.
01:16:57.000So on the north side, there's less crowds, what we'd be climbing from.
01:17:01.000But also that day, I mean, look, I don't have the answer to the problem.
01:17:06.000That certainly was a problematic thing that happened up there.
01:17:08.000It'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 all of a sudden there's one good day and everyone goes at the same time.
01:17:18.000Again, 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.
01:18:06.000You can get frostbite and all that kind of stuff.
01:18:08.000And so we actually made the choice to unclip people From the ropes, the fixed rope there on the first half of the summit day, all the way up to a section called the balcony, we actually climbed unroped, but beside the people, because we actually made the call that we said, you know, actually climbing unroped of this section felt safer,
01:18:25.000you know, risking a slip or a bad fall with no ropes felt safer than being stuck behind some other people.
01:18:31.000And then eventually it did get too stape and too falling off.
01:18:34.000Yeah, that's the photo that Nims Dye took.
01:19:01.000If that's what they want to do, great.
01:19:02.000If they want to climb mountains, if they want to do anything, they don't want to stop people from doing that.
01:19:06.000But certainly a situation like that where people are stuck on ropes and dying in a situation where that shouldn't happen like that is a terrible thing.
01:19:13.000So this book, The Impossible First, it's out now.