HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
FIRST EDITION
Text © Ross Edgley 2020
Illustrations by Liane Payne © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020
Jacket design by Sim Greenaway © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020
Front cover photograph © Andrew Brown
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Ross Edgeley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green
Source ISBN: 9780008356989
Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008356965
Version 2021-03-22
NOTE TO READERS
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008356989
Thank you to my dad, the most stoically strong man I know.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
FOREWORD by Ant Middleton
PROLOGUE
PART 1 | LIFE ON LAND (BEFORE THE SWIM)
CHAPTER 1 | WHY DID I DO IT?
CHAPTER 2 | WHY THE BODY DOES NOT BREAK?
CHAPTER 3 | WHY THE MIND DOES NOT QUIT?
PART 2 | LIFE AT SEA (DURING THE SWIM)
LESSON 1 | STOIC SPORTS SCIENCE IS PHILOSOPHY FORGED IN BATTLE
LESSON 2 | LEARN THE POWER OF SPIRITUAL SPORTS SCIENCE
LESSON 3 | THE BODY BRUISES AND BLEEDS BUT CANNOT BE BEATEN
LESSON 4 | TO WALK YOUR OWN PATH, WRITE YOUR OWN PLAN
LESSON 5 | MAKE THE BODY AN INSTRUMENT, NOT AN ORNAMENT
LESSON 6 | BUILD RESILIENCE BY ‘GETTING WINTERED’
LESSON 7 | FAST CAN BE FRAGILE AND SLOW CAN BE STRONG
LESSON 8 | STRENGTH IMPROVES STAMINA AND STAMINA IMPROVES STRENGTH
THE GREAT BRITISH SWIM TRAINING PLAN
LESSON 9 | LEARN HOW TO CRUISE OR KILL
LESSON 10 | LEARN TO LIMIT LIMITATIONS
LESSON 11 | THE TWO WAYS TO PROCESS PAIN
LESSON 12 | COMBAT FEAR WITH ‘FERAL FEAR THEORY’
LESSON 13 | LEARN THE POWER OF A HIGHER PURPOSE
LESSON 14 | ACCEPT THE UNCONTROLLABLES
LESSON 15 | CONTROL THE CONTROLLABLES
LESSON 16 | RESILIENCE CANNOT BE RUSHED, BUT QUITTING CAN
LESSON 17 | YOU’RE STRONGER WHEN SMILING
LESSON 18 | YOU CAN SLEEP YOURSELF STRONGER
LESSON 19 | HEROICS IN HUNGER
LESSON 20 | RESILIENCE IS BEST SERVED WITH FOOD
THE GREAT BRITISH SWIM DIET
LESSON 21 | STOMACH OF STEEL
LESSON 22 | RESILIENCE IS SUFFERING STRATEGICALLY MANAGED
EPILOGUE
Endnotes
List of Searchable Terms
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
You only have to look at the numbers: 1,780 miles, 157 days at sea, half a million calories burned, over two million swim strokes completed. Staggering. And do you know what’s even more mind-blowing? Zero sick days.
Here was I thinking it would be hard enough to sail around Great Britain: who whould be crazy enough to swim all the way around it?
That’s why I wanted to be one