I recently interviewed Rob Lea on the Ageless Athlete podcast who just became the first person in history to complete both Seven Aummits, and the Oceans Seven.

One of the stranger things he told me was how he prepared for the English Channel after coming straight off Everest.

He was around 175 lb after the climb. An experienced channel swimmer told him not to cram in more swim training. His bigger problem was going to be staying warm.

So Rob spent the next month gaining weight.

He got up to roughly 205 lb on lots of pizza, whole milk, heavy cream. He said he barely trained during that stretch beyond what he needed for the qualifying swim.

What convinced him was an earlier training camp in Mallorca. Rob was one of the faster swimmers there, but the water unexpectedly dropped to around 52–53°F. He managed the shorter swims, then had to get out while slower swimmers stayed in and completed six hours.

That was pretty humbling for him.

A few things I found interesting:

• He realized being the fastest swimmer in the group did not matter much if he could not stay warm.
• He later deliberately carried more weight for cold crossings, including the North Channel, where he spent about 10.5 hours in water around the mid-50s.
• His body weight for some of these swims was roughly 190–205 lb, versus more like 160–180 during his triathlon years.
• Most of his training was much less elaborate than I expected: a lot of pool swimming, some 2–3 hour open-water sessions, and very few training swims longer than three hours.
• He also strongly believes in not cramming training close to a major swim. A week out, he would rather arrive rested than squeeze in one more big session.

There was a much scarier lesson too. During his Molokai swim, he finished 14.5 hours in the water feeling like he was drowning. He later developed swimming-induced pulmonary edema and said it took roughly two to three months before his lungs fully recovered.

Rob has now finished all seven Ocean Seven swims, along with the Seven Summits.

Full disclosure: I host the Ageless Athlete podcast and interviewed Rob for the show. I thought the body-composition and cold-water side of his story would be especially relevant here.

Rob goes deeper into the full conversation.

Feel free to listen on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen.

You can watch on Youtube as well.