Starting in June, athletic adventurer, world record holder and ‘tree-athlete’, Ross Edgley, will attempt a year-long series of extreme, long-distance, open water swimming events with a 100-pound tree attached to his swim trunks.
As part of the new sport, Strongman Swimming, Edgley will attempt to swim the lengths of Lake Windermere in Cumbria’s Lake District National Park (10km), a supervised island crossing with the Royal Marines (16km), Loch Lomond in Scotland (20km) and the island of Martinique to St. Lucia in the Caribbean (40km) where it will finish at The BodyHoliday fitness retreat in St. Lucia – the birthplace of the new sport.
All funds raised will go towards Edgley’s chosen charities including the British Heart Foundation, the Teenage Cancer Trust, the Chester Zoo Conservation Project and the Royal Marines Charity.
“The concept of ‘Strongman Swimming’ was first developed in the Caribbean so it seemed fitting to have the final and hardest swim of the series, there,” Edgley said. “Training for something like this is nothing I’ve ever prepared for before, but that’s what is so exciting. It’s also what seems to have captured the imagination of athletes from every sport.”
Dubbed, “one of the world’s most travelled fitness experts” by GQ Magazine, Edgley has continued to push boundaries for over 10 years. He famously ran a marathon pulling a 1.4-tonne car, climbed a rope the height of Mount Everest (8,848 meters), ran 1,000 miles barefoot and completed the world’s first ‘Tree-athlon’, an Olympic distance triathlon carrying his 100-pound tree.
Originally from Grantham, the former Great Britain water polo player decided to pursue a career in performance nutrition and strength coaching. In 2012, he became the co-founder of The Protein Works, one of the United Kingdom’s most innovative sports nutrition companies.
World Long Distance Swimming Champion and 3-time Olympian, Keri-Anne Payne and the Royal Marines. He is also currently
swimming 100km a week and consuming over 8,000 calories a day on a specially made diet to fuel his grueling regime.
“The support on social media has been just incredible, completely unexpected and massively appreciated,” Edgley said. Not just for me, but also for my chosen charities.”
Swimming news courtesy of Red Monkey Collective.