The Art of Resilience

I'm a bit torn here. I wanted to love this book, and it is a compelling read for the most part.

The positives first: Ross Edgley is insanely fit, and a passionate advocate for fitness, and wellness more generally. On pretty much every page you feel that he genuinely wants to help others find and pursue their own athletic adventures. That comes across as an infectious enthusiasm throughout the book, paired with lots of research in sports science. If you follow Ross on social media you know he has a loyal following, and when you read this book you get a sense for why: he seems like a really great guy who cares deeply about friends and family, and who sincerely wants to help others achieve their goals.

Pair that personality (and stunning physique!) with an amazing adventure, and you have a fantastic tale, crafted by a charismatic adventurer who doesn't make himself the whole story. The book is as much about relationships - family, friends, crew - and how much they matter, as it is about a crazy training regimen and amazing athletic feat: a staged tide-assisted wetsuit swim around Great Britain, with no rest days (other than storm-imposed lockdowns in safe harbour), and no setting foot on shore between start and finish.

So, that's a great read. It's hard not to love the story and the author. I'd buy the book again on the strength of these virtues.

Still, all of that said, as a marathon and adventure swimmer, I finished this book a bit perplexed and disappointed.

There's so much research in here, and it's written with generosity and enthusiasm, yet when it comes to the actual swim preparation, what descriptions there are of workouts verge from exceedingly vague to frankly implausible. After detailed descriptions of strength training and nutrition regimens, there'll be an offhand reference to 'long easy swims, focusing on technique'. Nothing wrong with that in itself: technique is critical, and long, steady swims discipline the mind (mental discipline is certainly much of what makes or breaks a long marathon swim).

When specific swim training sets are described, however, they're ... well, ... they're not entirely believable - at least, not as described (and again, these descriptions are often rather fleeting).

For instance, there is mention of sometimes knocking off 100 x 400m "sprints" (... it's not entirely clear in the text whether this is a swim or track workout, but it's noted as part of training for the staged wetsuit swim that's the subject of the book). If this is indeed a swim set, then that's a 40km pool session! Imagine a strong amateur masters swimmer or triathlete in their 30s. They could certainly (in some cases easily) hold 1:30/100m for a long 400m set in a 25m pool, which would be 6:00/400m. To hold that pace, however, and leave a bit of time for rest and hydration, they'd be swimming under that time per 100m.

So, if they were to hold that pace to try Ross Edgley's "brutal" "Zapotec inspired" set, this strong masters swimmer would need to be in the pool for at least 10 hours! That's difficult, but not entirely crazy from a scheduling perspective (I could probably find friends to get me 12hrs of pool time on occasion, and maybe even a dedicated lane) but it does show that this book, about a ground-breaking swim adventure, really wasn't written for swimmers. Swimmers will immediately want to know: how the hell did you knock off 10-12hr pool sets? short course? long course? that long lido in Tooting Bec!? How'd you get the pool time? What paces were you holding? nutrition and hydration? What do you mean by "sprint" - surely not how it's defined elsewhere in the book, or by swimmers and their coaches, because you literally couldn't do this set that way.

... I didn't just pick a SCM (short-course meters) pace of 1:30/100m out of thin air. Here's another example from the book ...

Back before this book came out, Mens Journal published a short piece describing Ross Edgely doing a 100km pool swim in 48hrs. That's a crazy thing to do, but it's feasible for a very fit amateur swimmer, especially someone who has put a lot of work into cardio cross-training, and shoulder strength and stability (which Ross very obviously has). Assuming short stops every few hours for nutrition, and briefer stops every 30min-1hr for hydration, that would involve holding about 2min per 100m, which is a manageable pace for an experienced pool swimmer in their 30s, although again, keeping it up for 48hrs would be damn impressive.

For perspective here: Chloe McCardel, who has swum the English Channel over 30 times so far and routinely knocks off those crossings in the 10hr range, has also swum the longest unassisted ocean swim of just over 124km, in a little over 41hrs ("unassisted" here refers to traditional marathon swimming rules: standard nylon/lycra swim suit, cap, goggles, no wetsuits, no assistive contact with anyone or anything, and any tidal or current assistance being explicitly noted by trained observers). That's an average pace just shy of 2min per 100m, although these kinds of average pace calculations are a bit silly when applied to marathon swims in open water. Consider also Sarah Thomas, who recently completed an unprecedented 4-way English Channel crossing. Sarah has swum 168km in fresh water, in 67hrs, so in the 2:20/100m range, although again, these pace calculations translate poorly from pool to wild swimming. Indeed, I only mention them to point out that the current world record holders for the longest unassisted marathon swims are most emphatically not blasting off 1:30/100m paces for swims over 41 or 67 hours in the water.

All of which is to say: 2:00/100m in a short course pool isn't implausible for a strong and experienced swimmer over very long time frames. The sheer boredom and sleep deprivation would likely be the hardest parts of that twisted exercise.

Okay, so far so good ... but by the time we get to the intro of The Art of Resilience, that 48hr pool swim has ballooned to 185km! Later in the book, in Lesson 18, this same training session is recounted as a 175km pool swim.

To put those last two recollections in perspective: 185km in 48hrs in a 25m pool means holding about 1:34/100m, assuming no rests. If there are brief stops for feeding and hydration, as there would have to be (and as Ross describes in the book), then that's closer to 1:30/100m or faster (and even so, still with only short rests). If the distance were instead 175km, the pace is a bit more forgiving, but not much: about 1:39/100m, again without rests for water/nutrition, so, realistically, more like 1:35/100m.

To put this into further perspective: a few years ago, one of the strongest open water competitors in recent decades, 2008 olympic gold medallist Maarten van der Weijden, knocked off 24hrs in a 25m pool. He came in just shy of 103km. That's a pace of about 1:24/100m, and assuming he held that pace leaving several short rest times for a quick feed/hydration, he was probably holding closer to 1:20/100m. If Ross swam 185km in 48hrs, his pace would have been considerably slower than this world record by a world-class olympian distance swimmer, but not by all that much, and swimming for twice as long! Similarly if the distance was instead 175km.

To be clear, my concern here isn't dishonesty (although one wonders how these tall tales keep getting exaggerated and make it in to print, especially when there's already a published record of the earlier, still impressive but far more believable swims). It's just that these kinds of gaffes, distortions, and exaggerations are symptomatic of what irked me reading this book as a swimmer. Edgley has put so much research into sports science and nutrition and psychology, and he writes with so much passion in reporting those studies and his own training, relationships, and adventures... but he clearly hasn't bothered to do nearly as much careful study about the sport this book is supposed to be about: swimming!

So, what's my rating? Reading it as a general fitness enthusiast and adventure writing fan, I'd certainly rate it at least a strong 4 out of 5. But as an experienced marathon and adventure swimmer? Maybe 2. I'll split the difference and give it 3, but with the caveat that swimmers shouldn't expect a book about their sport (I'd originally been more generous in my over all rating, but revisiting this review I'm rather more sceptical than I was when I first encountered the Ross Edgely phenomenon).