‘Add life to your days rather than the other way around’

Although few have the determination to take the plunge Sean Conway decided otherwise.

Feeling despondent with his day job in 2011, the then 30-year-old sold his London photographic business to his Jersey business partner for a pound.

Four years on – just two weeks after completing a near 1,000 mile run from John O’Groats to Land’s End – Mr Conway has given a motivational talk to Jersey pupils.

By finishing the run, which was filmed by the Discovery Channel, Mr Conway became the first person to complete what has been dubbed the ‘ultimate triathlon’ as he has previously also cycled and swam the length of Britain.

Sean Conway has completed several challenges, including cycling round the world

On Tuesday the self-styled ‘endurance adventurer’ spoke to Year 13 Hautlieu students on their last day of school about his experiences.

‘I have three messages that I like to get out,’ said Mr Conway, who is originally from Zimbabwe. ‘The first is that we’re all a lot physically and emotionally stronger than we think.

‘The second is that you shouldn’t let other peoples’ opinions of your ability affect your decisions in life – there’s loads of things that I’ve done that close friends and family said that I couldn’t do, and if I’d have listened to them I probably wouldn’t have done.

‘Thirdly, we are now in an age where people can make a living from their hobbies – if you’re the best at something, get out there and do it.

‘I stress to the guys that are finishing school don’t do what I did and waste ten years of your life until you’re 30 doing something you hate, get out there and do something you can be passionate about.’

With his wild orange beard and mane of straggly hair, it’s easy to make a comparison to Forrest Gump – Tom Hanks’ film character who ran across America on little more than a whim – and it’s a resemblance that Mr Conway embraces.

Sean Conway did not have such a large beard in 2012, when he visited the Island to talk about his round-the-world cycle challenge

‘Like Forrest Gump I woke up one day and decided to go running for the sake of running.’

Mr Conway says he has decided to give his life to ‘projects’ and plans to undertake yet more gruelling adventures with the next one likely to be an ultimate Ironman triathlon.

He says he wants to write about his experiences and also create opportunities for others to take on similar challenges.

‘I vowed never to make any decisions based on my financial outcome’ Mr Conway said. ‘I decided to fill my life with experiences rather than things and once you realise that, you don’t need as much to live as you think you do. That’s my philosophy – adding life to my days rather than the other way around.’

SOME men grow them to look older, some grow them to stand out from the crowd, while others believe growing one will make them look more masculine.

But adventurer Sean Conway, who in 2013 became the first man to swim from one end of the UK to the other, grew his grizzly ginger beard for a much more practical reason – to stop him from being stung in the face by jellyfish.

The 32-year-old, who was in the Island giving inspirational talks to secondary school children this week, had to put up with the daily jellyfish stings, a tongue constantly swollen by sea salt and his jaw getting so cold that his meals had to be blended throughout his 900-mile swim.

He also had no showering facilities or hot water on board the 50-year-old boat he slept on in between stints in the water and became so malnourished that his body weight dropped below ten stone.

Prior to starting his challenge at Land’s End on 30 June, the furthest the 5 ft 8 in tall man had swam in open water was three miles.

He was spending just two hours a week training in the pool, because he had ‘so many other things to organise’ and more than 350 companies turned down his requests for funding.

Doctors told him that he could die trying, swimmers told him it was impossible and friends told him he was crazy.

But self-proclaimed as ‘stubborn’, the Zimbabwean, who has also cycled the whole way around the world, said all of his doubters just spurred him on and made him even more determined to succeed.

‘I wanted to prove that as long as you work hard enough and want something enough, it is achievable,’ he said, still visibly feeling the effects of a cold.

‘I strongly believe that every human is a lot more physically and mentally capable than they believe and, for some reason, between the ages of ten and 20 we seem to lose our fearlessness.

‘Of course there are going to be hurdles and sometimes you might come to a dead end, but then you just backtrack and work out the best way to overcome any problems.

‘That swim was the hardest thing I have ever had to do and there were times when I was really ill, tired and absolutely freezing but I just visualised the finish line and thought about what I was going to do with my life next.’

He added: ‘Nobody should ever be afraid to dream big.’ Because of weather conditions and unanticipated ‘logistical’ snags, the swim ended up taking Mr Conway over two months longer than planned.

The swimmer’s 26-ft classic wooden yacht had a top speed of 5 mph.

And as it is not possible to just moor anywhere in the ocean, it meant that Mr Conway and his team would have to travel as far as ten miles – at 3 mph against strong tides – to find an anchorage point for the night.

That also meant the 3½-hour journey, weather permitting, had to be completed in the morning to return to the exact GPS point he got out of the water.

He said it was almost impossible to sleep while the boat was being battered by high winds and waves, and all five of the crew members, including himself, suffered sea sickness from day one.

Extreme weather conditions prevented Mr Conway from swimming at all on 45 of the days in total, and with less than 70 miles to go, the adventurer admitted he thought his hopes of completing the challenge this year were over.

‘When we got to Cape Wrath, which is the most north-westerly point of the UK and the beginning of the home straight, a huge storm kicked off and the waves reached up to 20 feet high,’ he said.

‘Fortunately, we found shelter behind this little island but our support kayak broke off, we lost our rib and we ended up having to saw off our anchor because it got stuck between rocks.

‘I was about seven days from finishing but the weather forced us to sit in the lochs for three days, and at that point I did not know whether I would be able to finish it.

‘It would have been absolutely heart-breaking for me and the crew, but luckily we got a good run of weather and I just went for it.’

He added: ‘Just like any major endurance challenge, the one thing out of my control that could have ended it was the weather.’

Mr Conway was born into a family living in the Zimbabwean bush and his father was a game ranger and rhino conservationist. He spent part of his childhood in South Africa and completed a mile swim across a lake at the age of ten before taking part in two endurance kayak marathons during his teens.

After studying photography at college, Mr Conway moved to England, where his grandparents are from, to try to further his career.

Settling down in Cheltenham, Mr Conway went on to set up his own photography company with a Jerseyman, James Carnegie.

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