Adam Walker is not your everyday record-breaking sportsman. He took on
arguably the toughest extreme sport on the planet--to swim non-stop
across seven of the world's deadliest oceans wearing only swim trunks,
cap and goggles. It is not a test for the faint-hearted: swimmers face
freezing temperatures, huge swells and treacherous currents, potentially
deadly marine life (from sharks to Portuguese men o' war), vomiting and
burning off a week's calories in a single swim. In 2007, Adam, then a
toaster salesman, saw a film about a man attempting to swim the English
Channel and change his life in doing so. Inspired by this, he decided to
try to emulate the feat. After a year of rigorous training without a
coach--his first open-water swim was in 9 degrees and he nearly died
from hypothermia--Adam achieved his goal in 11 hours 35 minutes, despite
a ruptured bicep tendon leading to medical advice to give up
long-distance swimming. In 2011, after two operations and a change to
his swimming style to take pressure off his injured shoulder, he became
the first Briton to achieve a two-way crossing from Spain to Morocco and
back. In the process, he broke the British record one way. Shortly
afterwards, the Ocean's Seven challenge was born, a grueling equivalent
to the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. At first it seemed that
injury would prevent Adam from participating but, ignoring medical
advice, he developed an innovative technique--the Ocean Walker
stroke--that would enable him to continue with the ultimate aim of
completing this seemingly impossible feat. Whether man would triumph
over ocean, or fail in the attempt, forms the core of this extraordinary
autobiography. Always intriguing, sometimes terrifying, and occasionally
very funny, Adam's story is about sport in its truest form: rather than
competitions between teams and individuals, it is about man against
nature--and against his own failings and demons. In that, it is truly
inspirational.
