In 2007, Adam, then a toaster salesman, watched a film about a man
attempting to change his life by swimming the English Channel, and was
inspired to try to emulate the feat. After a year of rigorous training
without a coach, he 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, 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. 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.