AGE 36 – 177CM | 66KG Sean Conway
ADVENTURER, WILDMAN
With his thick mane of unkempt ginger hair and beard venturing ever further down his chest, Conway looks as feral as the lions that roam his native Zimbabwe. “The beard gives me superpowers, mate,” he says, laughing softly. “And I can store food in there, which is convenient as well.”
Conway has a habit of downplaying his achievements. The truth is, he began to grow the beard in 2013, not to act as a portable larder but out of necessity. “I was attempting to swim the length of Britain – 900 miles from Land’s End to John O’groats,” says Conway. “But in the Irish Sea I kept getting stung by jellyfish. Hence the beard – it became my armour against stinging tentacles.” After a full four and a half months at sea, he finally completed the challenge.
Since then he has smashed numerous world records, culminating in last year’s 4200-mile triathlon around the coast of Britain, which he describes as the toughest 85 days of his life. “It was especially difficult because I could only train for the cycle,” he says. “The run and the swim were so far from the start of the event that whatever training I did for them, I’d have lost by the time I needed it.” Unsurprisingly, when he transitioned into the run after a month of cycling, he soon picked up an injury which he was forced to manage for the next 800 miles. “That was kind of annoying,” he laughs. “But that’s just part and parcel of endurance stuff.”
Most men – even those mad enough to accept such a challenge in the first place – would surely have given up at this stage. His extraordinary drive is all the more remarkable when you consider that, as recently as 2011, Conway was a landlubbing partner in a London photography business. Restless and disillusioned, he sold his share for £ 1 and, despite having no serious exercise history to speak of, embarked on his first major adventure: a 16,000-mile round-the-world bike ride.
“To all intents and purposes, biologically I’m the same person I was 10 years ago,” he says. “I haven’t got lots of extra muscle mass or anything. But I’m more aware of my limits, and how far I can push myself. It’s only when you push your body that you realise what it’s capable of doing.” Moreover, Conway believes that anyone can follow in his footsteps: “The human body is amazing at building up resilience. It’s why people get better at endurance stuff the older they get. So my advice to anyone is: keep pushing those boundaries.”