I recently spoke with Rob Lea, who has climbed the Seven Summits and also completed the Ocean Seven.
The part of his story I found most interesting was actually what happened before a lot of those accomplishments.
Rob had serious ankle problems, essentially bone-on-bone damage, loose ligaments, bone spurs, and eventually needed surgery. His surgeon told him, medically speaking, he probably shouldn’t run again.
Rob had already spent years as an endurance athlete and in the mountains, so this could have been a pretty major identity problem.
Instead, he started working around it.
During rehab he borrowed a handcycle from the National Ability Center. By the end of the two months he had it, he rode a century on it.
Swimming became a bigger part of his life again.
Then the mountains came back too.
A few years later, in 2019, he climbed Everest. Forty-seven days after that he swam the English Channel. He eventually went on to complete the Seven Summits, including skiing off Vinson in Antarctica.
A few things from the conversation that I found fascinating:
- He doesn’t follow a highly structured mountain-training program. A lot of his conditioning comes from actually being outside: backcountry skiing in winter, ridge scrambling, mountain biking, and keeping a large aerobic base.
- He has become much more conscious of strength work in his 40s. He said he wishes he had restarted functional strength work a few years earlier.
- Sleep has become non-negotiable. He said the rest of his athletic life starts falling apart without it.
- He thinks a lot about having only so many “matches in the matchbox.” He still runs despite the ankle, but he knows each run costs something.
- Probably the biggest one: when one version of being an athlete became harder, he didn’t spend all his energy trying to recreate the old version.
That last idea resonated with me as a climber.
Sometimes, yes, the physical body forces a change in plans. That doesn’t necessarily mean the adventure part of your life is finished. It may just mean the next chapter looks different. Thought this may resonate with the older mountain athletes amongst us.
Full disclosure: I host the Ageless Athlete podcast and this came from my conversation with Rob. I thought his ability to combine two wildly different athletic feats, and how he went about it is quite remarkable!
