Will Hodgess’ Marathon Swim Story

I’m so excited to share this episode with you today.

Will Hodgess and I met last year a few weeks before he tackled “The Beast”, which is the pet name for stage 5 of the famous multi day stage swim down the Hudson River, 8 Bridges.

In our coaching sessions Will would pepper me with questions about mental preparation—he knew exactly what to ask. I suspected that he would go on to do well – quite well. After taming the Beast last year, Will took on the English Channel this year.

Oh my gosh, this is such a good episode. I don’t want to give too much away! There are many valuable take aways.

Whether you’ve been marathon swimming for years, or you are just starting to think about tackling a big swim, I believe you will appreciate Will’s perspective.

I hope you enjoy his story.

In his own words:

I was never a swimmer growing up, I only had eyes for football (Soccer). But following an injury I turned my attention to this peculiar water-based pastime, and I guess things just got out of hand. I fell into the open water scene around 2014 when I landed in NY, because I realized it was the only thing that brought me true relief from my back pain, plus…what an interesting bunch of people! What started as a whopping 1km swim across the East River in NY, has gone onto include swims around the world in Bermuda, Sardinia, Ederle Burke (NY), 8 Bridges Stage 5 (NY), Jersey to France and the English Channel (relay and solo). 

I think the path I have taken with swimming occurred because I like testing myself, pushing to see what happens when…! On paper I’m really not built for these types of events in so many ways, but that challenge of personal change (e.g. used to hate the cold, now a Wim Hof obsessive) gets me excited to think about what we’re capable of if we see what happens. I study philosophy (more practical, not academic) and that has allowed me to inherit some great tools to manage my most powerful weapon, and often my most challenging adversary: my mind. 

I am a passionate climate activist who finds it tough to watch what is happening to the natural world with such little action to address it. A few years ago, I had a word with myself and I decided to turn that worry into action. So in 2021 we raised $10,000 for Blue Marine Foundation when doing the EC relay, in 2022 I set up Project Deathbed as a resource for people to learn more about the climate emergency, and this year I swam The English Channel to promote positive climate action amongst friends and family with Wave Behave (just a prototype on Instagram). After a great response to Wave Behave an alternative platform to donating, I am exploring building this out for others to use. 

Professionally, I work in the design industry building brands and trying to make a positive difference through design. Thanks for listening. 

Update 11/17/2023:

We have now launched the new climate platform and it’s called Something (no longer Wave Behave). Based on the insight that lots of people want to do Something but don’t know where to start. We’re in the beta test phase at the moment. Also follow on Instagram here.

I also wrote up my Channel experience, enjoy.