A thousand miles down the Yukon River, from Canada into Alaska and up to the Arctic Circle. It’s the definition of remote — more people have been to the top of Everest than have been past Dawson City. No support boat, no resupply, no road, and no rescue worth the name.

Get it wrong out there and you're days from help, not hours.

The Yukon 1000 is the longest paddling race in the world, and Jon Frith is the man who decides who is allowed to start it.

More than 1,500 teams apply. Just 30 make the start line. They paddle 18 hours a day, sleep for three and once they're out past Dawson City, they're on their own.

Jon spent 32 years in the British Army. Competed in the Yukon 1000 because he’s passionate about pushing himself. Now he runs the whole thing.

In this conversation he tells me about his extraordinary life before he found the event. Why the Yukon 1000 has no prize money. What happened the first time he saw the river. And why, while thousands of miles away, he can’t stop thinking about what might just be around the next bend.

Find out more about the race (and get your application in? You know you want to) at yukon1000.org.

Hunger & Heart is a podcast about the intersection of wild ambition and fierce compassion, hosted by Kaila Colbin. Find out more at hungerandheart.com.

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Hunger & Heart is brought to you by the Crusaders Leadership Programme™. Whether you're coaching under-5s or a professional team, we all want the same thing: to build cultures of trust, get the best out of our people, and grow players into leaders.

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ lets you get up close and personal with some of the greatest rugby legends of all time — people like Sir Wayne Smith, Sam Whitelock, and Kieran Read.  You'll connect with a global group of ambitious, caring coaches from a range of codes and backgrounds, and most importantly, you'll gain skills and techniques to drive impact and outcomes for your team.  

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ is a two-week high-intensity virtual experience.  It is delivered exclusively online, accessible from anywhere.

Hunger and heart Listeners get 10% off the full price of the program. Use the code HUNGER at checkout. Find out more: crusadersleadership.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

William Trubridge is one of the greatest freedivers of all time. He’s set 18 world records. Won six world championship titles. In 2016 he became the first person to reach 102 metres on a single breath with no fins and no rope.

In 2019 he crossed Cook Strait entirely underwater, in a series of 934 breath holds over nine hours and fifteen minutes, to draw attention to New Zealand's critically endangered Hector's and Māui dolphins.

When you’re 100 metres underwater, panic burns the oxygen you need to get home. So he’s spent decades building a system for not panicking — and it turns out the system works in a queue, in traffic, and in the conversation you're dreading.

WHAT'S COVERED

- Sailing the Pacific as a toddler — a boat was home until he was ten

- The poem he wrote on an Auckland dance floor a year before he'd heard of freediving

- Two failed world record attempts — and the word that made all the difference for the third

- Risk vs stakes — and why refusing every dangerous thing is itself massively risky

- What actually happened at 127 metres, and why his lungs stayed dry

- The mental immune system

- Why the muscles you breathe with decide how you feel

- Nine hours underwater across Cook Strait

FIND WILLIAM Website: https://www.williamtrubridge.com/ Instagram: @‌willtrubridge — https://www.instagram.com/willtrubridge/

The Rebellion — his work teaching the mental immune system: https://www.rebellionimpactgroup.com/

The Mental Immune System programme: https://mentalimmunesystem.com/

MORE FROM WILLIAM

Oxygen: A Memoir — https://www.williamtrubridge.com/post/oxygen-a-memoir-by-william-trubridge

Breathe (2011) — the documentary following his attempt to become the first person to reach 300 feet on a single breath, no fins: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103163/

Hunger & Heart is a podcast about the intersection of wild ambition and fierce compassion, hosted by Kaila Colbin.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At 17, Gráinne Moss swam the English Channel — the first Irish woman ever to do it. At 56, she became the 45th person on Earth to complete the Oceans Seven, the seven hardest channel swims in the world.

This conversation is about the 39 years in between.

We talk about the two failed attempts at the same stretch of water between Ireland and Scotland — one she was elated by, one that broke her.

About being stung head to foot by jellyfish and somehow swimming on for seven more hours.

About looking back at the White Cliffs of Dover three hours into the Channel — and her utter despair at realising she'd barely moved.

About finishing her first channel crossing at 17 with nobody there to meet her.

And about carrying everything she’s learned from ultramarathon swimming — the grit, the resilience, the purpose — into one of the hardest jobs in the New Zealand public service.

WHAT'S COVERED:

- The three hours that nearly ended her English Channel swim

- Being obliterated by a shoal of jellyfish — and why she got out of the water happy

- How you keep going when you can't see any progress at all

- What a good coach actually does

- Night swimming, box jellyfish and the Channel of Bones

- Leading Oranga Tamariki — where she put her focus, and why she says you have to know your own reasons before you take a job like that

ABOUT GRÁINNE

Gráinne Moss (née Gunn) grew up in Bangor, County Down, and started swimming in an unheated saltwater pool fed by the sea. She swam the English Channel in 1987 in 11 hours 52 minutes, aged 17, becoming the first Irish woman to do it. She moved to New Zealand in 1998 and swam the Cook Strait in 2001, and completed the Oceans Seven in June 2026 with the Tsugaru Strait in northern Japan — the longest span between first and final swim in the challenge's history. She is Chief Executive and Secretary for Regulation at the Ministry for Regulation, and was Chief Executive of Oranga Tamariki from 2016 to 2021.

Visit Gráinne's blog https://grainnemoss.com/ for detailed accounts of her swims and follow her on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/swimirishkiwi/.

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Hunger & Heart is brought to you by the Crusaders Leadership Programme™. Whether you're coaching under-5s or a professional team, we all want the same thing: to build cultures of trust, get the best out of our people, and grow players into leaders.

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ lets you get up close and personal with some of the greatest rugby legends of all time — people like Sir Wayne Smith, Sam Whitelock, and Kieran Read.  You'll connect with a global group of ambitious, caring coaches from a range of codes and backgrounds, and most importantly, you'll gain skills and techniques to drive impact and outcomes for your team.  

The Crusaders Leadership Programme™ is a two-week high-intensity virtual experience.  It is delivered exclusively online, accessible from anywhere.

Hunger and heart Listeners get 10% off the full price of the program. Use the code HUNGER at checkout. Find out more: crusadersleadership.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.