The Impossible First

by Colin O'Brady

  “Ten blocks to the next waypoint!” I said, smiling over at Jenna with a message only she, of all the people in New York City—or maybe the world—could understand.

  She laughed and signaled the driver that he could head out, then took my hand. I grabbed the handle at the end of the sled’s carrying case, pulled the sled up onto its wheels at the back, and off we went.

  People bundled up in winter coats walked by us on the way to work, deep in their earbud solitude. A huge red tourist bus roared by full of people, faces and mobile phones pressed up to the windows. I could smell pizza-by-the-slice from the twenty-four-hour joint next to the hotel and metal-tinged steam that pumped like smoke signals from a manhole cover in front of us. A giant neon billboard loomed from the top of the building at the next intersection, telling us in overwhelmingly brilliant colors about a Broadway show I’d never heard of, but that the New York Daily News said shouldn’t be missed.

  The great city throbbed, flashed, and heaved around us, hurtling through the routines of a typical winter workday morning, and the sled trailing along behind us, bouncing on its wheels, sticking occasionally in the slush, felt like the one familiar thing.

  * * *

  THE STUDIO GREEN ROOM was laid out with pastries, bagels, and fruit. A pot of coffee sat on a table, next to half a dozen daily papers, splayed out like a fan. But I was barely there, staring down at my hands, peeling off bits of glue. I knew that every little crumbling piece I pulled off had a story and a moment, and bit by bit they were taking me back to those days and weeks on the ice.

  Jenna’s elbow, nudging me in the ribs, brought me back to the present. A smiling, middle-aged woman with a ponytail had come into the room.

  “Colin and Jenna!” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m one of the producers. It’s so great to meet you, and thank you for coming. I followed every moment of your project and… just wow, couldn’t get enough. Amazing! Congratulations! And the way you finished it there at the end was really powerful. It really moved me. It just about made me cry when I read about it.”

  I blinked and smiled at her, trying to come back to the moment. “Yes, that push at the end was a wild experience. I learned a lot—”

  “No, I mean Captain Rudd,” she said, looking a little confused. “How you waited for him there at the end, after you’d crossed the finish line…”

  “Oh, right,” I said, shaking my head.

  And with those words, my mind torn between past and present, I was again back on the ice, waiting for Rudd. After crossing the finish line, a part of me was dying to leave Antarctica immediately. The idea of a huge meal, a hot shower, and a clean set of clothes sounded like heaven. Most important, I wanted to get back home, see Jenna and my family as soon as possible, but there was an equally strong part of me that wanted and needed to complete the circle that had begun on the Ilyushin flight. I wanted to see Rudd again, to make a statement of respect, to honor a worthy competitor. I wanted to congratulate him in person. Out of seven and a half billion people on the planet, he was the only other one who knew what it took to complete that crossing. So I waited, calling off the plane that was on standby to pick me up.

  I knew there might be some awkwardness to the reunion given the intensity of our competition. Rudd arrived two and a half days after my finish at the USGS post, giving me some time to think through what felt like a protocol for how he should be greeted and acknowledged. I’d set up my tent about a mile beyond the post, near where the plane would land. He should have his own finish, I’d decided, his own moment to absorb what he’d accomplished. I didn’t want to be standing there like I owned the place just because I’d gotten there first.

  A few hours after he’d reached the finish and had time to set up his own tent, we finally reunited. He looked horrible and radiant at the same time, like the soldier he was, still firmly erect in posture but with an aura about him that was different now, too, than the man I’d met on the plane. The scruffy tatter of his jacket and the wounds on his face from the cold—scabby, frostnipped cheeks and lips—made him seem like a knight from an ancient story, coming in off the field of battle, bloodied but valiant. We both said congratulations at the same time and laughed.

  And over the next two days, as we waited to fly out together, we mostly spent time on our own, reflecting on where our respective crossings had left us. But the second night, sitting outside his tent, swapping stories with me about our journeys, he generously offered me one of his extra freeze dried meals, knowing I was very low on food. His gesture underscored an unspoken camaraderie that had formed over the last couple of months. He then went silent for a moment, and I thought of that morning in the mess tent at Union Glacier when he’d blurted out his changed plans about where he’d start.

  Breaking the silence and looking at me with kind eyes he said, “You know, Colin, I pulled longer hours in the harness than in any of my previous expeditions because of you and never took a rest day, wanting to keep the distance close. But to be honest, most of the time until the very end, I wasn’t too worried about you being out in front of me. I was convinced that, in your inexperience, Antarctica would take care of the race for me and I just had to hold on.”

  Despite the differences that separated us and always would, we now had a bond that would last forever. We both leaned in and shared a warm hug.

  * * *

  “GEEZ,” I SAID when the producer had left and I was sitting back in my seat and looking over at Jenna, feeling overwhelmed by the swirling memories and emotions that were rolling through me. “What a journey, huh?”

  She took my hand. “To think that less than a week ago you were on the ice, then Punta Arenas…” She gazed off for a second and shook her head.

  I turned fully to face her and took both her hands in mine. “I was never alone out there—you walked every mile with me, Jenna. I was happy and proud of myself down there on the Ross Ice Shelf, of course. But it was only when I got down off that plane in Chile and you ran toward me and I had you in my arms, smelling your hair, going deaf with your screaming, that I could finally say, ‘Yes we’ve done it, we made it across!’ ”

  Overwhelmed with emotions, I held her for a minute, then went on. “You were the real finish line and I couldn’t have done this thing in a million tries without you. None of this is possible without you.”

  I put my hand on the side of her face, and inched closer to give her a kiss.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” a young production assistant said in a brisk strictly business way that reminded me of Tim from the Comms Box. “They’re ready for you.”

  He led us down a corridor where people were rushing around us in both directions, and then through the doorway leading onto the set.

  The production assistant tapped me on the shoulder. “Two minutes,” he said. A cameraman stood next to a whiteboard on the wall near the door. The show’s name was printed neatly at the top, with a handwritten list of guests below. An eraser sat in the tray at the bottom. And there I was. “Colin O’Brady, The Impossible First, (w/sled),” my line said, with the last word presumably included as a reminder to the production crew that what Jenna and I had dragged down to 30 Rockefeller Plaza needed to be on the set, too. My sled, now empty, never felt more full. Jenna and I glanced at the whiteboard and we smiled knowingly at each other.

  Whiteboard into reality.

  My mom, Eileen Brady, introducing my sister, Caitlin (age four), and me (age two) to the beauty of the Cascades near Portland.

  On the starting block at one of my first swim meets. I began swimming competitively when I was six years old. Swimming was the through line of my athletic life, from childhood to Yale University.

  With my dad, Tim O’Connor, at a swim meet. His wise pre-race mantra was always the same: “Colin, remember the most important thing… have fun!”

  Jenna and me falling in love in Australia shortly after our chance meeting in Fiji. This was taken just weeks before my accident in Thailand.

  This photo with
my childhood best friend, David Boyer, was taken on a scuba dive boat on January 14, 2008, the morning of the Thailand fire accident. He stayed by my side as disaster unfolded.

  “Colin, you may never walk again normally”—devastating words to hear from the doctor just days after my burn injury.

  In my Thai hospital room every day, Mom always made sure to smile and encourage me to dream about the future.

  My legs six weeks after the accident—a big improvement compared to what they’d looked like in the accident’s immediate aftermath.

  Beating the odds to make a full recovery, I went on to race professional triathlons between 2009 and 2015 in twenty-five countries on six continents. Credits, from left to right: Wayne Jones-Nevrilk, David Lacey, Jenna Besaw

  In 2014 on the summit of Cayambe, Ecuador’s third-tallest peak, I asked Jenna to marry me. Credit: Henry Moya

  From an altitude of nineteen thousand feet, I stared up to the left at Mount Everest. Directly in front was Lhotse, the fourth-tallest mountain in the world, still dwarfed by Everest’s magnitude.

  Stepping into the “Death Zone” on Everest at twenty-six thousand feet, moments before a sudden storm forced Pasang Bhote and me to hunker down overnight at Camp 4 and abandon our first summit attempt.

  May 27, 2016. After 139 days of nonstop climbing, I took my last steps to reach the summit of Denali in Alaska, breaking the world record for the Explorers Grand Slam and the Seven Summits. Credit: Tucker Cunningham

  Ohana Weekend, 2016. My blended family’s unique way of coming together every year, even after my parents’ divorce.

  In July 2018, my dad, always my greatest inspiration for outdoor adventure, joined me on his sixtieth birthday to climb Arizona’s highest peak—part of my Fifty High Points world-record project. Credit: Ryan Kao

  Jenna and I paused on my descent from Mount Rainier during the Fifty High Points project. Fifty states in twenty-one days was an exercise in collaboration and preparation—more training for Antarctica. Credit: Berty Mandagie

  My strength coach, Mike McCastle, designed creative and often brutal workouts like this: a wall sit with my feet in ice buckets, trying to solve a Lego puzzle with frozen hands. Credit: Mike McCastle

  Testing my body at the Standard Process Nutrition Innovation Center. More than a dozen doctors, scientists, and nutrition experts collaborated to create a custom food I’d eat day after day in Antarctica. Credit: Mike McCastle

  Food prep in our Airbnb in Punta Arenas, Chile, days before departing for the ice. Credit: Tamara Merino

  Standard Process dubbed the special food they created the “Colin Bar.” I cut the bars into chunks, which were easier to eat when frozen solid. Credit: Tamara Merino

  Most of my crucial equipment is pictured here. Sled, boots, skis, harness, stove, GPS and satellite phones, along with the historic Explorers Club flag, which I was deeply honored to carry. Credit: Tamara Merino

  Captain Louis Rudd, one of the world’s most experienced polar explorers, sitting next to me on the Ilyushin flight to Antarctica. We were forced to sit shoulder to shoulder for the four-and-a-half-hour ride prior to our race across the frozen continent. Credit: Tamara Merino

  This is the image Captain Rudd showed me on the plane from one of his previous expeditions in Antarctica. I spent the entire crossing haunted by the thought that my fate might be this same extreme weight loss and suffering. Credit: Tamara Merino

  After twelve hours of pulling my sled, there was always the nightly ritual of setting up camp, which included anchoring the tent and shoveling snow around the perimeter for additional protection from the nearly constant wind.

  My view in a whiteout. The only way to navigate was to focus on the compass strapped to my chest.

  Inside my tent, the twenty-four-hour sunlight cast a red hue through the tent’s fabric. I laid out my minus-forty-degree sleeping bag and hung my frozen mask and gloves on a bouncing clothesline.

  I took this photo a few weeks into my crossing. Dry bags contained my daily food rations, while the orange duffel bag held my personal gear, repair kit, and first-aid supplies. The long blue sack beside my sled is arctic bedding, which held my sleeping bag and pad so that I didn’t have to restuff and pack everything each day. The metal containers and bottles hold white gas fuel for the stove. Short skins are pictured on the bottom of my skis.

  Melting enough snow for water each day was an arduous process. With all the exertion from pulling my sled twelve hours per day in the bone-dry air, I had to drink at least six liters of water daily to stay hydrated.

  The harsh and nearly constant winds of the frozen continent carved endless fields of sastrugi—speed bumps of ice and snow—which made pulling my sled, 375 pounds at the journey’s start, extremely difficult.

  Long days were spent pulling the sled through deep snow, one step at a time. Note the footprints on the right side. I was my own photographer, so I had to set up a tripod and use a self-timer to capture the images.

  Setting up my tent amid Antarctica’s brutal winds produced some of the expedition’s most challenging and frightening moments.

  On the polar plateau at nine thousand feet, all you can see is endless white. Here the air is thin and extra cold, making for even harder work.

  The ice sheet moves several feet every year at the Pole, so the true geographic South Pole marker is moved annually to the correct spot. The buildings in the background are the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Credit: Samuel A. Harrison

  A rare moment of stillness after passing the South Pole. These circular rainbows, which are created by light refracting off ice crystals, are called sundogs.

  The bitter cold and strain began to weigh hard on me toward the expedition’s end. In a makeshift solution to prevent further frostbite, I put tape on my face.

  Navigating through fields of sastrugi—a terrain of endless bumps and holes—made me constantly anxious about falling and possibly sustaining a serious injury.

  Setting up and taking down my tent on massive storm days, where the windchill could—and did on this day—plummet to seventy-five degrees below, was perilous. If I lost my grip during setup, sixty-mile-per-hour gusts could send the tent beyond my reach, leaving me without shelter.

  I arrived at the top of the Leverett Glacier, viewing the Transantarctic Mountains and my pathway to the finish after seeing nothing but endless white for nearly two months.

  At the edge of the Antarctica landmass where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the continent, there was nobody cheering or waiting—just a simple wooden post in the ice that meant I’d finally made it. I called home to Jenna and my family, who were gathered for Christmas, to tell them the news.

  Lou finished his crossing two and a half days after me. We exchanged stories of our respective journeys before a plane picked us up to take us home.

  Before and after: I put on twenty pounds of muscle and fat ahead of my crossing to give me a buffer for the inevitable weight loss. At the end, I’d lost about twenty-five pounds.

  Far different emotions than during our tense plane ride to Antarctica. Lou and I shared a laugh on our way home after completing our crossings. Credit: Tamara Merino

  My true finish line. One of the happiest moments of my life was seeing Jenna for the first time in two months when I returned to Punta Arenas, Chile. Credit: Tamara Merino

  In the taxi from the airport to our hotel, I collapsed into Jenna’s arms, knowing I could never have achieved this crossing without her strength, commitment, and organizational genius. Credit: Tamara Merino

  I love speaking to students and, as a way to get them to dream about what they can accomplish, asking them, “What’s your Everest? What’s your Impossible First?” Credit: Marianna Brady

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, I want to give a standing ovation to Jenna B, my wife, my love, my business partner, my co-creator of magic. Although it’s my name on the cover of this book, none of this would have ever been possible without you. This is our story. Thank y
ou for your strength when I was weak, your endless patience, your boundless creativity in making the impossible possible, and your infinite love. I look forward to a day, many decades in the future, when I can sit in a beautiful place with you, smiling back on all of the memories we’ve created together.

  Blake Brinker, my right-hand man, creative collaborator, and dear friend: I’m grateful that serendipity brought us together on that fateful evening in 2016 when I was first learning how to share my story. You’re a brilliant storyteller and exceptional human being. Your unwavering support in ways big and small has meant the world to me. Thank you for all you’ve taught me. This book wouldn’t be what it is without your tireless dedication and creative genius.

  Kirk Johnson, thank you for your assistance in writing this book. Your ability to listen, research, distill, and rework over and over again certain sections without complaint made The Impossible First better than it would have been otherwise. You’re a consummate professional.

  Jenna, Blake, and Kirk, the collaboration between the four of us to bring this book to life has been one of the great joys of my life.

  Sarah Passick and Celeste Fine, my literary agents: you two are forces to be reckoned with. I can’t think of a better team to have my back through this process. Thank you to Amber Rae for introducing us. Sarah, you believed there was a book inside me, even before I set foot in Antarctica.