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It’s a Strange World
How’s student life treating you? The hard-
est thing about being a student is e’s climbed the Seven keeping my head in Summits, base jumped the books when it into the Grand Canyon often runs in the and stood naked in the clouds. snow at the South Pole. No, this isn’t a Dos Equis commercial for Got a girl“The Most Interesting Man in the friend? I do not. If World.” At 19 years old, Johnny you know any good Strange (yes, that’s his real name) girls, send them is barely legal, but he is certainly a my way. contender for most accomplished teen adventurer of all time. I don’t know Strange plans to swim across if they could the English Channel this sumhandle you. mer to earn his Peak to Pond title, Didn’t you just awarded to athletes who have base jump into climbed Mount Everest and swum the Grand Canacross the 21-mile Strait of yon? That Dover. He took a break Johnny Strange was a crazy between his freshman runs his expeditions experience. political science classto bring awareness to I jumped es at the University of genocide in Africa and into the Parkinson’s disease. Southern California to Follow his video upcanyon chat with us about his dates at YouTube.com/ with three adventures.
H
strangeworld01.
24 Competitor June 2011
of my buddies about five months ago and the route we were supposed to take out wasn’t there. It was a really rural part of the canyon. We ended up having to drink our own pee to survive and eventually climbed out.
What’s going through your head on your adventures? I have a weird mental process. First I try to gain confidence by creating good energy. I try to do a good deed like giving a homeless guy change or picking up a hitchhiker. Next, I try to humble
myself. I try to find humbling experiences because it takes the stress off me. Third, I put in hard work.
How’s Channel training going? I’m doing this all on my own right now. I go to class, I swim twice a week, I do a bunch of other sports. It’s kind of a big mess. I try to swim two miles every time I get in the pool.
Where does your drive come from? I don’t know. In my family, academics were the only thing that mattered. Extreme sports were always my thing.
Since I wasn’t the best student, I liked doing all these sports because it was the one way I could express myself and feel free. Nobody ever really thought I’d amount to anything so I’d always work hard to prove people wrong.
After you swim the Channel, will you be done with the doubters? I’ll still have plenty of doubters. Everybody does in every sport. My goal is to prove them wrong, bring attention to my causes and have fun in the process. —Erin Beresini
Photo courtesy of Scott Wollum
Johnny Strange at the summit of Mt. Everest. Strange climbed the world’s 7 tallest summits on 7 continents by age 17.