My doctor, he said, "Martin, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.
Don't swim.
You're gonna die."
I am different because I found the way.
I don't feel any pain anymore.
My name is Martin Strel, 62-years old, born in Slovenia and I am professional marathon
swimmer.
I have five Guinness World Records.
I swam the longest rivers on the planet.
I have swum the Danube, Mississippi, Parana, Yangtze and Amazon.
>> BORUT: Everybody said, "Man, you are just nuts.
You are crazy.
The river will take you."
He was having infections in his stomach, a larva infection in his brain, hallucination.
He was peeling off the skin.
I thought, "This is over for him.
No one can survive this."
Most people understand running a marathon, when you put this to the level that Martin
sets out to do, he says, "I'm going to swim now for 60 days," that's 60 of these marathons.
Some people ask me, "Well, how he can swim for so long?"
I don't know how.
I still don't know how.
Water kills people, usually, but not me, not me.
I am like half animal, half human [LAUGHS].
>> NINA: Martin is most known for being an overweight athlete [LAUGHS].
I'm a little off, a little sick, a little crazy.
His whole life was nothing defined by normal and just doing something that most people
cannot even comprehend the thought of being able to do.
So, Michael Phelps, what's the difference between me?
Michael Phelps, he is not marathon swimmer.
He is much faster than I am, sure.
He is very successful in the swimming pools.
I'm successful in swimming the rivers.
He's not ready, sure, for the Amazon because he's too skinny.
When I swim, I'm losing six, seven-hundred calories per hour.
My body's like a Mercedes, BMW, good.
Martin does not resemble an elite runner or an elite cyclist in their lean factor.
So Martin for to be able to swim at that kind of range is really extraordinary.
With Martin, I really am just baffled.
When my body's in trouble, I swim.
I have excellent memories of mine, this childhood, this beginning, but father was too much violent,
many time, and he was fighting with me, came home, Where is Martin?
He's here!"
Always trying to catch me.
Where to go?
I jump in the water.
He was running around.
He said, "Come back!"
No, no, no, no.
I was under the water, sometimes more than two minutes.
The water became like a part of my life, very good friend for my safety.
I wasn't so confident in the beginning, very, very afraid.
I didn't sleep.
My pulse was very high, even in the Amazon.
>> BORUT: Swimming in the Amazon, most people would have just difficulty staying afloat.
There's no way anyone survive two months in this river.
On the Amazon was terrible moment, attacked by piranhas.
Your back, you feel fire.
They eat so fast.
They opened my back and I caught fire, my back.
Piranhas.
It is still the longest swim in the history.
>> NINA: He had a lot of issues, the Mississippi River.
He dropped 55 pounds in two months.
He was just losing so much weight.
So we were worried that he must be getting sick or something.
I swam one of the most polluted rivers on the planet.
Bodies, pollution, everything.
I was touching by lightning, was unconscious one minute, pushed me out of the water.
I was flying like a plane.
We literally thought he was a dead man.
These guys go, "Martin died."
I stop for a couple of minutes.
Then, "Go, Martin..."
Like nothing happened, you know.
We're like, "I guess he's alive."
[LAUGHS] He's fearless.
He's not afraid of death.
He's one of the people, "I'm either going to do it or die trying."
Most people simply don't understand how you can swim like 12 more hours per day.
When I swim, it is impossible to think about the stroke under the water.
I even count these; one, two, three, four, five, hundred.
In the beginning, that was terrible.
It was lots of pain, swimming hours and hours in the oceans, lakes and rivers.
Many times I said by myself, "It's simply too hard."
You have tears in eyes.
You don't know how to move this, what to do, what to do, but you have to swim.
You have to finish this.
It was hard to swim and then, on the Danube, it happened.
I found a way.
It's hard for me to explain what is meditation or hypnotization.
Here is something what helps me a lot.
It happened while I was swimming.
My concentration is very, very deep, like meditation and then, when it's done, I don't
feel any pain anymore.
Can somebody explain it to me, something?
[LAUGHS] Some physician, scientist could say, "This is not possible."
Sure, for him it's not possible, but it's possible for me.
I think that everything is here in your brain, here.
I am still strong, sure.
I can swim more.
I would like to swim Grand Canyon and another target is swimming around the planet, because
today water is not good.
We are not on the right way.
I swim for peace, friendship and clean waters, especially.
I am just a simple man and I can change, still, this world.