Have you got what it takes to set a world record for the longest full-body contact with ice?
If you are Navy veteran and air traffic controller Mike McCastle, you get to answer yes to that question.
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"As proud as I am to have broken this record, it is only as meaningful to me as the cause behind it, in support of Brian Grant Foundation and the many Americans, like my late father, who live with Parkinson's Disease nationwide,” he said.
The Brian Grant Foundation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit organization that helps people with Parkinson's Disease.
McCastle, the founder of the Twelve Labors Project, has shattered several world records doing challenges inspired by mythology's twelve labors of Hercules.
He beat the world record for full-body contact with ice by four minutes earlier this year, staying submerged for two hours and 40 minutes. McCastle’s latest labor, the eighth of the targeted 12, was streamed live on Instagram.
McCastle said he selected the ice challenge because it is symbolic of rigidity, a common symptom of Parkinson’s Disease.
“Rigidity is experienced by someone with Parkinson's as stiffness in the extremities beyond what occurs naturally as a result of old age or arthritis,” McCastle said. “My father experienced this as the disease progressed.”
McCastle has also broken the world record for most pull-ups in 24 hours. He also pulled a two-ton truck 22 miles through Death Valley and climbed a 20-foot rope repeatedly until he'd ascended the height of Mount Everest.
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He has also been featured on Discovery Channel’s The Impossible Row as a performance coach to world-renowned explorer Colin O'Brady.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
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