“In the gym I’ll do one strength training session and the other one will be a Crossfit-sort-of circuit. Then I’ll try and run once or twice a week. I’ll do a 10km run at a pretty fast pace, up and down hills on a circuit. The breath-enhancement stuff is in the pool and doubles as another form of cardio training as well.”

BEING PREPARED

“Preparation for a big-wave attempt starts months out. The guys on the ASP Tour, on the top-40 circuit of surfers who compete, have a schedule. They know exactly when and where they’re going, the organisers know what spots peak at the right times ... What big-wave surfers do is really difficult because we basically have to make sure we’re ready to go at any moment. We have a whole range of equipment, from really big paddle boards, to tow boards – you definitely have to be prepared and ready. You have to be fit all the time, too. If you’re not in that frame of mind, organised and ready and prepared, you really shouldn’t go.”

PICK A BOARD

“The equipment we use for surfing big waves involves such a wide variety of boards. It varies from having three or four different tow boards for different locations, huge paddle boards, nearly 11-feet long, down to your short boards. The location obviously dictates what boards you’ll take. If we were going to Fiji, for instance, we’d carry maybe six-to-eight boards, but most of them would range from six feet long to anywhere over eight feet long. If it was really big Fiji, my board would be around eight-foot long, over three inches thick, 20-and-a-half inches wide.”

APPROACHING THE BEAST

“I’ve actually tried to change my approach a lot. I used to get really over-excited; I’d be running on adrenaline even before I’d hit the water. I’d find a lot of the time that I’d get not even an hour, an hour and a half into the surf at the start of the day and I’d already be kind’ve exhausted. Now I try to do as much preparation as I can. I’ll have all the right flotation devices and stuff like that on hand. If I have that ready, my boards, wetsuits, good leg ropes, all those little things, and I’m in a good frame of mind, that plays a big part in how my day pans out.