One year ago, on 1 June 2024, Mike Lambert slipped his surfski kayak into gently breaking waves at East Wittering beach. He turned back towards the shore, waving at his two sisters and a small gathering of friends and supporters, before paddling west into a placid, pastel sunrise. He was hoping to see everyone at the same beach in less than 40 days. While everyone on the beach went back to their daily lives, Mike would be paddling around the entire mainland UK.

An unlikely candidate

Mike wasn’t the most likely candidate for a 3,000+ kilometre record attempt. Although he had raced for Team GB in Olympic flatwater sprint kayak in the junior and Under 23 categories, that was ancient history when he decided to take on the endurance challenge of a lifetime more than seven years later. Even when Mike was in top form, his paddling mates called him “the only sprint paddler who could blow out before the end of a 200 metre race.” Paddling around Britain wouldn’t require just regaining the fitness of his youth, but building a new endurance base ten times better than he’d ever had before. Why take on something that seemed impossible?

For Mike, this challenge was much more than a record attempt. As much as he would be racing through raging seas and screaming winds to try and beat the frighteningly fast record set by Dougal Glaisher, Mike’s deeper motivation was to take on a personal pilgrimage to find a path through grief and trauma after the sudden loss of his mum.

Caroline

Everything in Mike’s life changed when his mother died suddenly of aortic dissection in November 2022. Caroline Lambert was his champion. On top of working long hours as a District Nurse and raising Mike and his sisters as a single parent, Caroline spent hours almost every week driving Mike around to regattas. When finances were tight, she made sure Mike had what he needed to pursue competitive kayaking. Mike says: “I never heard the words ‘you can’t’ only ‘how can we achieve it’. Without this attitude, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Her passing was unexpected and tragically preventable. Had she received the aortic dissection diagnosis and treatment that Mike fought hard for her to get in the hospital that day, she would have survived.

The loss of Caroline hit hard. For Mike, this time was “devastating and surreal… The future that I anticipated and took for granted was snatched from beneath my nose.” Seeking a path through his grief, Mike found a book: “The Art of Resilience” by Ross Edgely, who was the first person to swim around Britain. Edgely lays out a philosophy that resilience can be trained, like any physical muscle, by doing hard things. Mike reflects, “It was something about the pain…” that spurred him to take on the circumnavigation.

The limits of resilience

Three weeks into Mike’s circumnavigation, the UK was experiencing one of the coldest Junes on record: Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountains even saw a dusting of snow. The day after he’d paddled from Northern Ireland to Scotland, a massive storm was raging in the Atlantic. 6-8 foot waves thrashed Mike’s surfski from the side, as he paddled from the Isle of Islay toward the Isle of Mull, fighting a strong tide that tried to suck his boat backwards toward Northern Ireland. His chances of beating the 40 day record were long gone.

Five hours later, Mike could just make out his destination in the distance through the sheets of rain. Three more hours and he made landfall. Mike wondered how he would be able to get back on the water the next morning.

Putting down the pain

It was only here that Mike started to realise that he could put down the pain: the pain from each day’s paddle, and the pain of how he lost his mother. “Every time I get off the water, I don’t need to relive that chapter of pain again. Because when I get off, it’s done, it’s finished. I don’t have to do that bit again, I don’t have to experience that again.” It serves a purpose in reminding you not to make the same mistakes, and that’s enough. Wrapping his mind around this aspect of the paddling has been a “visceral learning experience.” Mike says: “Losing Mum in the manner I did was so unbelievably painful, but actually realising that there are certain elements of the pain that I felt around that that I’m allowed to put down has been huge.”

He’s not letting go of his mother, or even really ‘moving on’ from the grief. But he’s starting to understand the destructive potential of sitting in his grief for too long. He has to put down some of that pain in order to move through the next day, on the water or not.

Homecoming

58 days after setting off from East Wittering Beach, Mike returned to the same place having paddled around Britain. He was welcomed by a huge crowd of family, friends, and the aortic dissection survivors community. Champagne and tears flowed freely.

Pilgrim of the Tides

To mark the one year anniversary of Mike’s departure, Fresh Heart Project has released the documentary film of Mike’s journey free to watch on YouTube. Pilgrim of the Tides shows the grandiosity of Mike’s adventure as much as the heart wrenching story of why.

Watch Pilgrim of the Tides here, or on YouTube:

Mike spoke with Paddle Daily throughout his trip and afterwards. Enjoy these highlights from the Paddle Daily archives, including this in-depth interview after Mike’s circumnavigation, and the corresponding article.