Park City endurance athlete and realtor Rob Lea plunked himself down on a quiet beach in Hokkaido, Japan, earlier this summer. Lea wasn’t on vacation or relaxing and enjoying a picturesque, sunny day. The 44 year old had just pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion and kept going, swimming t o that beach in the Tsugaru Strait from Honshu, Japan, nearly 30 miles away. The Tsugaru Strait is a leg of the Oceans Seven, seven open-water channels swimmers cross nonstop and without wetsuits. Lea put on about 20 pounds for each swim to insulate himself from the water temperatures in the channels. Other legs include the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar. Each is incredibly challenging. While Lea joined a very elite group who have ever completed the Oceans Seven challenge, he had also completed the Seven Summits challenge by climbing Mont Blanc along the French and Italian borders in 2026. Completing the Seven Summits entails climbing to reach the highest peaks on each continent, such as Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount McKinley.  As far as he knows, he’s the only human to have completed the Double Seven. “Oh my god, I’m on Hokkaido,” Lea said in a video he posted to his Instagram account from the beach. “That was really hard. I can’t believe I did it. I am so glad to be done with that swim. But I’m also so excited to have accomplished this long, long term goal.” Lea unknowingly started on this quest in 2009, when he climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, aiming for more climbing experience in preparation for climbing Mount McKinley, also known as Denali, in Alaska, a longstanding goal since seeing a picture of what he called a “beautiful mountain.” Even though he found the climb fairly easy as a near-professional triathlete, a storm blew in and climbers, including one from Park City, died. From this, Lea learned to be prepared for anything.  A standout athlete Lea grew up in Park City after his parents, Jim and Cindy Lea, moved here in 1975.  Lea’s love for sports and the outdoors was evident even as a young child. His parents installed a trampoline at their house when he was in preschool. He immediately broke his leg on it. “I don’t necessarily mean to use the term daredevil, but he was always looking for challenges,” his father said. Lea became a star swimmer at Park City High School, where he won individual state titles. He also played water polo, ran cross country and mountain biked. He was voted the most athletic person in his senior class of 1999. From left, Caroline Gleich, Rob Lea and their dog Lila, as well as parents Cindy and Jim Lea, gather in Silver Creek in mid-July. Credit: David Jackson/Park Record He went on to swim at the University of California, Davis, from 1999 to 2003, studying international relations and environmental studies. There, he realized he was a better long distance swimmer despite his success in short distances. He also studied abroad in Nepal and Spain, furthering his love for mountains and giving him more confidence with exploration and travel. Lea took jobs in Park City as a Deer Valley Resort lifty and swim instructor before joining his dad in real estate at Berkshire Hathaway Utah Properties in 2005. Flexibility as a realtor allows Lea to swim for hours at a time at the MARC or in the Jordanelle Reservoir, or hike, often alongside his dad or wife, ski mountaineer and political activist Caroline Gleich. He began to seriously tap back into his swimming and cross-country experience around 2008. He competed in 10-15 triathlons a year through 2012, when he won the half Ironman world championship for men 30-34. A half Ironman is a long-distance triathlon including a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and a half-marathon run.  As Lea pushed his body in these triathlons, his knee eventually gave out. He had his right knee scoped in 2013, which led to a year of recovery. In 2014, he met Gleich and the pair adventured together in the mountains. A quest takes shape Rob Lea summits Argentina’s Aconcagua, the tallest peak in South America, in January 2009. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Rob Lea Rob Lea summits Denali in Alaska, which is the highest peak in North America, in June 2010. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Rob Lea Rob Lea summits Mount Everest in May 2019. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Rob Lea swims the English Channel between England and France in July 2019. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Rob Lea’s hands are pruned after swimming the Catalina Channel between Catalina Island and the California mainland in August 2021. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Caroline Gleich and Rob Lea, right, summit Antarctica’s tallest peak, Vinson Massif, in December 2021. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Rob Lea Jim Lea and Rob Lea, right, summit Kilimanjaro in September 2022. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Rob Lea Rob Lea swims the Cook Straight between the North Island and South Island of New Zealand in March 2024. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Tommy Joyce Rob Lea grimaces during a leg cramp after swimming the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland in August 2024. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Tommy Joyce Rob Lea summits Puncak Jaya in Indonesia in February 2025. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Rob Lea Rob Lea swims the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco, in October 2025. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Rob Lea completes his swim of the Molokai Channel in November 2025. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Rob Lea summits Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in Europe, in May 2026. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Tommy Joyce Rob Lea swims the Tsugaru Straight, between Honshu and Hokkaido, Japan, on June 30. Credit: Photo Courtesy of Caroline Gleich Lea encountered another injury hurdle to clear in 2017, when, after feeling pain in his ankle, doctors told him he needed to have his right ankle reconstructed. He had broken his ankle before, once in middle school and again in high school. Having gone through rehabilitation before, he decided to map out his goals to climb Mount Everest, swim the English Channel and bike across the United States. He had seen debate on social media over whether climbing Everest or swimming the English Channel was more difficult, so he figured he’d make his own “ultimate world triathlon” including both. But first, ankle surgery and the recovery. He couldn’t put weight on the ankle for the first eight to 10 weeks after surgery. So he rented a hand bike from the National Ability Center in Park City and rode 100 miles from the Jordan River Parkway to Bountiful and part of the way back. Lea, Gleich and his parents said the bike ride across the country has been his toughest physical test to date. He completed his ultimate triathlon in five months in 2019, marrying Gleich at Snowbird in that period as well. Lea called Gleich his biggest motivator, always pushing him to aim for greater heights. “I think it’s partly from my background as a ski mountaineer, my personality and my upbringing,” Gleich said. “I like to dream big, set big, ambitious goals and see what I’m capable of, and it’s fun to be with someone that is also thinking about things that way. We’re both really curious about our potential.” Lea guessed he learned about the Oceans Seven challenge in 2020. He saw online that nobody had completed those swims and the Seven Summits challenge before, and was drawn to the possibility of becoming the first. With Lea’s history-making feat firmly in his sights, he continued onward in 2021 by climbing Vinson Massif in Antarctica with Gleich. Gleich joined him on all five of his climbs after the pair met. She was on his support boat helping him swim through five of the channels. Lea also swam the Catalina Channel in California in 2021. “We were a team,” Lea said. “To be able to climb these mountains, you need a team around you. And to be able to do it with my wife was invaluable. It just makes the experience that much more special.” Lea said Gleich’s climbing skills were key to the pair’s five summits. Lea and Gleich’s parents have often watched their quests with white knuckles, sometimes following along with a GPS tracking device in the middle of the night. They joined him on his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa in 2022. His father made it to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, while mother had to be taken to a hospital with an infection from a bug bite. His father was on the support boat as Lea swam the Catalina Channel in California in 2021, and his mother was on the support boat for the Catalina Channel swim and the Molokai Channel swim in Hawaii in 2025. Lea, Gleich and Lea’s parents described the Molokai Channel swim as his most difficult and scary of his 14 quests. He completed the Cook Strait swim in New Zealand and the North Channel swim between Scotland and Ireland in 2024, and the Strait of Gibraltar swim between Morocco and Spain and climbed Mont Blanc and Puncak Jaya in Indonesia in 2025.  The Molokai Channel swim took Lea 14 hours, and he developed swim-induced pulmonary edema, in which imbalances in his body cause excess fluid to enter his lungs, and rhabdomyolysis, which causes muscle fibers to die off and release toxins into the body. The rhabdomyolysis left him barely able to use his arms during the final pushes of the swim. Lea also kept an eye out for sharks, known for their aggression in Hawaiian waters. The last leg The Tsugaru Strait was the final leg after completing the swims and climbs in early 2026. He had attempted the swim in 2023, but then organizers laid out a path you had to stay on and he was pulled from the water during the swim because he wasn’t going to be able to complete it along that path in the 14 hours allotted. Lea said most other swimmers in Tsugaru in 2023 didn’t complete the challenge, either. But he believed he could complete the swim this time. Lea pushed through about 5 mph currents and swelling waves to complete the Tsugaru swim in just under 12 hours. He said the first half of the swim went to plan and when he could see Hokkaido in the distance, he thought he might finish the swim in about eight or nine hours. But he had to fight the currents, which created a windy, S-like-shaped path to swim. His support crew on the boat lathered him in Zinc to give him day-long protection from the sun and fed and rehydrated him via a retractable dog leash. The boat had to stop short of the shore, and a kayaker followed him to his final landing.  “In good conditions, I can probably swim two (to) two and a half miles an hour,” Lea said. “The current is basically five miles an hour, so you can imagine how strong that is and how difficult it is to fight the water. At some point, you just can’t fight that and it’s going to take you in the direction it wants to take you. … I can kind of enjoy moments of it, but it’s certainly a roller coaster because every time I might feel good for an hour, eventually I know that there’s going to be weather, currents, it’s going to get cold or I’m just going to start to get tired. I know that those other things are coming.” Adventures ahead Exhausted from the Tsugaru swim, Lea said he was happy to have a bit of time in Park City now to relax. Taking it easy for him and Gleich isn’t the same as most people, though. They are running across Park City in preparation for the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1.  Caroline Gleich and Rob Lea look through a gear room in their Silver Creek home after the couple returned from Lea’s swim of the Tsugaru Strait. Credit: David Jackson/Park Record Lea swims and climbs around Park City, the Cottonwood Canyons and the Uinta Mountains with Gleich to keep his cardio base high.  He said it’s time for him to support some of Gleich’s quests as she has done for him. Her next quest is to canoe in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to raise awareness that the area may be opened up for oil and gas drilling. Lea and Gleich said they believe being surrounded by such elite athletes, often Winter Olympians, in Park City helped push Lea, along with the benefits of being at a higher elevation, access to training spaces and doctors accustomed to working with top athletes. Lea said he views his quest as much more about perseverance than athleticism. “If there’s anything to take away from this, I hope people dream big and realize that we are capable of a lot more than we think we are,” he said. “Also, sometimes to accomplish a big goal, you have just got to put it on the calendar, book that ticket and start it. In many of these challenges and on most of the swims, when I started, I honestly wasn’t that confident that I’d be able to finish. But once you have the ticket booked and you’re there, you might as well give it a try and sometimes you’ll surprise yourself.” The post What possessed Rob Lea to tackle Oceans Seven and Seven Summits, the only human to do so? appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less