re: Most epic physical achievement of all time?

Wade Boggs downing 64 beers on a cross country flight. L.A. to NYC.

Leonid Rogozov took out his own appendix.

LINK

James Lawrence AKA “The Iron Cowboy”.

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From the things I’ve read, I would say time in a Jap or Vietnamese pow camp stretched men to their absolute physical and mental limit, and surviving that is a major feat.

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We had guys who were POWs in Vietnam for 7+ years. frick that noise.

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Wade Boggs downing 64 beers on a cross country flight. L.A. to NYC.

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I always heard it was 72, i.e., a full 3 cases.

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Dashrath Manjhi, the Mountain Man, was not a bodybuilder or daredevil. He was a simple laborer in India. His wife died due to lack of medical treatment since the nearest doctor was 70 km away from his village. He did not want anyone else too suffer the same fate, so he carved a through cut that was 110 meters long, 7.6 meters deep in places and 9.1 meters wide to form a road through the mountain. He worked every day and night for 22 years to do this and reduced the distance between the Atri and Wazirganj areas of the Gaya district from 75 km to 1 km. He was given national acclaim for his feat. 

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This is one of the coolest things I've ever heard

Mom jokes never make me laugh but holy shite that cracked me up

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Alex Honnolds free solo climb of El Cap

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Spectacular to be sure, but I can think of a better one - Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition:

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Shackleton knew that to stay on the remote outpost, several hundred miles from the southernmost tip of South America, almost certainly meant death. So he and five volunteers took to the sea again in the 22.5-foot James Caird, largest of the lifeboats. Their goal: the whaling camps off South Georgia Island, some 800 miles north.

In what is now widely regarded as the most remarkable boat journey of all time, the men spent 17 days on the planet's stormiest ocean. Shackleton biographer Roland Huntford has described the Caird as "a cockleshell that was like an insect swimming in a tidal wave." Expedition member Frank Worsley, an expert navigator, took only four sextant readings along the way. Had his calculations been wrong by one degree, the Caird would have sailed off course. But the boat plunged straight on, through snow, hurricane-force wind and seas as high as 20 feet. The men pulled screws from the Caird and forced them into the soles of their boots for traction. Emaciated, they reached land, then had to trek 22 miles over the unmapped, glacier-draped mountains of South Georgia to reach the whaling port. As they began their 36-hour hike, Shackleton said, "If anything happens to me while those fellows are waiting for me, I shall feel like a murderer."

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The above link fails to mention that they crossed the mountains with only a small length of rope. Mostly their climbs were unprotected.



And then there's the guy who just a few months ago became the first many to cross Antarctica on foot and unassisted. He dragged his food and supplies with him all the way. The previous guy who tried this died.

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time in a Jap or Vietnamese pow camp stretched men to their absolute physical and mental limit, and surviving that is a major feat.

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Which is why I say that no matter what someone thought of John McCain's politics, anyone who disrespected his POW time should be deeply ashamed. He was singled out for "special treatment" once his captors realized his father was the admiral in charge of the Navy's effort in the region.