How did you keep your mind occupied for eight hours of relentless exertion? I rely on coaches to feed me good thoughts, positive vibes. I call for a group photo, it distracts me. I have to just focus and listen to the reassuring words of my coach, Renae Cobley. I have a lot of conversations with myself. I think about my boys. (He has three sons, ages 30, 28 and 26.) I actually fantasize about my life as a rock star. If I am hitting a wall, I will find a song in my play list. (Songs by Deep Purple and Tommy James and the Shondells were among those that kept him going.) Sometimes that will be enough to get me over the edge. For eight hours and 15 minutes and 15 seconds on the 15th of February, I was that rock star.

Your preparations included 2,100 hours of plank time, about 270,000 push-ups and nearly 674,000 situps. But how did you prepare just before the event?

Within 12 hours, I have to be done with my supper: grilled salmon, a ton of spinach and a nice baked potato. The drinking process starts the day before. I start throwing down water and electrolytes. When I wake up on event day I have to have a cup of coffee, a hard-boiled egg and a cup of oatmeal. I don’t take supplements on an empty stomach. You don’t want to get nauseous. They have to make me drink; they put the tube in my mouth. I burned 4,252 calories.

How do you come out of the plank after holding it that long? Do you just flop down?

That flies in the face of what the plank pose represents. Collapsing like that implies failure. You drop to your knees and slide back gradually into the child’s pose. That stretches the entire body most efficiently. It shows respect to the pose you have sustained.

Was the plank record the most difficult thing you’ve ever done in your life? No. Going to Afghanistan and watching that first Marine we lost in the early morning of Jan. 1, 2009, to see a kid not come home, and leave behind a brother in New York City, and he left behind a wife, that was difficult for me. Every time I do an event, I do a dedication to him. (Read about that Marine, Alberto Francesconi.)

So you have now broken the previous 2016 Guinness record of 8:01:00 set by Mao Weidong of China, and this was the seventh time you have set a world plank record.