Like many kids, James Savage discovered a love for swimming when he was just five years old. Unlike many kids, however, he swam for 12 hours straight on Aug. 1, becoming the youngest to ever traverse the 21.3-mile length of Lake Tahoe at the age of 14, the Tahoe Daily Tribune reported.

“I had no doubts whatsoever,” his mother, Jillian Savage, told the outlet. “He’s been swimming almost every day, six, seven days a week since he was eight. With open water, it’s just what he does. But mentally, even though it takes a whole bunch of us to make the swim possible, he’s really out there by himself.”

The teen from Los Banos, California, completed the feat by starting in Camp Richardson in California’s South Lake Tahoe and reaching the shore at the Hyatt Regency in Nevada’s Incline Village.

But this wasn’t his first time crossing Lake Tahoe. Last August, at 13 years old, he had already become the youngest to swim the 12-mile length of the lake in what’s known as the “Godfather” swim, which begins at a mansion in Homewood, California (where “The Godfather: Part II” was filmed) and goes across to Cave Rock in Nevada. He had also previously swam the 10-mile Vikingsholm route on the southern end of the lake. With the three routes completed, he is now also the youngest person to earn Tahoe’s Triple Crown, Tahoe Daily Tribune noted.

Savage’s mom says that for her son, it wasn’t so much a physical challenge as a mental one to keep up his endurance. “It’s not like he can sit and talk to us when he gets bored,” she told the local newspaper. “His face is in the water and so really, he’s by himself. That’s what I sometimes worry about: Is he just going to get bored a few hours in and say, ‘Screw this,’ and want to get out?”

After all, when he was just nine, he swam from San Francisco’s Aquatic Park to Alcatraz and back, according to the Bay Area’s ABC affiliate ABC7. At that point, his dad had offered him $100, but when Savage started getting tired, he upped it to $200.

While it’s not yet known if any financial incentive was on the line for his latest Tahoe feat, his mom didn’t have any doubts. “He went out and he just did such a great job,” she told the Tahoe Daily Tribune. “I knew within the first mile that this was going to be done.”

As for Savage himself, it’s all about the adventure. “I definitely liked exploring different places because the pool… it’s all the same,” he told the paper. “Open water, you can swim in oceans, lakes, and you get to travel around.”