World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji (2020) s01e01 Episode Script
3, 2, 1... Go!
[ helicopter whirring ]
♪♪♪
[Bear Grylls] I'm Bear Grylls.
Welcome to Fiji
and this year's Eco-Challenge adventure race:
the World's Toughest Race.
Below me in every direction
is some of the toughest, most rugged,
most dangerous terrain
in all the world.
Steep mountains, sheer cliffs,
treacherous rivers
and miles and miles
of dense tropical jungle.
Eco-Challenge was a yearly event
that spawned the worldwide
adventure racing phenomenon.
And now, it has returned,
bigger and more punishing than ever before.
[ whistling ]
66 teams from 30 different countries
have descended on Fiji to compete
in this iconic race.
This unique sport allows all experience
levels on the same course
[woman] Woo hoo!
from elite teams racing for the podium
For us, it's to make sure that we win.
to courageous rookies
We have to finish this.
Like, have to.
whose goal is simply to complete
this grueling expedition.
[Chriss Smith] I have no clue
what to be afraid of.
I'm about to find out.
[Grylls] Teams will travel 671 kilometers
over the next 11 days.
Each day will present a new
array of relentless challenges,
designed to break them down
physically, mentally
Oh, my God. This is so hard.
and emotionally.
- Emma.
- [Emma] How long it is?
[Grylls] They'll endure some of the most
extreme conditions
they've ever encountered.
Along the way, they will pass
through 31 checkpoints
[man] Yes! Well done, girls!
and locate five hidden medallions.
I am so puzzled right now.
[Grylls] This is an expedition with a stopwatch
Yeah! Here we go!
and the clock is always ticking.
We're almost there.
If they sleep, they lose time.
- If they get lost, make mistakes
- We're lost!
fall behind and miss the cutoff time
Paddle through, paddle through!
their race is over.
[man] Mayday, mayday.
I don't mind climbing
I mind dying.
They must do it all without the
help of modern technology
Dan! I need help!
relying only their wits, their experience,
and each other.
[woman] Yow!
But, no matter what
[ man yelling in pain ]
all of them
are gonna suffer.
We've got a team down!
A team is down!
What year is it?
I'm in Eco-Challenge.
[Grylls] This is the World's Toughest Race.
[ whistling and cheering ]
[Mark Macy] I know this is the
World's Toughest Race.
I was at the last race in Fiji,
and, I tell you what,
that was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life.
[ all whistling and cheering ]
[Grylls] You ready?
Here we go.
[ dramatic music ]
- [ all cheering ]
- Whoo!
You ready?
[ applause and whistling ]
The World's Toughest Race is about to begin.
671 kilometers of mountains, jungles,
rivers, ocean, and swamp.
And it is brutal.
Remember the keys to your success here.
Number one: You've got to respect the wild.
Do not underestimate the distances.
Number two: Embrace the hurting.
You're going to get blisters.
Blisters heal. Get over it.
Number three: The World's Toughest Race,
we never leave a team member behind.
If one of your team gives up, gets injured,
the whole team is out.
Think you're ready to do this?
- Yeah!
- Okay, we're gonna get you to the boat.
[ all cheering ]
[ sounding shell ]
[Grylls] 66 boats, one for each team,
are waiting alongside this jungle river
[ happy chatter ]
each with a detailed map and supplies
for an epic expedition.
North-South, East-West that way.
Tashi and I have never done adventure racing
before,
and I am so scared.
[Grylls] Two things I'm certain of--
Number one, not everybody
is going to finish this course.
And number two, some real heroes
are going to emerge
and they're probably the unlikely ones.
- It's good, thanks.
[ Grylls ] These are the very cornerstones
of what makes great adventures
and great races.
Continue paddling towards
checkpoint one at Leleuvia Island.
We have no idea what to expect.
Like, that is probably my biggest fear.
There are just so many unknown elements,
that it's really hard to plan for this.
I'm not good at this. Within 5 minutes
of anchoring at the blue buoy
If we want to continue to be a champion team,
we need to race like champions
from the start of this race.
Whoo!
It's finally time, huh?
[Grylls] This is it, guys.
[ all shouting ]
- Okay!
- [all] Ho-ho-ho!
[Grylls] Five!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
Go!
[ sounding shell ]
[ applause ]
[ whistling ]
- Steer left!
- I'm trying!
The nervous tension here is insane.
♪♪♪
- [man] All heads up!
- [Grylls] Oh, no.
Wait, wait, wait! Stop! Stop!
The whole thing flipped over in the water.
- [woman] Back, back! Paddle back!
- [man] Man overboard!
[Grylls] Literally within 10 seconds of our start,
the first boat capsized, flipped,
has created a massive backlog here.
[ all shouting ]
Another one there, look.
Here we go.
New Zealand's capsized.
That's a top adventure racing team in the world,
and off to a shaky start.
- We just hit--
- We can't move.
What even happened?
[Grylls] No plan survives first
contact with the enemy.
The enemy here is the wild,
the terrain, the river,
and each other, and also those
nerves that make you shaky.
♪♪♪
The World's Toughest Race is underway.
♪♪♪
The World's Toughest Race
stretches over 671 kilometers
and is split into five legs.
Today, teams will tackle just a small portion
of the first leg,
which consists of this riverpaddle
that leads teams to the vast
expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
After 65 kilometers of crossing
the open ocean,
they reach the remote jungle
island of Ovalau,
where they face a challenging
20-kilometer loop
around an ancient volcanic crater,
before heading back to their
boats for more ocean navigation
through the darkness of night.
But right now, the biggest movers in the race
are the favorites,
Team New Zealand.
After suffering a flipped canoe
right at the start,
they're making a rapid recovery, passing
through the slower teams.
[Sophie Hart] Hup! Nice width, Stuart.
Nice width, Nath.
[Nathan Fa'avee] Our race had a bit of
a funny start.
We quite promptly capsized
our camakau canoe.
So, yeah, that was a little bit embarrassing,
but this race is obviously really long,
and there's so much that can happen.
[Sophie] Watch this.
Watch this here.
[Nathan] The advice I give to the rookie teams
is just to pace themselves.
I think it's very easy to get lured into
the fact that it's a race
and forget that it's actually an expedition.
Hut! Ho!
A lot of rookie teams, I
think, will just start too fast
and won't look after themselves,
won't look after each other,
and things just can sort of start
to spiral out of control after that.
[Sophie] Hup! One more.
It will be a long five hours
sitting out here. [ laughs ]
[Grylls] Just behind New Zealand
is a newly-formed American team,
comprised of both experienced
and rookie racers,
competing together with a unique purpose.
Good ride, yep. Taking that current with us.
Stay out of that right side.
Let's take this water movement out with us.
[Clifton Lyles] Team Onyx represents
the color of the people on our team.
I started racing in '99.
As I raced on and off for about a 20-year span,
in the middle of that, I realized that there
was no one else who looked like me.
And so, I figured that this was the time.
Fast waters to the right.
Choppy waters to the left.
That's why I'm trying to
keep us in the fast water.
We're the first African-American team to
compete
in an ultra-endurance expedition race.
Regardless of what color,
creed, religion you're from,
everyone has a place,
everyone has an opportunity,
and it's just having the drive and
determination to want to do it.
There you go. Pull back over to the right
just a little bit, Chriss.
Stay in this smooth water right here.
[Coree] Our team captain, Clifton,
his goal is basically to put together
a team of just, you know, black explorers,
and just really try to diversify the sport a little bit.
I also just kind of want to be a role model
for other children of color
and, you know, LGBTQ community
and go out and show them, like,
"Hey, there are other people like you out there
that are doing events like this,"
and that would be awesome.
[Sonja Wieck] Yeehaw! We're speedy, boys!
[all] U.S.A.!
We're having a party.
Party!
Whoo!
[Grylls] Already 10 kilometers
behind the leaders and in last place
is a mixed group of military
veterans and civilians,
all first-time adventure racers.
[all] Go, USA! Go, USA!
Bula, bula, bula!
I'm Hal Riley, and this is my
first year in adventure racing.
[Gretchen Evans] Here we go, guys!
We're doing it.
- Yeah!
- Yeah, we are!
We're made up of two civilians
and two combat veterans.
- Yep.
- Yeehaw!
Ho!
[Hal] Keith and Gretchen are both veterans who
were wounded in combat.
- Het!
- [all] Ho!
I'm Gretchen Evans.
I served in the military for 27 years.
I was deployed to Afghanistan
from 2005 and 2006.
I was out visiting troops one day,
and rockets started coming in,
and they were coming in
really hard and really fast.
A round landed.
[Gretchen voiceover] Het
When I woke up in Germany,
a young Army doctor was standing there,
and he had a dry erase board.
But he flipped that over, and he'd written the
words "You're deaf."
[ silence, ringing ]
I'm thinking, "Am I just deaf right now?
Am I going to get my hearing back?"
I took the board, and I
wrote the word "Forever?"
And he nodded his head.
[ voiceover ] Het
It was awful for me.
I went from being this highly-functioning soldier
with a career to zero.
If I can take anything from this injury and turn it
into good,
then the injury didn't
take anything away from me.
It's okay.
No regrets.
It's okay.
- [Gretchen] Het
- [all] Ho!
There are areas of our
lives where we are broken,
but that doesn't mean any of
us are functionally broken.
We are Unbroken.
- [Gretchen] Bye, guys! We'll see you later!
- [Hal] Good night!
[ Gretchen laughs ]
♪♪♪
Bula!
Bula vinaka!
Wow, you suddenly realize
how small these boats are
when you see them on the big ocean.
They just look tiny.
[ helicopter whirring ]
[Grylls] This ocean crossing
should not be taken lightly.
Any navigation error can result in teams getting
caught outside the reef,
and potentially stranded in the
middle of dangerous, open ocean.
And if they choose not to use their sails,
teams could be paddling for up to 12 hours
in the scorching sun,
and that's going to put the slower teams at risk
of not making the day 3 cutoff time.
Get a load of those frontrunners.
Wow, they're gunning it.
Veteran adventure racers Oregon Bend Racing
are out to an early lead.
It's going to be interesting to see
if they get their sails up,
because, really, once they're into ocean,
it's like 30 kilometers to the first checkpoint.
Despite their flip at the start, New Zealand's
already passed 60 teams,
and they're hunting down
Oregon's Bend Racing.
So, that New Zealand team,
the head of that crew, a guy called Nathan,
he's like the Michael
Jordan of adventure racing.
If I was the other teams, I'd
be looking at these guys
as the top, as the elite.
[Sophie] Hep!
One of the main reasons that I'm here
is because my teammates, who I've raced a lot
with in the last decade,
have never done anEco-Challenge,
so, when it was announced that Eco-Challenge
was coming back,
I think it got a lot of
excitement around the place,
and certainly with my teammates,and so,
I'm glad we came, and here I am.
A successful team has
many different components,
but one of the big things that we have
on our team for success
is having Sophie.
She is an incredible athlete,
and Sophie's also a doctor,
which can be really helpful,
should we have any problems out there.
[Sophie] I'm probably more nervous for this
race than I have been in a long time.
It wasn't that long ago
that I was sitting on the couch,
breastfeeding all day long.
My son's 8 and a half months old.
I just don't know how I'm going to go physically,
but it would be cool if other
women were inspired
to get out there after having a family,
and, you know, know that they can do it.
[Grylls] Team Bend Racing is now only minutes
ahead of New Zealand.
This is where you've got some
decision making to do.
Are you going to just use your
muscle power and keep paddling,
or are you going to get these sails up,
and try and harness the power of the wind,
use nature, conserve some energy?
These are their decisions,
but they're big decisions,
because what they decide now can have huge
implications later on.
[man] Why aren't you putting your sails up?
We're not putting the sails up,
because it's not windy enough.
And we're obviously doing okay paddling,
since we're in the front,
so might as well stick with this for a while.
Bend Racing has been together
for many, many years.
I joined the squad five years ago.
Stephen, shortly after me, and Jason and Dan
have been together racing
for 15, 16 years.
We had been training pretty
hard on the outrigger.
I'm disappointed that there wasn't really
enough wind to make the sailing worthwhile.
But Dan Staudigel, he's really the
horse of the team.
He is extremely strong.
So, we were cruising along in
the paddle and felt great.
Yeah! Woo!
Racing provides a really important piece
of structure to my life.
It gives me something to lean on
when things are difficult inother places.
And so, to me, I'm hoping that we can, like,
push pretty hard.
[Grylls] Trailing the leaders and just reaching
the sails up point
is a team of twin sisters representing India.
I'm Tashi, and I'm the team captain for
Team Khukuri Warriors.
In the team, I have my twin sister, Nungshi.
We need less wind if we tie the knot together.
Tashi and I, we didn't grow up thinking we'd be
mountaineers
or explorers or adventurers.
But once we got into the field,
we realized this was a passion that was
waiting to be discovered,
and we never looked back.
Tashi and I became the
first twins to climb Everest
and the first twins and siblings to have
done the Seven Summits.
Initially, when we got into
extreme mountaineering,
we realized there were very few women.
You know, coming from India society and
people thought this was crazy,
it meant a lot for us in terms of setting
a trend in the country
for young women and girls
to kind of take up the sport,
and that kind of became our mission.
[Nungshi] There's the island.
So, we wanted to prove, really,
that the girls in India are strong,
and they can achieve anything.
[Tashi] Keep going. Keep going.
We're not saying we're better than boys.
All we're saying is, we are as good as boys,
and we can compete with
ourselves to get there.
[Tashi] Turn right, turn right, turn right.
Our goal is to make it to the finish line, for sure.
[Tashi] I thought I saw a stingray
or something on the left.
Wow.
Keep going.
- One, two, three
- Hup!
[Grylls] After five hours in the relentless Fijian
sun,
Bend Racing's aggressive
paddling strategy has paid off,
and they're the first team
to arrive at checkpoint one.
Over the vast expanse of the course,
there are 31 separate checkpoints,
where teams must briefly stop,
get their race passports stamped,
time and placement recorded,
before moving on to the
next section of the course.
- Feeling good?
- Yeah, I'm feeling great.
- You're smashing it.
- [Melissa] It's good.
You know, hitting the first checkpoint
was a really high moment.
That was really amazing to finish that
short section in a great position.
It feels really good to go fast.
You'd think, be efficient
and use the power of the wind,
but, actually, you were so fast
Yeah, well, we've been practicing.
- Yeah.
- Thank you. We're checked out?
- Okay, you're off.
- Good? Alright.
[Grylls] You know, these guys are paddling.
You'd think, you know,
use the power of the wind,
you know, but you're burning
through your energy,
when, actually, you've got
a natural resource to do the work.
We don't know the answer to this yet, you know.
Are they burning it out too early, or
can they keep it going? I don't know.
- [both] Bula!
- Bula.
- [Grylls] Did you even try the sail?
- [Nathan] No.
- Really?
- We talked about it, but no.
And, why? What did you think?
Just not enough wind
You might, you might have gone about
the same speed just paddling, but
Yeah.
And do you not worry about,
like, conserving energy?
We weren't too worried today.
We might regret it later.
[Grylls] You're amazing.
Keep going, guys. Respect.
[Grylls] As the slower teams
filter through checkpoint one
Bula.
Bula vinaka.
more teams have been using sail power.
Feeling good!
[Mark] Get your paddle on, guys.
is far behind the leaders
and is conserving energy
for this long expedition race.
My team captain is Travis Macy,
who happens to be my son.
[Travis] If you guys want a different cadence,
just start counting.
Danelle or Shane.
We have Danelle Ballengee and
Excuse me a second.
I don't know if you know this or not,
but I've got Alzheimer's,
and, from time to time,
I can't remember things, you know,
particularly people's names
and so forth, okay, so
I hope that's not a problem,
but I just thought
I ought to tell you about it, so
My dad, Mace, began adventure racing
in the early days, 1995.
Throughout my teenage years, most of my
friends wanted to be Michael Jordan,
and I was out there riding my
bike and running in the woods,
pretending I'm my dad.
You guys, you want to go?
As we started planning
for the World's Toughest Race,
the original plan was for Dad to race
with Stray Dogs,
his original team, who had done
all of the previous Eco-Challenges together,
and for me to race with another team
that was potentially an elite team,
to, you know, maybe making a run
for a high placing.
Here, Dad.
Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and
that's news that hits
anyone like a ton of bricks,
and it's been very hard for all of us.
You want some more on your face, Dad?
A little bit.
As things progressed, we realized it probably
was not a very good fit for Dad
to be out there with his older teammates
who may not be as well prepared to support
him,
and probably even more so,
it was just wanting to be in it with him,
to do the race together.
[Mark] We didn't dawdle.
[Travis] Good job, you guys. Keep it up.
To do this race with my dad is
a priceless, once-in-a-lifetime experience,
and I am far more excited to go
out here and race with Dad
and go slow and try to make it through
than I would be if I was racing for the podium.
[Mark] Getting a little tough,
but we're still having fun.
[Tashi] Just a little bit.
Simple.
[Nungshi] So, tell them why they're there.
You don't even use that command right.
No, no, no, no.
That's the point.
Alright, do as you like, then.
We're having a moment.
The two of us are having a moment.
Sometimes it's surreal to me what me
and my twin have done together,
'cause we'll be best of friends and worst of
enemies.
Like, oh, like on the thing.
"It's your fault!
Do this right," and "Do that right."
It's like, give me a break, man.
I can make my own decisions sometimes.
Even for the Eco-Challenge,
when we were, like, deciding a team captain,
she automatically became the team captain.
I don't know how that happened.
I wasn't happy.
I wish I was. But, yeah, I
can't believe she's still the team captain.
It's hard to live with that.
I have to take a breather.
It's a twin thing.
She's like, "I should never
have gone with you. Never again."
But our fights only last about five minutes,
and then we're best of friends again.
Checkpoint one of the World's
Toughest Race.
Let me tell you.
We're giving ourselves a high five.
Moving onto checkpoint 2, as fast as we can.
How's that Speedo working out for you?
Oh, the Speedo's working great for me.
I tend to think that I'm kind of a shy person,
yet when you see me racing,
I definitely like to be noticed.
- Wow, that sun just really came out.
- What sun?
Holy moly.
I brought a Speedo for
every day of this challenge,
because, I mean,
what would not make someone smile,
other than, you know,
just some random black dude
running around in the woods in a Speedo?
[Coree] Yeah, here we go!
And I just make it happen.
Whoo-wee!
[Dan Abel] Are we in first place?
- Ha!
When I crossed the finish
line in Eco-Challenge 2002,
the first two people that I
greeted were my daughters,
and it was one of the most
defining moments of my life.
We're sailors.
Now, having the opportunity to
race with them as grown women
is-- I've been looking forward to this for so long.
- Lauren.
- [Lauren] What?
- Why did you tie this so aggressively?
- [Dan] I did.
Oh. Mm. This makes more sense.
[Lauren] We're freaking sailors.
I got into adventure racing from
Watching my dad adventure race.
And somewhere along the line,
I kind of picked it up as well.
My family is very unique.
We're very goofy with each other.
We're very close.
I think any team doing this sport is really close,
but adding the family
dynamic is, um, interesting.
[Dan] Okay, we're paddling.
We're paddling.
Everyone get a paddle.
[Grylls] After leaving checkpoint one,
teams face another 17 kilometers
of ocean navigation
before they reach land again, at checkpoint 2.
Here, they'll embark on a grueling
20-kilometer island trek
before returning to their boats
and heading out to find
the first medallion of the race.
[ helicopter whirring ]
So, there are five different medallions
hidden throughout this course,
one for each leg of the journey.
So, we're going now to where
the first medallion is hidden.
Okay, here's the reef.
Okay, into a hover, and then
we're going to bring it down.
One racer from each team
is going to have to freedive down,
it's about 15 or 20 foot to the ocean floor,
and then they've got to locate
this hidden medallion.
Whoa! One medallion.
And they're going to need
a big breath of air for this.
What you've got to remember
is some of the lead teams
are going to be doing this in the dark.
This is going to be hard.
We're now over seven hours into the race.
If this was an Ironman, they would be nearing
the finish line.
There we go.
But these teams still have to endure over
ten days of non-stop racing action.
- Hut!
- Ho!
Oregon's Bend Racing
are hanging onto first place,
despite being chased relentlessly
by reigning champions New Zealand.
[Sophie] Hup! Nice, Nath.
Bend Racing is the first team to arrive
at Ovalau Island and checkpoint 2,
which serves as the beginning and the end
of the treacherous 20-kilometer loop.
[Jason Magness] This is an 11-day race.
We know a lot of these racers,
and we're definitely capable
of being the top U.S. team,
but the question is, how do we
stay in this emotional state
of believing that we can keep going on?
- [Melissa] Ah, bula, bula!
- Bula! Yeah!
[man] Bula! Yay!
[Melissa] Each one of us has a kid under a year,
and we know that the faster we go,
the faster we get home to our kids
and our families.
We will cross the finish line.
There-- there's no doubt in my mind.
Unless somebody is completely broken,
and they won't let us go on with three,
we will finish the race.
[Grylls] As Oregon's Bend Racing
hustles to prepare for the jungle trek,
Team New Zealand is right on their heels.
The question is, how long will Bend Racing
be able to keep up this pace?
We've got to keep this train going.
It's hot out here, without a breeze.
- It's a little rough.
- Keep moving.
[Sophie] So, what do we need to do here?
Chris is gonna put our packs on.
I'm going to fill my bladder up. Okay?
[Stephen] Cheers.
We're leaving.
[Grylls] Oregon's Bend Racing wastes little time
and pushes forward to keep ahead of the Kiwis.
A little surprised, a little psyched.
All the paddle training's been paying off.
And we'd like somebody to turn
the heat down.
I'd like a little more wind out there.
All right, we have to jog it down.
Dan, you OK?
No.
[Dan] Might be able to jog, but I'm not okay.
[ helicopter whirring ]
It is amazing just looking down on this.
Dense jungle, steep ravines.
And what I'm going to be interested in, though,
is who is in these frontrunners now,
because is it going to be the
ones that were using muscle only
and not using the wind, they were paddling,
they didn't put their sails up?
They went like rockets, but are
they still gonna be going like rockets?
It's gonna be amazing to see
what condition some of the leaders are in.
[ kids yelling ]
Uh, sit down.
Don't-- don't put your head down, okay?
Take the sunglasses.
I'm pulling out my water.
I don't think we'll need to refill.
Dan was our engine crossing the ocean.
We might have ran the engine a little hot.
So, we're giving it some time to cool off.
Being up at the top of the pack
with all the other teams coming up right behind
us,
we just got excited about moving
and kept the forward progress,
and it just got too hot for Dan,
and he basically started to overheat.
It's a really tough pill to
swallow when a teammate,
so, basically, the whole team,
kind of goes downhill,
and then you watch teams pass you,
and it's like, "Oh, my gosh!
This is so demoralizing."
We just got to keep him moving.
It's gonna be hard to carry him up the mountain.
So, manifest mountain climbing, Dan.
Positive energy, mountain climbing.
Hopefully, we can just get him into the night
and let his body temperature drop some.
Then he'll bounce back
and be super strong again.
And a lot of it, too, is mental, you know?
Once you get in a hole,
it's hard to let yourself climb out.
Because you feel so horrible.
You know, trying to race competitively,
it'd be great if we could just
stop until everybody felt better.
But that's not a way to finish
the Eco-Challenge, and we know that.
[Jason] You know, that big of a guy,
when he goes down, it takes all
three of us to nurse him along.
If I go down, you know,
he can put me on his shoulder,
and somebody can carry my pack,
and, like, they can do
whatever they want with me.
Um Dan-- Dan takes a little more work.
But, you know, we're willing to do it, so
And he's willing to let us,
so that's the important thing.
Thank you.
Keep up, keep up.
[Grylls] Lead teams are now
moving from checkpoint 3 to checkpoint 4,
the summit of the island trek.
To find the next checkpoint,
teams must demonstrate
not only expert navigation skills,
but also the ability to endure
the extreme heat and humidity
of this remote island.
Oh, what is it now?
Having overtaken Oregon's Bend Racing
and claiming the lead for the first time in the
race,
Team New Zealand have completely rebounded
from flipping their boat at the start,
challenging other elite teams to keep pace.
[Nathan] We were actually quite happy.
If you can be racing
conservatively and be in the lead,
I think, mentally, it puts you
in a good head space as well.
It sounds crazy, 'cause our
team has won more races
than any other team in the history of the sport,
but that gets pushed aside,
and we just focus on the
process and on the basics.
Because we'll be going at
a pace that is good for us,
and the reality is that,
that pace is going to be too fast
for just about every other team.
[Grylls] Ten kilometers behind
the leaders, in the middle of the pack,
is a rookie team from America,
with a unique racing pedigree.
I think we've done 126 Ironmans
Yeah, buddy.
like, if you add all of ours up.
Did something called "The 50,"
which is 50 Ironmans, 50 days, 50 states,
and everyone told us it was impossible.
My name is James Lawrence,
otherwise known as the Iron Cowboy.
We're underdogs.
This race eats Ironmans for breakfast.
But the Iron Cowboy?
That dude's a bad, bad man,
and he's here right now in Fiji
to take on the Toughest Race.
Sonja has been part of my life since 2010.
I'd never heard of adventure racing.
This is all foreign to me.
She wanted to do it
She said, "Who's the craziest Ironman I know?"
It was this guy.
And I just thought, "Iron Cowboy." It's got to be.
"If I'm gonna put together a
team of Ironman athletes,
I'm gonna call the Cowboy."
"And holy hell, we're gonna be there."
"And I'm gonna give Bear
Grylls a big, slobbery kiss
- when I see him on the finish line."
- [ laughing ]
[Grylls] As the sun begins to set on day one,
several more teams arrive at checkpoint 2
to begin their jungle trek.
- You all good, Dad?
- Yeah.
Where are we going? We going walking?
Yeah. We've got a road walk for a little bit.
I think, for our team,
specifically, we have unknowns
related to Dad's cognitive function.
It's alright.
[Travis] We're really going to
have to watch out for that.
We're going to sleep a lot more
than we've done previously in races.
- We leaving?
- Yep.
- Here's Trav, right here.
- You're leaving?
You got it.
- You got it!
- 17:46
[Travis] His visual/spatial
awareness has become impaired,
and that's truly going to be a team effort.
We're confident that we can do it,
and that's why it's a team sport.
I'm a mountain guy.
I don't get into the water very often, so
Pretty much.
[Grylls] As the full darkness of night sets in,
the pro teams are returning to their boats
[woman] Go, Coree!
Hey, nice job, guys.
[Clifton] Good job, guys.
lapping the rookie teams,
who are just now finishing the ocean paddle.
[man] How's Gretchen doing?
- Hanging in there.
- Yeah? Spirits are high?
- Yes, sir. Indeed.
- Okay. Good job.
[Grylls] This location is checkpoint 2,
for teams arriving from the ocean,
and it also serves as checkpoint 5
for the teams that are finishing the jungle trek.
Heading back out?
- We're heading out.
- [Gretchen] Stay safe.
Nice to meet you.
It is one of the only times in the race
where rookie teams will cross
paths with the pro teams,
getting a visual on how fast these elite racers
are moving through the course.
I think it's amazing to
watch people do their sport
when they're good at it, you know?
So, I mean, it is pretty cool to watch that,
although I think we held our own quite well.
Unfortunately for us at this time,
New Zealand, which is a great team,
is already well ahead, but, you know,
that's to be expected for them.
We're at checkpoint 2.
We've got some good time to get ready.
We're getting dry, getting off the water,
heading to our jungle trek,
and getting our race started, you know.
We're a ground team,
so we're looking forward to this part.
[Grylls] As the back of the
pack heads out on their jungle trek,
the lead teams have pulled away
and are approaching the first medallion.
The ocean medallion is located 5 meters down,
on the darkness of the ocean floor.
Grab the line, if you can.
Continue to shine your light right there.
I can't see it.
"Approximately 5 meters off the
anchor of the blue marker buoy,
between the anchor and the island."
So, pretty much underneath us.
There's something down there.
[Grylls] Captain Nathan Fa'avae volunteers
to do the night dive for the Kiwi team.
I can see some stuff over
there below the boat.
What's there?
I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for.
You see this light, it's like a stone.
Oh, now I see it. It's on the boat.
Did you get it?
Yeah.
- Alright, where are we going?
- I'm going to go onto the shore.
[Grylls] Back on Ovalau,
Team Unbroken is one of the last teams
to reach checkpoint 3.
But facing difficult nighttime navigation
and terrain with a deaf teammate,
the team must weigh their options.
[Hal] So, as far as looking in the ridge below,
option one, this road that we
came up, we could travel that way back.
Option B, we can follow this trail
and then bushwhack our way through.
- Here's my read.
- Okay.
My instinct at this point and that we're tired is
we go back until we follow a path that we know.
[Gretchen] This was a hard day today.
Since we knew the route back to checkpoint 2,
we decided it was in our best interest
not to get lost in the jungle at night,
and also because my lip-reading capability
diminishes greatly
if I can't see your face.
So, if it's dark out there,
even with the red lens on their heads,
I can't always see their lips.
So, we're almost reduced to just hand signals.
[Grylls] Team Unbroken is making
a potentially costly decision--
choosing to skip the shorter
jungle route to checkpoint 4,
opting instead to double back
to the start of the trek,
and climb up to checkpoint 4
from the other side of the ridge.
This dramatically lengthens
the overall distance of the trek
and puts their chances
of making the day 3 cutoff
in serious jeopardy.
I'm fine with that now, but at a certain point,
we're gonna have to make up time.
We're gonna have to take the
less safe route at some point.
We're gonna have to
uh, take some risks, otherwise, we're not
gonna make the two-and-a-half days.
I agree.
[Keith Knoop] Decided to make
a command decision, I guess.
We have a team captain.
It's not a democracy.
I gave him my input. We all gave him input.
At the end of the day, that's his choice to make.
Personally, I think we should
have pushed through.
You know, once I'm in "go" mode,
it's hard to turn it off. [ chuckles ]
- Yeah, we'll head back.
- Okay.
I'm trying to make a call as a captain,
that we're tired and worn out,
and I think we're gonna get out there
and get turned around.
- Back it up.
- Let's do it.
[Hal] We just hoofed it up a long road.
We're going to turn around and hoof it back.
Make some good time.
Hope it works out.
[Grylls] Meanwhile, the other trailing teams
are continuing through the night,
moving past checkpoint 3,
in search of checkpoint 4.
[Nungshi] I don't know where
you guys are headed, but
- To the proper intersection of the road.
- Wait, wait, wait.
Okay, tell me where we are.
We climbed up-- this is the mountain.
Now we're climbing up here.
So, we climbed here. Go down.
Just backtracking a little bit,
but generally heading in the right direction.
[Travis] Keep grabbing the bamboo, Dad.
It is slippery.
Hang on here.
Probably a little bit further up,
maybe over here.
My only concern is that
I'm hearing a river on the left
You are?
and according to this,
I should be hearing a river on the right.
We just got here.
[Dan Abel] Did you tell them it's hot
as balls on this island?
It's like a sauna. I feel like I'm in hot yoga.
[ exhales heavily ]
[Grylls] Now, over 14 hours into the race,
early leaders Oregon's Bend Racing
have slowly moved down the leader board
and find themselves in 57th place.
[Jason] Dan, you okay?
[Grylls] As they struggle to get Dan
to the peak of the island trek
You alright?
Dan's health is rapidly declining.
He got really hot in the boat
and just couldn't recover.
He's been dealing with
temperature regulation and
[Jason] Dan! You okay?
[Melissa] You know, Dan's a big
guy, and he just bombed hard.
- I'll check us in.
- Nice work, buddy.
You did it. We're here.
Just look up and breathe.
Deep breath.
[Melissa] He was in a really bad state
of heatstroke. His eyes changed color.
His voice changed.
His whole body was seizing up.
is there water up here?
[Stephen] No, we have no water.
- I have some water right here.
- [Stephen] We have little sips.
You can take it all.
[ Dan groaning ]
How far to the
TA? (Transition Area)
It's gonna take us 10 hours at this pace.
It's not worth it.
Like, we can't, we can't move with you like this.
We just gotta get you better so
that we can actually get down
before we all turn into you.
[Melissa] We've all got to work
together as a team.
- How are your calves?
- My calves are OK.
[Melissa] We're doing whatever
we can to get him moving forward.
The entire race basically hangs in the balance.
♪♪♪
[LION ROARS]
♪♪♪
[Bear Grylls] I'm Bear Grylls.
Welcome to Fiji
and this year's Eco-Challenge adventure race:
the World's Toughest Race.
Below me in every direction
is some of the toughest, most rugged,
most dangerous terrain
in all the world.
Steep mountains, sheer cliffs,
treacherous rivers
and miles and miles
of dense tropical jungle.
Eco-Challenge was a yearly event
that spawned the worldwide
adventure racing phenomenon.
And now, it has returned,
bigger and more punishing than ever before.
[ whistling ]
66 teams from 30 different countries
have descended on Fiji to compete
in this iconic race.
This unique sport allows all experience
levels on the same course
[woman] Woo hoo!
from elite teams racing for the podium
For us, it's to make sure that we win.
to courageous rookies
We have to finish this.
Like, have to.
whose goal is simply to complete
this grueling expedition.
[Chriss Smith] I have no clue
what to be afraid of.
I'm about to find out.
[Grylls] Teams will travel 671 kilometers
over the next 11 days.
Each day will present a new
array of relentless challenges,
designed to break them down
physically, mentally
Oh, my God. This is so hard.
and emotionally.
- Emma.
- [Emma] How long it is?
[Grylls] They'll endure some of the most
extreme conditions
they've ever encountered.
Along the way, they will pass
through 31 checkpoints
[man] Yes! Well done, girls!
and locate five hidden medallions.
I am so puzzled right now.
[Grylls] This is an expedition with a stopwatch
Yeah! Here we go!
and the clock is always ticking.
We're almost there.
If they sleep, they lose time.
- If they get lost, make mistakes
- We're lost!
fall behind and miss the cutoff time
Paddle through, paddle through!
their race is over.
[man] Mayday, mayday.
I don't mind climbing
I mind dying.
They must do it all without the
help of modern technology
Dan! I need help!
relying only their wits, their experience,
and each other.
[woman] Yow!
But, no matter what
[ man yelling in pain ]
all of them
are gonna suffer.
We've got a team down!
A team is down!
What year is it?
I'm in Eco-Challenge.
[Grylls] This is the World's Toughest Race.
[ whistling and cheering ]
[Mark Macy] I know this is the
World's Toughest Race.
I was at the last race in Fiji,
and, I tell you what,
that was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life.
[ all whistling and cheering ]
[Grylls] You ready?
Here we go.
[ dramatic music ]
- [ all cheering ]
- Whoo!
You ready?
[ applause and whistling ]
The World's Toughest Race is about to begin.
671 kilometers of mountains, jungles,
rivers, ocean, and swamp.
And it is brutal.
Remember the keys to your success here.
Number one: You've got to respect the wild.
Do not underestimate the distances.
Number two: Embrace the hurting.
You're going to get blisters.
Blisters heal. Get over it.
Number three: The World's Toughest Race,
we never leave a team member behind.
If one of your team gives up, gets injured,
the whole team is out.
Think you're ready to do this?
- Yeah!
- Okay, we're gonna get you to the boat.
[ all cheering ]
[ sounding shell ]
[Grylls] 66 boats, one for each team,
are waiting alongside this jungle river
[ happy chatter ]
each with a detailed map and supplies
for an epic expedition.
North-South, East-West that way.
Tashi and I have never done adventure racing
before,
and I am so scared.
[Grylls] Two things I'm certain of--
Number one, not everybody
is going to finish this course.
And number two, some real heroes
are going to emerge
and they're probably the unlikely ones.
- It's good, thanks.
[ Grylls ] These are the very cornerstones
of what makes great adventures
and great races.
Continue paddling towards
checkpoint one at Leleuvia Island.
We have no idea what to expect.
Like, that is probably my biggest fear.
There are just so many unknown elements,
that it's really hard to plan for this.
I'm not good at this. Within 5 minutes
of anchoring at the blue buoy
If we want to continue to be a champion team,
we need to race like champions
from the start of this race.
Whoo!
It's finally time, huh?
[Grylls] This is it, guys.
[ all shouting ]
- Okay!
- [all] Ho-ho-ho!
[Grylls] Five!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
Go!
[ sounding shell ]
[ applause ]
[ whistling ]
- Steer left!
- I'm trying!
The nervous tension here is insane.
♪♪♪
- [man] All heads up!
- [Grylls] Oh, no.
Wait, wait, wait! Stop! Stop!
The whole thing flipped over in the water.
- [woman] Back, back! Paddle back!
- [man] Man overboard!
[Grylls] Literally within 10 seconds of our start,
the first boat capsized, flipped,
has created a massive backlog here.
[ all shouting ]
Another one there, look.
Here we go.
New Zealand's capsized.
That's a top adventure racing team in the world,
and off to a shaky start.
- We just hit--
- We can't move.
What even happened?
[Grylls] No plan survives first
contact with the enemy.
The enemy here is the wild,
the terrain, the river,
and each other, and also those
nerves that make you shaky.
♪♪♪
The World's Toughest Race is underway.
♪♪♪
The World's Toughest Race
stretches over 671 kilometers
and is split into five legs.
Today, teams will tackle just a small portion
of the first leg,
which consists of this riverpaddle
that leads teams to the vast
expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
After 65 kilometers of crossing
the open ocean,
they reach the remote jungle
island of Ovalau,
where they face a challenging
20-kilometer loop
around an ancient volcanic crater,
before heading back to their
boats for more ocean navigation
through the darkness of night.
But right now, the biggest movers in the race
are the favorites,
Team New Zealand.
After suffering a flipped canoe
right at the start,
they're making a rapid recovery, passing
through the slower teams.
[Sophie Hart] Hup! Nice width, Stuart.
Nice width, Nath.
[Nathan Fa'avee] Our race had a bit of
a funny start.
We quite promptly capsized
our camakau canoe.
So, yeah, that was a little bit embarrassing,
but this race is obviously really long,
and there's so much that can happen.
[Sophie] Watch this.
Watch this here.
[Nathan] The advice I give to the rookie teams
is just to pace themselves.
I think it's very easy to get lured into
the fact that it's a race
and forget that it's actually an expedition.
Hut! Ho!
A lot of rookie teams, I
think, will just start too fast
and won't look after themselves,
won't look after each other,
and things just can sort of start
to spiral out of control after that.
[Sophie] Hup! One more.
It will be a long five hours
sitting out here. [ laughs ]
[Grylls] Just behind New Zealand
is a newly-formed American team,
comprised of both experienced
and rookie racers,
competing together with a unique purpose.
Good ride, yep. Taking that current with us.
Stay out of that right side.
Let's take this water movement out with us.
[Clifton Lyles] Team Onyx represents
the color of the people on our team.
I started racing in '99.
As I raced on and off for about a 20-year span,
in the middle of that, I realized that there
was no one else who looked like me.
And so, I figured that this was the time.
Fast waters to the right.
Choppy waters to the left.
That's why I'm trying to
keep us in the fast water.
We're the first African-American team to
compete
in an ultra-endurance expedition race.
Regardless of what color,
creed, religion you're from,
everyone has a place,
everyone has an opportunity,
and it's just having the drive and
determination to want to do it.
There you go. Pull back over to the right
just a little bit, Chriss.
Stay in this smooth water right here.
[Coree] Our team captain, Clifton,
his goal is basically to put together
a team of just, you know, black explorers,
and just really try to diversify the sport a little bit.
I also just kind of want to be a role model
for other children of color
and, you know, LGBTQ community
and go out and show them, like,
"Hey, there are other people like you out there
that are doing events like this,"
and that would be awesome.
[Sonja Wieck] Yeehaw! We're speedy, boys!
[all] U.S.A.!
We're having a party.
Party!
Whoo!
[Grylls] Already 10 kilometers
behind the leaders and in last place
is a mixed group of military
veterans and civilians,
all first-time adventure racers.
[all] Go, USA! Go, USA!
Bula, bula, bula!
I'm Hal Riley, and this is my
first year in adventure racing.
[Gretchen Evans] Here we go, guys!
We're doing it.
- Yeah!
- Yeah, we are!
We're made up of two civilians
and two combat veterans.
- Yep.
- Yeehaw!
Ho!
[Hal] Keith and Gretchen are both veterans who
were wounded in combat.
- Het!
- [all] Ho!
I'm Gretchen Evans.
I served in the military for 27 years.
I was deployed to Afghanistan
from 2005 and 2006.
I was out visiting troops one day,
and rockets started coming in,
and they were coming in
really hard and really fast.
A round landed.
[Gretchen voiceover] Het
When I woke up in Germany,
a young Army doctor was standing there,
and he had a dry erase board.
But he flipped that over, and he'd written the
words "You're deaf."
[ silence, ringing ]
I'm thinking, "Am I just deaf right now?
Am I going to get my hearing back?"
I took the board, and I
wrote the word "Forever?"
And he nodded his head.
[ voiceover ] Het
It was awful for me.
I went from being this highly-functioning soldier
with a career to zero.
If I can take anything from this injury and turn it
into good,
then the injury didn't
take anything away from me.
It's okay.
No regrets.
It's okay.
- [Gretchen] Het
- [all] Ho!
There are areas of our
lives where we are broken,
but that doesn't mean any of
us are functionally broken.
We are Unbroken.
- [Gretchen] Bye, guys! We'll see you later!
- [Hal] Good night!
[ Gretchen laughs ]
♪♪♪
Bula!
Bula vinaka!
Wow, you suddenly realize
how small these boats are
when you see them on the big ocean.
They just look tiny.
[ helicopter whirring ]
[Grylls] This ocean crossing
should not be taken lightly.
Any navigation error can result in teams getting
caught outside the reef,
and potentially stranded in the
middle of dangerous, open ocean.
And if they choose not to use their sails,
teams could be paddling for up to 12 hours
in the scorching sun,
and that's going to put the slower teams at risk
of not making the day 3 cutoff time.
Get a load of those frontrunners.
Wow, they're gunning it.
Veteran adventure racers Oregon Bend Racing
are out to an early lead.
It's going to be interesting to see
if they get their sails up,
because, really, once they're into ocean,
it's like 30 kilometers to the first checkpoint.
Despite their flip at the start, New Zealand's
already passed 60 teams,
and they're hunting down
Oregon's Bend Racing.
So, that New Zealand team,
the head of that crew, a guy called Nathan,
he's like the Michael
Jordan of adventure racing.
If I was the other teams, I'd
be looking at these guys
as the top, as the elite.
[Sophie] Hep!
One of the main reasons that I'm here
is because my teammates, who I've raced a lot
with in the last decade,
have never done anEco-Challenge,
so, when it was announced that Eco-Challenge
was coming back,
I think it got a lot of
excitement around the place,
and certainly with my teammates,and so,
I'm glad we came, and here I am.
A successful team has
many different components,
but one of the big things that we have
on our team for success
is having Sophie.
She is an incredible athlete,
and Sophie's also a doctor,
which can be really helpful,
should we have any problems out there.
[Sophie] I'm probably more nervous for this
race than I have been in a long time.
It wasn't that long ago
that I was sitting on the couch,
breastfeeding all day long.
My son's 8 and a half months old.
I just don't know how I'm going to go physically,
but it would be cool if other
women were inspired
to get out there after having a family,
and, you know, know that they can do it.
[Grylls] Team Bend Racing is now only minutes
ahead of New Zealand.
This is where you've got some
decision making to do.
Are you going to just use your
muscle power and keep paddling,
or are you going to get these sails up,
and try and harness the power of the wind,
use nature, conserve some energy?
These are their decisions,
but they're big decisions,
because what they decide now can have huge
implications later on.
[man] Why aren't you putting your sails up?
We're not putting the sails up,
because it's not windy enough.
And we're obviously doing okay paddling,
since we're in the front,
so might as well stick with this for a while.
Bend Racing has been together
for many, many years.
I joined the squad five years ago.
Stephen, shortly after me, and Jason and Dan
have been together racing
for 15, 16 years.
We had been training pretty
hard on the outrigger.
I'm disappointed that there wasn't really
enough wind to make the sailing worthwhile.
But Dan Staudigel, he's really the
horse of the team.
He is extremely strong.
So, we were cruising along in
the paddle and felt great.
Yeah! Woo!
Racing provides a really important piece
of structure to my life.
It gives me something to lean on
when things are difficult inother places.
And so, to me, I'm hoping that we can, like,
push pretty hard.
[Grylls] Trailing the leaders and just reaching
the sails up point
is a team of twin sisters representing India.
I'm Tashi, and I'm the team captain for
Team Khukuri Warriors.
In the team, I have my twin sister, Nungshi.
We need less wind if we tie the knot together.
Tashi and I, we didn't grow up thinking we'd be
mountaineers
or explorers or adventurers.
But once we got into the field,
we realized this was a passion that was
waiting to be discovered,
and we never looked back.
Tashi and I became the
first twins to climb Everest
and the first twins and siblings to have
done the Seven Summits.
Initially, when we got into
extreme mountaineering,
we realized there were very few women.
You know, coming from India society and
people thought this was crazy,
it meant a lot for us in terms of setting
a trend in the country
for young women and girls
to kind of take up the sport,
and that kind of became our mission.
[Nungshi] There's the island.
So, we wanted to prove, really,
that the girls in India are strong,
and they can achieve anything.
[Tashi] Keep going. Keep going.
We're not saying we're better than boys.
All we're saying is, we are as good as boys,
and we can compete with
ourselves to get there.
[Tashi] Turn right, turn right, turn right.
Our goal is to make it to the finish line, for sure.
[Tashi] I thought I saw a stingray
or something on the left.
Wow.
Keep going.
- One, two, three
- Hup!
[Grylls] After five hours in the relentless Fijian
sun,
Bend Racing's aggressive
paddling strategy has paid off,
and they're the first team
to arrive at checkpoint one.
Over the vast expanse of the course,
there are 31 separate checkpoints,
where teams must briefly stop,
get their race passports stamped,
time and placement recorded,
before moving on to the
next section of the course.
- Feeling good?
- Yeah, I'm feeling great.
- You're smashing it.
- [Melissa] It's good.
You know, hitting the first checkpoint
was a really high moment.
That was really amazing to finish that
short section in a great position.
It feels really good to go fast.
You'd think, be efficient
and use the power of the wind,
but, actually, you were so fast
Yeah, well, we've been practicing.
- Yeah.
- Thank you. We're checked out?
- Okay, you're off.
- Good? Alright.
[Grylls] You know, these guys are paddling.
You'd think, you know,
use the power of the wind,
you know, but you're burning
through your energy,
when, actually, you've got
a natural resource to do the work.
We don't know the answer to this yet, you know.
Are they burning it out too early, or
can they keep it going? I don't know.
- [both] Bula!
- Bula.
- [Grylls] Did you even try the sail?
- [Nathan] No.
- Really?
- We talked about it, but no.
And, why? What did you think?
Just not enough wind
You might, you might have gone about
the same speed just paddling, but
Yeah.
And do you not worry about,
like, conserving energy?
We weren't too worried today.
We might regret it later.
[Grylls] You're amazing.
Keep going, guys. Respect.
[Grylls] As the slower teams
filter through checkpoint one
Bula.
Bula vinaka.
more teams have been using sail power.
Feeling good!
[Mark] Get your paddle on, guys.
is far behind the leaders
and is conserving energy
for this long expedition race.
My team captain is Travis Macy,
who happens to be my son.
[Travis] If you guys want a different cadence,
just start counting.
Danelle or Shane.
We have Danelle Ballengee and
Excuse me a second.
I don't know if you know this or not,
but I've got Alzheimer's,
and, from time to time,
I can't remember things, you know,
particularly people's names
and so forth, okay, so
I hope that's not a problem,
but I just thought
I ought to tell you about it, so
My dad, Mace, began adventure racing
in the early days, 1995.
Throughout my teenage years, most of my
friends wanted to be Michael Jordan,
and I was out there riding my
bike and running in the woods,
pretending I'm my dad.
You guys, you want to go?
As we started planning
for the World's Toughest Race,
the original plan was for Dad to race
with Stray Dogs,
his original team, who had done
all of the previous Eco-Challenges together,
and for me to race with another team
that was potentially an elite team,
to, you know, maybe making a run
for a high placing.
Here, Dad.
Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and
that's news that hits
anyone like a ton of bricks,
and it's been very hard for all of us.
You want some more on your face, Dad?
A little bit.
As things progressed, we realized it probably
was not a very good fit for Dad
to be out there with his older teammates
who may not be as well prepared to support
him,
and probably even more so,
it was just wanting to be in it with him,
to do the race together.
[Mark] We didn't dawdle.
[Travis] Good job, you guys. Keep it up.
To do this race with my dad is
a priceless, once-in-a-lifetime experience,
and I am far more excited to go
out here and race with Dad
and go slow and try to make it through
than I would be if I was racing for the podium.
[Mark] Getting a little tough,
but we're still having fun.
[Tashi] Just a little bit.
Simple.
[Nungshi] So, tell them why they're there.
You don't even use that command right.
No, no, no, no.
That's the point.
Alright, do as you like, then.
We're having a moment.
The two of us are having a moment.
Sometimes it's surreal to me what me
and my twin have done together,
'cause we'll be best of friends and worst of
enemies.
Like, oh, like on the thing.
"It's your fault!
Do this right," and "Do that right."
It's like, give me a break, man.
I can make my own decisions sometimes.
Even for the Eco-Challenge,
when we were, like, deciding a team captain,
she automatically became the team captain.
I don't know how that happened.
I wasn't happy.
I wish I was. But, yeah, I
can't believe she's still the team captain.
It's hard to live with that.
I have to take a breather.
It's a twin thing.
She's like, "I should never
have gone with you. Never again."
But our fights only last about five minutes,
and then we're best of friends again.
Checkpoint one of the World's
Toughest Race.
Let me tell you.
We're giving ourselves a high five.
Moving onto checkpoint 2, as fast as we can.
How's that Speedo working out for you?
Oh, the Speedo's working great for me.
I tend to think that I'm kind of a shy person,
yet when you see me racing,
I definitely like to be noticed.
- Wow, that sun just really came out.
- What sun?
Holy moly.
I brought a Speedo for
every day of this challenge,
because, I mean,
what would not make someone smile,
other than, you know,
just some random black dude
running around in the woods in a Speedo?
[Coree] Yeah, here we go!
And I just make it happen.
Whoo-wee!
[Dan Abel] Are we in first place?
- Ha!
When I crossed the finish
line in Eco-Challenge 2002,
the first two people that I
greeted were my daughters,
and it was one of the most
defining moments of my life.
We're sailors.
Now, having the opportunity to
race with them as grown women
is-- I've been looking forward to this for so long.
- Lauren.
- [Lauren] What?
- Why did you tie this so aggressively?
- [Dan] I did.
Oh. Mm. This makes more sense.
[Lauren] We're freaking sailors.
I got into adventure racing from
Watching my dad adventure race.
And somewhere along the line,
I kind of picked it up as well.
My family is very unique.
We're very goofy with each other.
We're very close.
I think any team doing this sport is really close,
but adding the family
dynamic is, um, interesting.
[Dan] Okay, we're paddling.
We're paddling.
Everyone get a paddle.
[Grylls] After leaving checkpoint one,
teams face another 17 kilometers
of ocean navigation
before they reach land again, at checkpoint 2.
Here, they'll embark on a grueling
20-kilometer island trek
before returning to their boats
and heading out to find
the first medallion of the race.
[ helicopter whirring ]
So, there are five different medallions
hidden throughout this course,
one for each leg of the journey.
So, we're going now to where
the first medallion is hidden.
Okay, here's the reef.
Okay, into a hover, and then
we're going to bring it down.
One racer from each team
is going to have to freedive down,
it's about 15 or 20 foot to the ocean floor,
and then they've got to locate
this hidden medallion.
Whoa! One medallion.
And they're going to need
a big breath of air for this.
What you've got to remember
is some of the lead teams
are going to be doing this in the dark.
This is going to be hard.
We're now over seven hours into the race.
If this was an Ironman, they would be nearing
the finish line.
There we go.
But these teams still have to endure over
ten days of non-stop racing action.
- Hut!
- Ho!
Oregon's Bend Racing
are hanging onto first place,
despite being chased relentlessly
by reigning champions New Zealand.
[Sophie] Hup! Nice, Nath.
Bend Racing is the first team to arrive
at Ovalau Island and checkpoint 2,
which serves as the beginning and the end
of the treacherous 20-kilometer loop.
[Jason Magness] This is an 11-day race.
We know a lot of these racers,
and we're definitely capable
of being the top U.S. team,
but the question is, how do we
stay in this emotional state
of believing that we can keep going on?
- [Melissa] Ah, bula, bula!
- Bula! Yeah!
[man] Bula! Yay!
[Melissa] Each one of us has a kid under a year,
and we know that the faster we go,
the faster we get home to our kids
and our families.
We will cross the finish line.
There-- there's no doubt in my mind.
Unless somebody is completely broken,
and they won't let us go on with three,
we will finish the race.
[Grylls] As Oregon's Bend Racing
hustles to prepare for the jungle trek,
Team New Zealand is right on their heels.
The question is, how long will Bend Racing
be able to keep up this pace?
We've got to keep this train going.
It's hot out here, without a breeze.
- It's a little rough.
- Keep moving.
[Sophie] So, what do we need to do here?
Chris is gonna put our packs on.
I'm going to fill my bladder up. Okay?
[Stephen] Cheers.
We're leaving.
[Grylls] Oregon's Bend Racing wastes little time
and pushes forward to keep ahead of the Kiwis.
A little surprised, a little psyched.
All the paddle training's been paying off.
And we'd like somebody to turn
the heat down.
I'd like a little more wind out there.
All right, we have to jog it down.
Dan, you OK?
No.
[Dan] Might be able to jog, but I'm not okay.
[ helicopter whirring ]
It is amazing just looking down on this.
Dense jungle, steep ravines.
And what I'm going to be interested in, though,
is who is in these frontrunners now,
because is it going to be the
ones that were using muscle only
and not using the wind, they were paddling,
they didn't put their sails up?
They went like rockets, but are
they still gonna be going like rockets?
It's gonna be amazing to see
what condition some of the leaders are in.
[ kids yelling ]
Uh, sit down.
Don't-- don't put your head down, okay?
Take the sunglasses.
I'm pulling out my water.
I don't think we'll need to refill.
Dan was our engine crossing the ocean.
We might have ran the engine a little hot.
So, we're giving it some time to cool off.
Being up at the top of the pack
with all the other teams coming up right behind
us,
we just got excited about moving
and kept the forward progress,
and it just got too hot for Dan,
and he basically started to overheat.
It's a really tough pill to
swallow when a teammate,
so, basically, the whole team,
kind of goes downhill,
and then you watch teams pass you,
and it's like, "Oh, my gosh!
This is so demoralizing."
We just got to keep him moving.
It's gonna be hard to carry him up the mountain.
So, manifest mountain climbing, Dan.
Positive energy, mountain climbing.
Hopefully, we can just get him into the night
and let his body temperature drop some.
Then he'll bounce back
and be super strong again.
And a lot of it, too, is mental, you know?
Once you get in a hole,
it's hard to let yourself climb out.
Because you feel so horrible.
You know, trying to race competitively,
it'd be great if we could just
stop until everybody felt better.
But that's not a way to finish
the Eco-Challenge, and we know that.
[Jason] You know, that big of a guy,
when he goes down, it takes all
three of us to nurse him along.
If I go down, you know,
he can put me on his shoulder,
and somebody can carry my pack,
and, like, they can do
whatever they want with me.
Um Dan-- Dan takes a little more work.
But, you know, we're willing to do it, so
And he's willing to let us,
so that's the important thing.
Thank you.
Keep up, keep up.
[Grylls] Lead teams are now
moving from checkpoint 3 to checkpoint 4,
the summit of the island trek.
To find the next checkpoint,
teams must demonstrate
not only expert navigation skills,
but also the ability to endure
the extreme heat and humidity
of this remote island.
Oh, what is it now?
Having overtaken Oregon's Bend Racing
and claiming the lead for the first time in the
race,
Team New Zealand have completely rebounded
from flipping their boat at the start,
challenging other elite teams to keep pace.
[Nathan] We were actually quite happy.
If you can be racing
conservatively and be in the lead,
I think, mentally, it puts you
in a good head space as well.
It sounds crazy, 'cause our
team has won more races
than any other team in the history of the sport,
but that gets pushed aside,
and we just focus on the
process and on the basics.
Because we'll be going at
a pace that is good for us,
and the reality is that,
that pace is going to be too fast
for just about every other team.
[Grylls] Ten kilometers behind
the leaders, in the middle of the pack,
is a rookie team from America,
with a unique racing pedigree.
I think we've done 126 Ironmans
Yeah, buddy.
like, if you add all of ours up.
Did something called "The 50,"
which is 50 Ironmans, 50 days, 50 states,
and everyone told us it was impossible.
My name is James Lawrence,
otherwise known as the Iron Cowboy.
We're underdogs.
This race eats Ironmans for breakfast.
But the Iron Cowboy?
That dude's a bad, bad man,
and he's here right now in Fiji
to take on the Toughest Race.
Sonja has been part of my life since 2010.
I'd never heard of adventure racing.
This is all foreign to me.
She wanted to do it
She said, "Who's the craziest Ironman I know?"
It was this guy.
And I just thought, "Iron Cowboy." It's got to be.
"If I'm gonna put together a
team of Ironman athletes,
I'm gonna call the Cowboy."
"And holy hell, we're gonna be there."
"And I'm gonna give Bear
Grylls a big, slobbery kiss
- when I see him on the finish line."
- [ laughing ]
[Grylls] As the sun begins to set on day one,
several more teams arrive at checkpoint 2
to begin their jungle trek.
- You all good, Dad?
- Yeah.
Where are we going? We going walking?
Yeah. We've got a road walk for a little bit.
I think, for our team,
specifically, we have unknowns
related to Dad's cognitive function.
It's alright.
[Travis] We're really going to
have to watch out for that.
We're going to sleep a lot more
than we've done previously in races.
- We leaving?
- Yep.
- Here's Trav, right here.
- You're leaving?
You got it.
- You got it!
- 17:46
[Travis] His visual/spatial
awareness has become impaired,
and that's truly going to be a team effort.
We're confident that we can do it,
and that's why it's a team sport.
I'm a mountain guy.
I don't get into the water very often, so
Pretty much.
[Grylls] As the full darkness of night sets in,
the pro teams are returning to their boats
[woman] Go, Coree!
Hey, nice job, guys.
[Clifton] Good job, guys.
lapping the rookie teams,
who are just now finishing the ocean paddle.
[man] How's Gretchen doing?
- Hanging in there.
- Yeah? Spirits are high?
- Yes, sir. Indeed.
- Okay. Good job.
[Grylls] This location is checkpoint 2,
for teams arriving from the ocean,
and it also serves as checkpoint 5
for the teams that are finishing the jungle trek.
Heading back out?
- We're heading out.
- [Gretchen] Stay safe.
Nice to meet you.
It is one of the only times in the race
where rookie teams will cross
paths with the pro teams,
getting a visual on how fast these elite racers
are moving through the course.
I think it's amazing to
watch people do their sport
when they're good at it, you know?
So, I mean, it is pretty cool to watch that,
although I think we held our own quite well.
Unfortunately for us at this time,
New Zealand, which is a great team,
is already well ahead, but, you know,
that's to be expected for them.
We're at checkpoint 2.
We've got some good time to get ready.
We're getting dry, getting off the water,
heading to our jungle trek,
and getting our race started, you know.
We're a ground team,
so we're looking forward to this part.
[Grylls] As the back of the
pack heads out on their jungle trek,
the lead teams have pulled away
and are approaching the first medallion.
The ocean medallion is located 5 meters down,
on the darkness of the ocean floor.
Grab the line, if you can.
Continue to shine your light right there.
I can't see it.
"Approximately 5 meters off the
anchor of the blue marker buoy,
between the anchor and the island."
So, pretty much underneath us.
There's something down there.
[Grylls] Captain Nathan Fa'avae volunteers
to do the night dive for the Kiwi team.
I can see some stuff over
there below the boat.
What's there?
I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for.
You see this light, it's like a stone.
Oh, now I see it. It's on the boat.
Did you get it?
Yeah.
- Alright, where are we going?
- I'm going to go onto the shore.
[Grylls] Back on Ovalau,
Team Unbroken is one of the last teams
to reach checkpoint 3.
But facing difficult nighttime navigation
and terrain with a deaf teammate,
the team must weigh their options.
[Hal] So, as far as looking in the ridge below,
option one, this road that we
came up, we could travel that way back.
Option B, we can follow this trail
and then bushwhack our way through.
- Here's my read.
- Okay.
My instinct at this point and that we're tired is
we go back until we follow a path that we know.
[Gretchen] This was a hard day today.
Since we knew the route back to checkpoint 2,
we decided it was in our best interest
not to get lost in the jungle at night,
and also because my lip-reading capability
diminishes greatly
if I can't see your face.
So, if it's dark out there,
even with the red lens on their heads,
I can't always see their lips.
So, we're almost reduced to just hand signals.
[Grylls] Team Unbroken is making
a potentially costly decision--
choosing to skip the shorter
jungle route to checkpoint 4,
opting instead to double back
to the start of the trek,
and climb up to checkpoint 4
from the other side of the ridge.
This dramatically lengthens
the overall distance of the trek
and puts their chances
of making the day 3 cutoff
in serious jeopardy.
I'm fine with that now, but at a certain point,
we're gonna have to make up time.
We're gonna have to take the
less safe route at some point.
We're gonna have to
uh, take some risks, otherwise, we're not
gonna make the two-and-a-half days.
I agree.
[Keith Knoop] Decided to make
a command decision, I guess.
We have a team captain.
It's not a democracy.
I gave him my input. We all gave him input.
At the end of the day, that's his choice to make.
Personally, I think we should
have pushed through.
You know, once I'm in "go" mode,
it's hard to turn it off. [ chuckles ]
- Yeah, we'll head back.
- Okay.
I'm trying to make a call as a captain,
that we're tired and worn out,
and I think we're gonna get out there
and get turned around.
- Back it up.
- Let's do it.
[Hal] We just hoofed it up a long road.
We're going to turn around and hoof it back.
Make some good time.
Hope it works out.
[Grylls] Meanwhile, the other trailing teams
are continuing through the night,
moving past checkpoint 3,
in search of checkpoint 4.
[Nungshi] I don't know where
you guys are headed, but
- To the proper intersection of the road.
- Wait, wait, wait.
Okay, tell me where we are.
We climbed up-- this is the mountain.
Now we're climbing up here.
So, we climbed here. Go down.
Just backtracking a little bit,
but generally heading in the right direction.
[Travis] Keep grabbing the bamboo, Dad.
It is slippery.
Hang on here.
Probably a little bit further up,
maybe over here.
My only concern is that
I'm hearing a river on the left
You are?
and according to this,
I should be hearing a river on the right.
We just got here.
[Dan Abel] Did you tell them it's hot
as balls on this island?
It's like a sauna. I feel like I'm in hot yoga.
[ exhales heavily ]
[Grylls] Now, over 14 hours into the race,
early leaders Oregon's Bend Racing
have slowly moved down the leader board
and find themselves in 57th place.
[Jason] Dan, you okay?
[Grylls] As they struggle to get Dan
to the peak of the island trek
You alright?
Dan's health is rapidly declining.
He got really hot in the boat
and just couldn't recover.
He's been dealing with
temperature regulation and
[Jason] Dan! You okay?
[Melissa] You know, Dan's a big
guy, and he just bombed hard.
- I'll check us in.
- Nice work, buddy.
You did it. We're here.
Just look up and breathe.
Deep breath.
[Melissa] He was in a really bad state
of heatstroke. His eyes changed color.
His voice changed.
His whole body was seizing up.
is there water up here?
[Stephen] No, we have no water.
- I have some water right here.
- [Stephen] We have little sips.
You can take it all.
[ Dan groaning ]
How far to the
TA? (Transition Area)
It's gonna take us 10 hours at this pace.
It's not worth it.
Like, we can't, we can't move with you like this.
We just gotta get you better so
that we can actually get down
before we all turn into you.
[Melissa] We've all got to work
together as a team.
- How are your calves?
- My calves are OK.
[Melissa] We're doing whatever
we can to get him moving forward.
The entire race basically hangs in the balance.
♪♪♪
[LION ROARS]