Page 30 of The Big Race

Echo Chamber

W e collapsed onto a bench in the corner of the plaza where the leg had ended. It was chilly in the sunshine, the Alpine air fresh with the scent of pine and ski wax. The crew drifted off to catch arrivals, while Cody remained nearby.

Ray leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him with the lazy sprawl of a man who knew he’d earned it.

“We won,” he said, grinning up at the sky. “Holy shit, Jeffrey. We won .”

I was still trying to believe it. “Yeah.”

“We’re not just surviving out here—we’re thriving.”

I smiled, because I was proud, too. But the word thriving stuck in my throat.

After a moment, I said, “Okay. Say we actually win the whole thing. All the legs, the million dollars, the title. What then?”

Ray turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean us.” I shifted on the bench. “We win this thing—great. But do we go home and slide back into the life we had? The one that wasn’t working?”

Ray frowned. “No. Of course not. We’d figure it out. We’d use this as a new start.”

“A new start with the same routines? Same silence? You back to client meetings, me working from home? Separate screens every night and polite conversations about dinner plans?”

He didn’t answer right away. I could see him thinking.

“I’m not saying we haven’t made progress,” I added quickly. “We have. I mean—look at us today. We didn’t fight. We trusted each other. But that’s here. In this pressure cooker, with a deadline and cameras and no one else in our lives.”

Ray sighed. “What are you saying? That none of this counts unless we come home completely transformed?”

“I’m saying we’re winning a race, but I don’t know what we’re winning toward .” I looked out at the plaza, where flags flapped in the breeze and the second-place team was just now jogging into view. “What does success look like for us, Ray? Not just the race. Us. ”

Ray was quiet for a long moment.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I used to think it meant getting back to where we were. The comfort, the rhythm. But now… I’m not sure I want to go back.”

I turned to him, surprised.

He shrugged. “I want this . Not the racing, necessarily, but the version of us that shows up, that listens, that has each other’s backs. I don’t want to be the guy who hides in a triathlon schedule and forgets how to talk. I don’t want to be roommates again.”

“And I don’t want to go back to fixing everything in silence just to keep the peace,” I said softly. “If we survive this—if we come out stronger—it can’t be just for the sake of saving what we had. It has to be for building something different. Something better.”

Ray nodded slowly. “Okay. So maybe we don’t know what success looks like yet. But we know what it doesn’t look like.”

“And that’s a start,” I said.

He reached over and took my hand, not like a victory gesture, but like anchoring himself to something real.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think this is the first time I’ve really wanted to win something with you, not just for us—but because of who we are when we’re doing it.”

I squeezed his hand. “Let’s find out if that’s enough.”

We sat there together, quiet again, but this time it wasn’t avoidance—it was reflection. Outside the frame. Off-script. A moment not about strategy or saving face, but about wondering what might come next.

Behind us, the cheers of Fletcher and Adrienne reaching the mat broke the silence.

But we stayed in the echo of our own victory a little longer, letting it settle not just on our bodies, but in the space between us—where something new was just forming.

Over the next hour, the remaining teams checked in at the Stop'n'Go. Zara and Maddox were third, and Gemini and Blaine arrived fourth. George and Ernie were breathing heavily as they checked in at number 5, but grinning as they spotted us.

"Look who's still in this thing!" George called out, wrapping Ray in a bear hug that lifted him off his feet. "We knew you two had it in you."

Ernie gave me his own crushing embrace. "That snowshoe route was brutal. How'd you guys make it look so easy?"

"Years of practice falling down gracefully," I replied, earning a laugh.

Tyler and Brandon came in sixth, followed by the Alex and Ross, who somehow still looked camera-ready despite the grueling mountain challenges. The doctors, Anika and Raj, were nowhere to be seen.

As we waited, Julie gathered us near the mat where she stood with the Nordic ski champion who'd been serving as the local greeter. The sun was beginning to set behind the Alpine peaks, casting long shadows across the snow.

"Teams," Julie announced, "I have some important information to share."

We all turned toward her, sensing something significant in her tone.

"During today's challenges, Desiree sustained a serious injury. She broke her leg during the snowshoe portion and has been transported to a hospital in Nice for treatment."

A collective gasp went up from the assembled teams. I felt my stomach drop, remembering how treacherous those snowshoes had been, how easy it would have been for any of us to take a bad fall.

"Is she okay?" Gemini asked.

"She's stable and receiving excellent care," Julie assured us. "But she and Cherisse have been forced to withdraw from the race due to the severity of the injury."

Ray squeezed my shoulder. In all the seasons we'd watched, medical eliminations were rare but devastating when they happened. To come this far only to be taken out by an accident was heart-breaking.

The weight of that announcement settled over us. Someone else's race was about to end through no fault of their own, simply because they'd arrived last on a day when two teams had to go home.

Twenty minutes later, we spotted Anika and Raj making their way up the final slope. Even from a distance, we could see their exhaustion. Raj was supporting Anika, who appeared to be favoring one ankle.

As they reached the mat, both of them looked around and immediately understood.

"We're last, aren't we?" Anika said quietly.

Julie stepped forward with her characteristic blend of warmth and professionalism.

"Anika and Raj, you are indeed the last team to arrive.

As we announced at the start of this leg, this is a Double Drop.

Cherisse and Desiree had to withdraw for medical reasons, so they are the first of the two eliminations.

I'm sorry to tell you that you have also been eliminated from The Big Race. "

Raj closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "We gave it everything we had."

George stepped forward and embraced both doctors. "You guys were class acts the whole way. Nothing but respect."

The rest of us followed suit, offering hugs and encouragement. Despite the competitive nature of the race, genuine friendships had formed, and saying goodbye was harder than I'd expected.

As Anika and Raj headed back to the chalet, Ray leaned close to me. "Makes you realize how lucky we've been," he murmured. "Any of us could have gotten hurt out there."

I nodded, thinking about all the physical challenges we'd faced, all the moments where a split-second decision or a lucky break had kept us safe. The race demanded so much from our bodies and minds, but sometimes it came down to simple chance.

"Take care of yourselves," Anika called out as she and Raj headed toward the production vehicles. "And take care of each other."

"You too," I called back, meaning it completely.

As the doctors disappeared into the gathering dusk, the remaining six teams stood quietly for a moment, the reality of our situation sinking in. We were in the final six now, but today had reminded us all how quickly everything could change.

The next morning, our direction card told us to drive to the leg’s first challenge, still in the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes. “It’s a revival challenge. Navigate through the cave system and find a golden figurine," Ray read.

We were already on the 16 th season to run the race, and occasionally the producers went back to a previous episode to redo a challenge.

“I remember this challenge from Season 4,” he said, referencing the episode where contestants had to use a compass to find specific coordinates of three flags in a rocky landscape.

“The winning team moved quickly, trusting their instincts. We should do the same.”

Ray drove with Cody next to him in the front seat. I navigated from the rear, and it wasn’t far to the cave system.

We parked and ran up to the race official. Though it was a bright, sunny day, the entrance to the cave system loomed dark and menacing ahead of us.

While I studied the basic map the official gave me, we were fitted with headlamps attached to cameras. As Ray and I walked up to the cave entrance, I said, "There are three main chambers we need to explore. The figurine could be in any of them."

A month ago, I would have spent precious minutes analyzing every possible route, while Ray would have charged ahead without a plan. But our experience working together had reinforced what we'd been learning throughout the race—our different approaches were complementary, not contradictory.

"Let's approach this methodically," Ray suggested. "If we work together and check each chamber systematically, we should find the figurine without wasting time."

The cave system stretched before us like the throat of some enormous beast, our headlamps cutting weak beams through the darkness. The air was cool and damp, carrying the mineral scent of limestone.

"Which way?" Ray asked, looking over my shoulder at the map. His voice echoed strangely in the enclosed space.

"Left first," I decided. "Chamber of Columns is smallest, so let’s start there. Then the pools, then Echo Hall if we haven't found it."

This time, Ray waited for me instead of charging ahead. We moved through the narrow passage together, Ray's natural impatience balanced by my methodical approach.

The Chamber of Columns opened before us—a vast space filled with limestone formations stretching from floor to ceiling. Our headlamps couldn't reach the top, giving the impression that the columns extended infinitely upward.

"Let's be systematic," I suggested. "You take the left, I'll take the right, but stay within sight of each other."

"Fifteen minutes here, then we regroup," Ray agreed.

I moved more cautiously than Ray as I went in the opposite direction, testing each foothold before committing my weight.

The passage narrowed dramatically, forcing me to turn sideways and shuffle through a gap that couldn’t have been more than eighteen inches wide.

My shoulders scraped against the stone, and for a moment I felt the familiar flutter of claustrophobia.

“You okay over there?” Ray’s voice drifted toward me.

“Managing,” I said, as I slithered back out of the passage.

We searched methodically, calling out observations and confirming areas were clear.

“There are two ways to go from here,” I explained. “The Chamber of Pools to the right and the Echo Hall straight ahead.”

We considered both options together, weighing the possibilities.

“The map marks the straight path as the main route,” I pointed out. “But the pools would offer more hiding places.”

“Let’s try the pools first,” Ray suggested. “Ten minutes there, and if we don’t find anything, we go straight to Echo Hall.”

“Good plan,” I agreed.

This collaborative decision-making felt natural now, no longer the struggle it had been at the start of the race. We’d found our rhythm—Ray adding the decisive energy that moved us forward, me contributing the analytical perspective that kept us on track.

The Chamber of Pools was eerily beautiful—a series of terraced limestone pools filled with crystal-clear water that reflected our headlamps like mirrors. We searched systematically, checking each pool and the surrounding formations.

"There!" Ray pointed to one of the deeper pools where a small golden figurine glinted on the bottom.

I hurried over to where he knelt. The water was so clear that we could see to the bottom, where a small golden statuette of a traveler with a backpack and walking stick rested on a bed of white sand. "It's too deep to reach by hand," he said

“Let’s think this through,” I said. “There must be a tool or something we can use.”

Rather than dismissing my caution, Ray nodded and pulled his arm back. “Good call. Getting soaked now would just slow us down later.”

“You test the water temperature and depth while I look for other clues around the pool. Then we decide together whether it’s safe for you to retrieve that idol.”

“Teamwork instead of parallel play,” I said.

“Exactly.” Together, we fashioned a retrieval tool from my belt and Ray's carabiner. It took three attempts, but we managed to scoop the golden figurine from the pool—Ray's physical skill guided by my problem-solving approach.

"Perfect teamwork," Ray said as we headed back toward the entrance.

The return journey seemed to take forever, especially when we got turned around in the Column Chamber and lost precious minutes finding the correct exit. By the time we emerged into the sunlight, we were both sweating and breathing hard, despite the cool cave air.

The race official handed us our next direction card in exchange for the figurine.

"Needle in a Haystack," I read. "Return to the marked section of beach in Nice and search for the rock painted with both of your astrological symbols."

Ray groaned. "From caves to beaches. At least we're staying in France."

As we jogged toward our waiting taxi, I felt the satisfaction of a challenge completed through genuine partnership. We'd found our rhythm—not the old pattern of Ray charging ahead while I worried, but something new and collaborative.

"Not bad for a couple of middle-aged guys," Ray said as we climbed into the car.

"Not bad at all," I agreed. "Though I have a feeling finding painted rocks on a French beach is going to be harder than it sounds."

The cave had been designed to test our ability to work together under pressure. But it had taught us something more valuable: that our differences didn’t have to be obstacles. They could be tools, if we learned to use them together instead of wielding them against each other.