Winning isn’t clean. Turns out, you can stack an embarrassing number of mistakes and still come out ahead, as long as you nail the essentials.

Jason pitched me the Yukon 1000 way too late. Our yearly schedule was already pretty packed, but the race had finally returned after a multi-year break. Somehow, we had just enough space to wedge it into our lives. Jason had two weeks—two—to recover from the Endless Mountains Expedition Race, a 5–6 day sufferfest that usually earns you six weeks of horizontal living. Whatever. We’d finished the 500-mile Yukon River Quest and learned one thing that mattered more than anything else:

Success on the Yukon comes down to two things: a fast boat and unreasonable determination.

We had the race slot. We rented the boat. We put it on the calendar, recovery be damned.

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The prep (if we can call it that)

A few days before departure, we packed the bare minimum: mandatory gear and an entire duffel of fuel. Voluntary luxuries:

• paddling gloves

• Skin Doctor

• a waterproof shower speaker (for morale and questionable taste in music)

We figured we could cram the empty duffel inside the boat for the race, then re-pack and fly home wearing the finisher shirts. The duffels aren’t waterproof anymore, but they should contain the smell.

At this point it’s probably obvious: Jason and I are idiots, in the best possible way.

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Food: The One Thing We Didn’t Screw Up

We fueled for 18 hours a day of 4HF—every day—for six days straight. Then we added:

• candy & gummies for “emergency joy”

• “emotional food” for when the universe felt too large or too rude

• dinner: instant ramen plus peanut butter, which sounds criminal but becomes holy somewhere around hour 57

Was it gourmet? No. Did it keep the engines running? Absolutely.

We never bonked - and we paddled through our emotional low points. In a race like this, that’s the difference between laughing at your mistakes during the race, and needing a few weeks (or months, or years) before laughing at them.

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Mistakes start early

Our hotel rating? A courageous 1.5 stars. Many claims of bedbugs. We didn’t see any… probably?

Most teams arrived early enough to test their boats. We did not. We grabbed the boat, stared at it like it was some unfamiliar IKEA object, packed it, went to the briefing, and rolled up to the start line.

Two hours into day one we learned the boat had dual steering, and Jason’s braced feet were canceling out all my inputs. We swerved across the river like my kiddo trying to canoe. An hour later, we realized the seats were medieval punishment devices. We rebuilt the cockpits and sat on camping pads instead—which meant sleeping on wet camping pads later. A flawless system.

Still, we smashed day one and built a lead. Didn’t stop us from looking over our shoulders for the next 800 miles.

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Bugs. Ramen. Regret.

We brought zero bug protection besides our tiny tent. No head nets. No bug-proof clothing. We were essentially a free-range blood buffet.

Dinner - the only part of our food plan that sucked: instant ramen from Whitehorse, untested. It was psychedelic-level spicy. Jason tapped out. I finished it. I saw sounds.

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Navigation chaos

Our route was on my phone. My hands were too wet to use it. Our GPS watches saved us—tiny 1.5” windows of hope—but charging them meant no navigating, so we spent hours winging it.

Day three we reached the end of my downloaded maps. Beyond Dawson City, the maps become more… interpretive. Then came wildfire smoke. Masks were required gear, but not compatible with “move fast and breathe hard,” so we ditched them and paddled through a ghost-world haze.

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Caffeine failure

Day four: we ran out of caffeine. Things got quiet inside our brains.

Jason paddled while I napped. He claims I promised him my new car if we flipped, but he didn’t get it in writing.

Day five we passed a group doing the same route in a month. We were on pace for under six days.

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Finish: Where the Mistakes Turn Into a Story

We crossed the line just shy of 5 days, 12 hours, breaking the course record by over 12 hours. We didn’t look like champions. More like two crusty, sleep-deprived, old-world explorers who had paddle technology from the future.

And here’s the quiet truth I carried home:

You can mess up so much and still succeed.

You can be under-trained.

You can forget the bug nets.

You can argue with your steering system and your ramen seasoning and your navigation tools.

As long as the essentials are locked.

For us, those essentials were:

• a boat that wanted to go fast

• fuel that kept us human

• a promise to keep moving, no matter how stupid the day had been

Because most failures are survivable, and some become the stories that change you. But there are two mistakes you don’t walk away from:

You can’t lose your nutrition. When the tank goes empty, the Yukon doesn’t negotiate.

You can’t lose your boat. Everything else is improv. That part isn’t.

And that’s why we build fueling plans the way we do—because when everything else falls apart, nutrition is the piece you can’t afford to gamble on.

Chelsey and I are heading back this year. We’ll bring bug nets. We’ll dial the cockpit a bit smarter. And yes—we’ll test the ramen.

But the heart of it won’t change:

Eat. Paddle. Laugh at your mistakes. Keep moving.

That’s how you finish the Yukon.

And honestly, it’s how you finish most things worth doing.