The Estonian women pin their race numbers upside down on their backs, knowing the numerals will read properly when they mount and press their noses to their partners’ spines. They know it takes two-to-ten seconds to cross the water obstacle and promise themselves they won't slip off in the pond (and incur penalty points). They trust that their partners are tall enough to avoid dunking them, hoping that if they go underwater, they will be able either to wait to breathe or to crane their necks above the surface. It’s actually not much wetter in the pool than out; it’s pouring.

Two by two, the couples tear away from the starting line and enter the pond so fast that sheets of water spray up like transparent wings. They lunge through the pool (a hole in the ground lined with plastic and filled with 55,000 gallons of water), then race through the trees while the crowd screams. Two more obstacles to go: the hurdles (a fairly high wood barrier that stretches across the width of the track and brings every couple to full stop), then a bed of deep sand that defies the need for traction in the final stretch.

David White, a spindly photographer from England’s Daily Mirror, decided at the last minute to carry Jane, his reporter wife. (“We’re probably the only ones where the runner weighs less than the wife.”) He falls exhausted at the finish line, sleeps through the press conference, and awakens just in time to watch the award ceremonies. As the winning runners toss their partners to their shoulders and enter the winners’ circle, David gasps enviously, “How do they do that? I can’t even lift my camera.”