≈ ≈ ≈

Deep in the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River’s thunderous avalanche of water can surge by at 30,000 cubic feet of water per second. That much water weighs around 950 tons—more than 400 adult rhinos. Only expert-led groups are granted a chance to kayak its furious force.

Willie Stewart is Rusch’s teammate for the adventure race this Friday. He is also a seven-time Iron Man and a veteran 100-mile marathoner. He is not, however, an expert kayaker. But when his friend obtained a permit to run the Colorado in 2005 and invited Stewart to join him, the Redlands, Calif. resident jumped at the opportunity.

Stewart, 45, wasn’t always so ambitious. “For two years I shied away from doing anything [athletic],” he says. “I didn’t think I could do it.”

Stewart had an understandable reason to avoid intense sports, as reasons go. When he was an 18-year-old kid just out of high school working construction, a loose end of a rope he was carrying was snared by an industrial fan, which snapped the rope taut and ripped his left arm off just above the elbow. He says he pitied himself for two years, drinking in pubs and fighting on sidewalks.

Then a friend invited him to join their rugby team. Sports rejuvenated him: the former high school state champion wrestler trained secretly for a year, proceeded to win MVP of the rugby league and never looked back. Today he leads a program he founded called PossAbilities at Loma Linda University Medical Center that empowers victims of traumatic injuries.

“I made a pact with myself never to back off or shy away from anything,” he says. “A life of fear was not a life worth living.”

The chilly Colorado River cared little for his pact, however. One particularly punishing stretch of the 227 miles Stewart rode nearly claimed his life; instead, it only claimed his prosthetic arm. In the violent wash cycle of a rocky rapid, Willy was able to surface only by freeing himself from the arm, which was strapped to his paddle and pulling him down.

“One-armed Willie” had lived to see another opportunity: joining Rusch’s team for the Sea Otter Classic.

“Race on Rebecca’s team?” he says. “I should have said no, because I haven’t been doing that kind of racing. But I’m not going to say no to a chance to race with Rebecca Rusch. She’s a stud.”

Then he adds a reverent observation that threatens to reset any potential adventurousness debate between the two. “She boogie-boarded the Grand Canyon,” he says.

So Stewart joined the team—and will write up the experience for Competitor magazine. Specialized also added one of their own, company spokesperson and avid rider Nicholas Sims, to the four-person roster. Then, despite knowing that adventure teams, as Rusch and Stewart both say, are “only as good as its weakest link,” the team decided to take a chance.