An Interview with Heather & Emilio from ‘Race to Survive: New Zealand’

RACE TO SURVIVE: NEW ZEALAND -- Season:2 -- Pictured: (l-r) Heather Sishco, Emilio Navarro -- (Photo by: Patrik Giardino/USA Network)

Heather Sishco and Emilio Navarro are a pair of fierce competitors that recently took their competitive fire to the next level by participating in Race to Survive: New Zealand on USA Network. Wherein they battled alongside eight other teams to grab hold of $500,000 by way of taxing physical challenges and an outright fight to survive a harsh environment, and we here at NTG were lucky enough to sit down with this duo to discuss their experiences on the show.
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John Betancourt: Just have to start off by saying, congrats on taking part in one incredible race. That I watched… from the comfort of my couch. But it was breathtaking.
 
Emilio Navarro: You got tired just watching us. Right?
 
John Betancourt I genuinely did, and I must know more! Like how each of you became involved in this epic competition.
 
Emilio Navarro: How we got involved well, I casted for season one through another friend of mine that actually got me the connect, he's the one who asked me to do it. And then that fell through. However, that happened. And all of a sudden Season Two came around, and I was asked if I would want to compete and cast. But I couldn't. My other friend wasn't available. So, I ended up asking Heather and Heather was more than happy to take it on, you know, a, she's a teammate, and she was watching. No, she never has any excuses. And we cast it. And we were fortunate to be part of this unbelievable experience.
 
Heather Sishco: Oh, so I got dragged in by Emilio, but it wasn't that hard. Like he said, he asked someone else, that fell through, and he called me up and was like “what's going on!? And was like, “I'll get you on the show. Let's go.” And then he, he finally gave me a shot. And we got on the show. It was pretty, it was really cool. So, for me, I literally found out about it. And a month and a half later, we're flying out to New Zealand. So, it was a very short window for me from actually casting to getting to New Zealand.
 
John Betancourt: That leads me right into my next question. Now that I know you had such a short timeframe there. Was there any kind of like fast-tracked training that you guys went through to kind of get ready for this, it was just kind of pack your gear and plan and get moving.
 
Heather Sishco: So, we train physically, all the time, I run a gym and he's an ultra-marathoner, so we're constantly working out, we work out, that's why we're kind of we're buddies, plus separate, and we're always training, always hustling. So that piece was okay. But Emilio… we instantly did a crash course which I'll let him explain, but we our crash coursed everything else, it was pretty, pretty wild.
 
Emilio Navarro: No official course, we never really went camping or had all that outdoor experience. So, we ended up having to learn how to navigate, use a compass. So, you know, we're Googling and we’re You-Tubing. I mean, we also had to learn how to set up a tarp. I mean, there was no tent allowed. So, it was setting up tarps, different styles of tarps to set up depending on the conditions. Because the conditions in New Zealand were unbelievable, you'll be hot for a few hours, you go up a little bit of some elevation and all of a sudden, a storm and a monsoon starts It just shifts from hour to hour. And so, you know, at any moment you’ve got to be able to set up the areas that that you need for that that environment, as well as our own foraging and hunting and fishing. There was so much that we had a cram in, in a short time.
 
Heather Sishco: So that was the interesting piece was really crash coursing, like the basic skills of surviving. But I'm gonna tell you they come pretty naturally once you're thrown into the woods, like you don't even realize how fast you learn when you need to eat. How fast you learn when it's cold, what do you know, things came together.
 
Emilio Navarro: John, also the 500,000 cash I mean for this race, that's a huge amount of money compared to some other ones. So that was motivating to for us too, you know, we’re on the fitness level, we can manage, let’s just get this other stuff. You know, figure it out a little bit. But when we get there, we'll figure it out. We'll roll with it. You know, we got a shou at 500,000. So that was a big motivating factor to really step it up.
 
John Betancourt: Now, this is a grueling challenge for certain, and I’m sure there were some tough, tough days, how did you both overcome the mental challenges present in this competition?
 
Heather Sishco: Yeah, so mental challenges, some days, you just had to, you had to fight with your partner, some days, your teammate that you love, is your family and your brother, you just have to look at them and be like, “You're being a dick,” because that's what I called them on the trailer. (Laughter from all) Well, you had to let it out. I think every single person on the show cried once or twice or eight times, or however many, because you just hit a wall. So mentally, you just had to keep telling yourself, like, there was no quitters on this show. I mean, everybody was just hardcore. And you just you just have that inner grind, and you say, not quitting. One step in front of the other bottom line, if you hit a wall, yell at your teammate, cry, scream, shout, hug a tree, whatever you got to do, do it and move forward. There we go.
 
Emilio Navarro: So, the mental challenge in a nutshell, I mean, we were all mentally tough, but it's when you, you don't expect something. Like when you're getting ready to put on all the gear to do rafting, to pack the raft, and you get a little bit of water. And before you know it, there is NO WATER, mentally, that is the worst feeling. Because you're psyched, you're ready to go, you know, 10 kilometers down the river and you're thinking, all of a sudden, it's like… it's the total 180. And when you've been out for days and days, that's just like backbreaking mental breaking. Yeah, you have to reset, reset and realize, “Okay, this is the next is the challenge we're faced with, let's forge forward.” But man, that can break a lot of people when you don't expect something like that, you know, in a race like this.
 
John Betancourt: Now obviously, we don’t want to spoil, but I am curious what the toughest moment in this race was for each of you. If you could pinpoint one.
 
Heather Sishco: I'll say it, being the city girl, and we had to leave our cell phones at home. Because you have nothing, you're out there with nothing. You’ve lost all communication with everybody in your world, your normal day. And that's something that weighs on you. Here you are in the middle of the woods for days and days and days with no food or lack of food, and tired and cranky. And that's a big challenge right there. Just to get up, put your backpack back on and continue on was a tough enough challenge.
 
Emilio Navarro: The terrain, I mean, we're in a in a place that we’re not familiar with. And you're, you know, on a map it looks like “Yeah, I know where to go.” But when you're in it, and it's all wilderness… you know… we were kind of cautious. We didn’t want to make a mistake; we didn't want to get lost. I mean, it's just so much of just tackling New Zealand, the terrain, I thought we would be able to run more and it's just, and also the pack. I mean, I didn't expect me carrying a 40 pound pack. Throughout this whole endeavor. I've never trained like that. I mean, I'm an ultra-marathoner, but not I'm not a hiker, I never trained with like a rock or anything like that. So, adding that extra 40 pounds, man it was it was tough with that terrain as well. Let me tell you they made sure that they were going to make this very, very hard compared to season one. I mean, this season is gonna blow away they went through in season one.
 
John Betancourt: No joke there, I did notice that food was a decision this time around instead of being provided right away. Which was wild to me, that you had to choose.
 
Heather Sishco: Different teams make different choices at different time, and it's fun. It's gonna be real fun to watch who picks what? What it does to them, it's interesting.
 
John Betancourt: I did see that early on, that the team slightly ahead of you skipped that food. Now, on the flip side of that question, what did you love the most about this competition?
 
Heather Sishco: God, it's a once in a lifetime experience. I mean, I loved being able to, I did things that I've just never done. Some of the other teams, they live in that West in the middle of mountains, that's their backyard. I'm a city girl. I saw peaks, and rivers and canyons and chasms, and did things I've never done in my life. So, it was definitely… I also love a challenge. And it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. As Emilio says on the show, actually on the trail, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And for me, that was the best part about it. I love a challenge. And that was the hands down hardest thing I've ever done.
 
Emilio Navarro: I loved that… we were fearful. I know fear tries to stop people from doing things and I was fearful of not being able to navigate, fearful of how we're going to eat. And to be able to just put that all aside and say, “You know what, we can do this, we got two good brains, you know, we're fit, we're healthy.” To come out of that, knowing that we did it like we actually survived was the biggest fulfilling piece to me. It's like a piece of the puzzle that said, “See that, Emilio? Any challenge that's before you, don't put preconceived notions, you know what, just go ahead and do it.” And you know, we got pretty good at shelter we got, you know, like so it was good to see the progress from someone from us that were never really, living that. And now I'm hooked you know, I'm started reading books on you know -- my next challenge is I want to go do the Pacific Coast Trail the PCT, you know, and I want to like, you know, now maybe ultra-running can take a little back a backseat and I can -- I got all the gear, I might as well take a couple of weeks, but I'm not scared now to take a two week backpacking experience with myself or a buddy or you know, and go out and, and just enjoy the wilderness because the peace that you get from being out there, just you, the land, the earth, everything is just nothing, nothing matches that you know, nothing. Nothing. You know, the feeling you get is incredible.
 
John Betancourt: What are you each most proud of when it comes your work on this show?
 
Heather Sishco: Hey, that I can go without a lot of calories because I love my food. I eat so much food every day. And I do, I eat, like overeat. I'm an overeater. And I was like, “Oh, I can go without food.” So that was one thing I learned.
 
Emilio Navarro: I was changed. I will say that, you know, when I saw the competition at first, at the start… I had a certain pre-conception of what I was looking at, like I already started, I had pre-judgments based on size, based on this or that. And when we were up against in this race, and I saw what these incredible people were doing. Totally blew my mind. Like I will never judge, whether you’re a petite female, skinny, lanky. I mean, like it doesn't matter. It's all about the heart. And these any athletes that were just incredible mental -- I mean, it's just… you can't judge a book by its cover and sometimes you know, we say that. But inside, when I saw what I saw I just shattered every pre-conceived notion I've have about judging anybody’s abilities just based on what I see on the outside.
 
Heather Sishco: Emilio is like very on the cocky side, and I was trying to humble him a little and it wasn't happening. And even day one when we met everybody, he's like, “Meh,” and then as you start racing, everybody, you're like, “wow,” so it was cool to actually watch Emilio be humbled.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.  

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