An Interview with Nik from ‘Race to Survive: New Zealand’

RACE TO SURVIVE: NEW ZEALAND -- Season:2 -- Pictured: Nikola Milutinovic -- (Photo by: Patrik Giardino/USA Network)

Truly, the end of Race to Survive: New Zealand on USA Network was nothing short of epic. Since all three of the final teams were close to securing the win, and well, to properly send off this season of adventure we here at NTG sat down with members from all three of the final teams to get their closing thoughts on the competition, starting with one half of the third-place team, Nik. 
 
John Betancourt: So, what a finish, one that I have ask a little more about because I have to know how hard it was to finish this final segment of the race. 
 
Nik: I had zero in the tank. Like, I basically ate all that food at the food cache, and by the point that I was actually going towards the end, that food was gone, long gone. Uh, severely depleted, severely tired, uh, getting to the point where I was just like, “Okay, like, it's just like, left, right, left, right, left, right,” and that's all it was. There was nothing else in me. It was, honestly, I have not been that challenged in probably… yeah, even when I was younger, it was very, very hard at the end that was like the final slog. And I can honestly say the way I felt, I hadn't felt like that since I'm very, very young. And even then, I don't know if it was as hard as that, very difficult.
 
John Betancourt: With that in mind then, if you had nothing left in the tank, how did you finish this race?
 
Nik: Just one step in front of the other like, there's no quitting. There's no quitting, right? I'm injured. I can walk, and that's it. Like, that's the entire race for me, right? So, like, you know whether we wanted to walk or run or whatever, I was for whatever, right? So, she asked me to come. I came. I'm there, and that's it. Like, I can't sit down, like, there's, you know, there's either doing this or they're saying I quit, which is either sitting down, not taking a break, like sitting down, being like, I'm done. There's no way I can do that, because it's just not programmed into me. And the way it is, literally just left, right, left, right, and then just stop thinking, because there's, there's no… you can't sit and think about it, because as soon as you think about it, you'll flip out and you’ll just be like, “I quit.” So, the way it is, it's just that monotone -- and literally, you know, once we were heading, like, super, super, up the slope, rock to rock to rock, and it's like, where am I going next? Where am I going next? Where am I going next? And that's it. Just distract yourself with that, because there's no other way to do it. 
 
John Betancourt: Now in your closing interview you talked about deeper meaning for you regarding this race, let’s expand on that and talk about what it meant to finish this.
 
Nik: You know, it was just by race three, me and Kennedy had kind of lost, lost some will, lost some motivation. And, you know, past that point, I kind of felt that I already learned everything I needed to know. Like I'd already done the starving, the nine days extreme fasting cardio, I call it. And so, like, I already, like, mental wise, I'd already reached this level where it was, like I was happy with everything. But like, what I realized then, as we got going, as we basically kept going through was that, you know, now I had to stay because Kennedy had some lessons to learn still, and so I think that was the big thing. Because I learned my lessons, but hers were on the later races. And so basically, that's why I kept going. It was like, I have to stay until she learns everything she needs to learn. Because Kennedy had a lot of self-confidence and self-esteem issues about, like, for example, nav.
 
And it was just like, you know that fifth race, that time trial, she was very scared. And this was her lesson. She had to be alone to nav to see that. And so, once that was done, then it was like, well, we got to finish this race, like, because, like, I've learned all my lessons. She'd learned all her lessons, so now you have to complete the circle, like we made it. And so, from there it's, it's basically, that was what it meant. It was like, you closed the story, you finished the story. You asked me to go. We came together, we did the thing. We finished, right? I'm all about that, the story, and especially the finish. It's like, “Hey, man, we finished.” And you know, it's like, when we start to look at all the competitors that fell to injuries, I'm like, these are like, very, very, very, very, very high-level people. And I'm just like, this is ridiculous. Like, we're at the end, they're not. And it's, it's, it builds your confidence, for sure, because you're like, maybe I do have something, you know?
 
John Betancourt: Now something I thought was pretty amazing, was that you two had a strategy for winning this by going slow and steady. What inspired that strategy? 
 
Nik: It's not -- we didn't make it up kind of on our heads. It was literally… practicality. So, the first race we knew. Right away, it was like, because she knew beforehand, she wasn't a cardio -- she's a bodybuilder, so we knew right away that was going to be a problem once we got on the first race, we made the decision, because she was so slow before even the first race, we even knew where the food caches were. We're now grabbing food caches because you're too slow. We don't know the competitors. But I know she's never really run to a high level. So, I'm like, There's no way. So, when we went through the whole race, it was basically everything that we did was due to necessity. So it wasn't that we wanted to walk. It was that simply, it was like, at this point in time, her ankles couldn't handle that weight. For example, race four, like, she's like, “I can't.” So, it's like, if you can’t, then we can't. And so that's what we did. And, like, once you take that kind of approach to it, it's like, okay, well, we can't keep up with them, so we're going to kill the sheep. Because, like, why not? We're going to eat tonight anyway. 
 
And so, a lot of that stuff, it was all necessity, right? And, but hey, necessity breeds innovation, right? Like, we decided, okay, if we're going to be slow, we're going to make sure we navigate properly. Yeah, we got lost here and there, but for the most part, like, we made some gains where people you know, made a lot of mistakes due to nav and whatever. So, and the biggest things, we didn't we didn't stress ourselves out, like we're already on the backpack. So, it was like, when she made a mistake, whatever, when I made a mistake, it was like, okay, well, so there was a lot to it, but it was basically mostly due to necessity that we did a lot of what we did.
 
John Betancourt: What are you going to miss the most about this race?
 
Nik: There's just like, a different level of like, mental acuity. Like, I mean, the food was good. Like, the deprivation for the food was good to a certain extent. Once you, if you grab both food caches, you were basically on cloud nine, the extreme cardio that you did during that, like, it was just for me, the first nine days were the best, because that six or seven days, once there was no food, and once we did everything that we did, there was a very, very high level of mental acuity where it was basically like strips, a man, everything, of all these needs. And it's like you really get to the focus in on kind of nothingness, you know, enjoying the moment, because you literally have no other choice. There's not even food to enjoy. You're just like… and so there's a lot, a lot of mental stuff that that we gained from that. And it was, it was pretty good.
 
John Betancourt: Now in keeping with the theme of learning, what did this race teach you about yourself that you weren’t aware of before? 
 
Nik:  Uh, the patience. I think a lot of what happened with, you know, where it was like, “Oh, this is happening. This is happening,” it was just like, “Okay, cool.” That's like, a moment of brevity where, like, okay, like, I've definitely grown as a human being. There's a lot of patience there. It's like, we just gotta do this and do this and do this. It was nice to see that, right. Because, you know, anytime you can be kind of calm, like, people have commented like, you're basically, like, you were super calm the whole way, and super supportive and stuff like that. And, you know, that's like, a big positive feature, because it's like, man, we're doing some crazy hard stuff. This can't keep up last blah, blah, blah, and everyone's like, keeping their cools. It's pretty cool. So, what I learned most was that kind of, like, that level of calm, like, I basically achieved that, right? And so that's… the ability to self-calm, is like, is there. Because if there's any time to freak out it would be on something like that, but we just, we kept cool heads during the whole week, because it was just like, yeah, we're at this point, they're there. Let's figure it out. 
 
John Betancourt: Now, given the chance… would you do this race again? 
 
Nik: Ah, yeah, I talked to Kennedy. I basically, I am applying again, even for this season. I don't care. I'll be a standby team. I got a guy here. He's like a Serbian, basically, high level athlete. We're going to start training together. So, I'm telling ‘em, if you need a standby team, like we're there anytime, anyplace, any season, if you want this season, if you want an all-star season, I don't care, like I'm there, so 100% I would.
 
John Betancourt: The last question that I have for you today, what are you most proud of when it comes to what you accomplished with this race?
 
Nik: Uh, I'm most proud of that I just kind of was able to grasp the situation for what it was, understood what needed to be done and when. And I just, like, completely, like, everything just turned out the way it was supposed to turn out. So, I was super happy with just how the whole thing developed.
 
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. 

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