Team America's Air Force conquers the challenge: team America's Air Force trudges up Mt. Cook during the 2001 Eco-Challenge New Zealand. The four airmen placed 12th in the Annual International Expedition Race.

With little sleep for days, the four racers had been scaling a bitterly cold New Zealand mountain almost non-stop during the 2001 Eco-Challenge. Once finished, they saw their reward for staggering to what appeared to be an almost unreachable halfway point: the start of a tortuous 60-mile bike ride over the meanest terrain imaginable, with even more seemingly impossible stages to follow.

That's the price Team America's Air Force paid when entering the world's premier expedition adventure, which covered a punishing 230-mile trek on New Zealand's South Island in late October. But for more than six days, Tech. Sgt. Ken Fournier, Senior Master Sgt. Skip Kula, Staff Sgt. David Shuman and 1st Lt. Rebecca King pushed aside pain and fatigue to finish a merciless course of river rafting, mountaineering, rappelling and trail biking.

Out of 67 international teams that started the race, held annually in a remote region of the world, the Air Force team finished 12th overall and first for military competitors. Plus, for bragging rights, they easily bettered the previous top showing by a U.S. service entry, a 17th place finish in Morocco by a 1998 group comprised mostly of Navy SEALs.

But most importantly, they simply survived an event labeled by its organizers as "a race measured in pain-endured lessons."

"If one person quits or is injured, the entire team, which must include men and women, is disqualified," said Mark Burnett, race director. "To succeed is to finish; to win demands something extraordinary."

Simply put, it calls for going beyond the beyond. "When you're in the middle of it, you definitely have your doubts of why the heck you're doing this," said Fournier, 39, captain of Team America's Air Force and a pararescueman, or PJ. The bluesuiters qualified for the 2001 Eco-Challenge after winning the Armed Forces Eco-Challenge in June, covering 158 miles of Alaska wilderness in four and half days. That race, however, covered only two-thirds the distance of a New Zealand grind that took some participants the maximum time allowed --12 days -- to complete.

The key to finishing? Burnett believes it's group dynamics.

The teams that do well, he said, are those that minimize friction that is bound to arise after many days of grueling travel."

Fournier agreed: "The biggest (concerns) are those that tear apart teams because of the stress level. My goal was for us was to finish successfully and stay together."

In an article for GQ magazine, the team was described "as living the beer commercial." Shuman, 32, also a PJ, explained: "We're a pretty easy-going, happy-go-lucky group."

But their self-described laid-back personality can be deceiving. For when it comes to their vocations and avocations, the four are all business.

Founier has twice been named Air Force Special Operations Command Pararescueman of the Year. During one unforgettable day of his life, he rescued an F-15 pilot off the coast of Florida and later on assisted in his own baby daughter's delivery. A veteran of numerous triathlons and mountain treks, Founier also participated in the 1999 Eco-Challenge Argentina.

Kula, 42, has been a PJ for 22 years and is credited with help saving more than 250 lives, mostly civilians lost or injured in Alaska's rugged backcountry. An instructor of young PJs who are trained to pluck airmen from behind enemy lines, he's an expert on avalanche awareness, emergency medical care and glacier travel. And especially important for an Eco-Challenge competitor, he's an avid climber, reaching the top of Alaska's Wit. McKinley four times.

Shuman, 32, was one of the first Marines to enter Kuwait during Desert Storm, and guided his team unscathed through an Iraqi minefield. An endurance athlete in numerous sports, he is the first American to claim a top 10 finish in Norway's national 30-kilometer biathton.

King, 24, rounds out the team with her strong background in ice climbing, mountaineering, canoeing, kayaking and long-distance running. The communications officer also completed the U.S. Air Force Academy's free-fall parachute program and combat survival training course.

Helping the four reach New Zealand, especially with funding, was Air Force Services in Washington, D.C. Its director, Arthur J. Myers, noted that Eco-Challenge "is the ultimate adventure where success is measured not in winning, but in finishing as a team. It is an epic event that pushes competitors to the edge of human endurance. We wanted the world's best Expeditionary Air Force competing in the world's toughest expedition race."

It took every members' skill and experience to push Team America's Air Force through an exhausting course marked with 37 checkpoints, or PCs, which had to be reached within a specified time to prevent disqualification. And there was always the lurking mental pressure of knowing that after a stage of mountaineering in frigid conditions to reach a certain PC, the clock continued clicking for completion of a drenching river-rafting run or exhausting bike trait ride.

The enormity of ups and downs could be staggering.

"You see racers at the finish line weeping or amazingly happy after surviving the wilderness and pushing themselves," said Ries Robinson, a member of Team Stryker, also from the United States. "The person who shows up at the finish line is the real person ... in raw form, stripped of all their outer ego."

Throughout 2001 Eco-Challenge, Team America's Air Force stayed competitive with the top world-class adventure athletes, under the most unpredictable conditions Mother Nature could throw at them. Their performance, Myers said, "is indicative of the caliber of the men and women in today's Air Force. We couldn't be more proud of their accomplishments."