“Here we go then. There’s no turning back now.”

Kyle draws me in for a hug. “We’re here now. Let’s just get on with it and do our best. I know how you excel under pressure. Hopefully it’ll help.”

“I’m sorry.” I smile, and his face lights up as he smiles back. Oh, how I love this man.

“It’s fine. It’ll be a memory if nothing else.”

And we laugh. Because what else is there to do?

It starts out OK.

Our first challenge is to saw through logs of about seventy-five centimeters deep. It's not an issue. We've practiced 'til we're blue in the face. We have power and speed and as we predicted, it’s not a problem. We sail through to the next round which is more of the same in that we’re chopping again. This time we're presented with slimmer logs, and we have to hack at them with our ax within a marked area. Again, not an issue. We both pass through without breaking a sweat.

Then it starts to get a little more competitive.

The chainsaws come out, and I have to admit I feel a twinge in my belly. But we both nail it, sawing off slivers to produce three disks within twenty seconds. I worried I’d be all fingers and thumbs when it came to using the machinery, but I guess our jobs both involve us working at speed in a high-pressure environment, and so when it comes to it, Kyle was right. Again, we have no issues.

Now we’re onto the lake and, when I see the draw, adrenaline courses through my body.

Bloody Jessie, she kept this quiet.

She’s only set it up so that Kyle and I will compete against each other. Forget that we’re totally different sizes and he will sink while I’m left bobbing around in the air. I can just hear her! "Ooh, that'll be a great photo op."

Ugh, why did I get her involved? Now whatever happens, one of us will be knocked out in this stage.

I see Kyle’s face, and I know he’s thinking the same.

“Here we go, smile for the cameras,” I whisper through gritted teeth while shaking his hand as photos are snapped.

“Come on then, we can’t put this off any longer.” He slaps my back and we head off toward the lake with dread weighing down both our bellies.

The logs twirl under our feet. “Crap, it’s hard enough getting on this darn thing,” I mutter, while maintaining my smile for the press.

“Roll it out,” The guy shouts over the loudspeaker once we’re kind of settled.

“I could kill you right now,” Kyle hisses.

“I think I may just end up doing that to myself. This is all well and good when it’s just the two of us on our lake at home, but in front of all these people, with my heart jack hammering, my legs are like lead.”

“At least you’ve got your legs. Think about the end game.” Kyle says the one thing that he knows will motivate me.

At that point the buzzer sounds and we’re off. My competitive streak lights up my reactions, and I’m not only performing for the crowd cheering us on from the bank, but I’m trying my damnedest to unbalance Kyle. I thought it would bother me that it’s him who will lose if I win, but no, not when it comes down to it.

And for his part, he’s laughing. We’re laughing.

We’re splashing each other, dipping feet into the water and kicking water at feet, at eyes, at anything we can hit, all the while laughing. I catch him in the mouth with a glug, and he chokes, then bounces, using his weight to throw me off balance.

But, I’m a lithe racing driver, and my reactions are lightning fast. I hop up onto one leg as the log twists under his force, landing light, and steadying myself with my arms like I’m riding a surfboard rather than a slippery, twisting log with my 6 ft plus husband on the other end.

I speed up my feet, rolling the log faster underfoot, hoping that my superior speed will make Kyle’s legs work faster than he has the capacity for. And it works. He comes crashing down into the water with an unceremonious splosh and I stand on that log, waving my arms while my feet continue to peddle. I feel like I’m on the top of the podium, having won the world driver championship.

It’s time.