There was no guarantee the Arctic Challenge record would fall, given the myriad variables that come into play and could slow a team rowing across an ocean.
But there wasn't much doubt Jimmy Graham and his team would finish.
Graham and his teammates – Andrew Tropp and Hannah and John Huppi – rowed more than 584 nautical miles in a little over 10 days, traveling from Tromso, Norway to Longyearbyen, Svalbard, to break the previous record of a team of four, which was 15 days, five hours and 32 minutes.
And somewhat like preparing for a playoff game, Graham, former star tight end for the New Orleans Saints who announced on July 22 that he officially will retire this year from the NFL, said an overriding goal was to complete the mission.
"It was very similar, mainly because I put my name on this," he said. "I (publicized) this pretty well. I went and talked about this. I said, 'Hey, I'm going to go try to break a world record,' and I'm the type of person who's very competitive. When I put my name on something, it puts a different aspect on it.
"I could have been quiet about it and just done it, but since we were raising money for a great cause (Covenant House and Laureus Sport for Good, both in New Orleans), I wanted the most support possible. Just having my name on it, I wanted it to be successful, I wanted the team to be successful, I wanted everybody to just survive this, to not have to get rescued by a helicopter.
"So for me, I took this very, very seriously. It has taken up the last year-and-a-half of my life."
The physical and mental tolls extracted were significant.
Graham never slept longer than 43 straight minutes in the 10 days, and averaged between 30 to 40 minutes of sleep as team members kept a rotating rowing schedule of 1.5 hours on, and 1.5 hours off.
The Huppis, Graham said, experienced seasickness, with Hannah's being the worst; she was seasick for eight of the 10 days and only ate one whole meal.
They were wet the entire time, exacerbated by the cold.
"And then you've got to think about sitting down for 12 hours a day – your back, your hips," he said. "So basically for 10 days, I didn't really stand up straight, I couldn't really lay down all the way, so sleeping also became difficult because of that."
Even now, more than a week after returning to the United States, he can't sleep for more than three hours at a time.
"But some of the biggest issues I've had is, like, I can't feel my fingertips and I still can't feel my toes," Graham said. "The fingertips and toes is a bunch of nerve damage, so I'm just gripping and having the constant motion. Both my ankles were swollen; my feet hurt so bad, my hands hurt so bad. I think just waiting for the nerve damage to recover is going to take a couple of weeks."
He's using cycling to help with the recovery process, after having completed one of the most arduous tasks of his life.
"I would say that, for me, it was more of a relief, besides the pure exhaustion," he said. "The minute I touched the dock, I could barely walk. I basically fell to the ground because I thought I was going to fall off the dock. The ability to walk, I just didn't have it anymore. Not only that, it was more the emotional aspect.
"There's a lot of pressure in playoff games and when you have so much pressure on you, most people think that after the playoff game you're just partying and happy and this and that and you're living on Cloud 9. But for me, it was just a relief. It was like a relief to be able to live another week and be able to chase greatness.
"This kind of felt the same way where it was like a big weight off my shoulders that everything was successful, everything was safe and we prepared the right way. Because you don't understand everything you're going to go through, you don't understand the problems that you're going to have until you're out there. So you've got to make the right decisions, you've got to make the right calls, you've got to make the right heading and you've got to be prepared for anything."
It was a small price to pay for the example he wanted to set.
"I love helping out kids that can't help themselves and just showing them what you could do if you just put your mind to it," Graham said.
"I want them to understand that I come from the same seat that you're sitting in. I was last, I had no family, I had no help. And when I took hold of my decisions and I realized that, you don't have to be born into the right situation. You've got to be the type of person to outwork everybody.
"If you're willing to set goals high – almost impossibly high – and you're willing to want it as bad as you want to breathe, nothing can stop you. I like to talk to them about that, and then I like to go do something and show them.
"I'd never rowed in my entire life. I picked this up a year ago; in June was the first time I ever was on a row and then a year later, I'm crossing the Arctic Ocean to go for a world record. So you can do anything you put your mind to."
As for making his retirement from the NFL official, Graham said he'll return to New Orleans this season to make it official, "to do it the right way, in front of the people I love and the people I care about."
