Most athletes will do anything to win; push their bodies to the highest limit, play through the pain, exhaustion and injury.

And for every one of them, a victory makes it all worthwhile.

It may not have been first place, but as Yukoner Greg McHale sat at his home in Whitehorse Tuesday he had to be feeling pretty good about the end result, despite the fact he's now laid up with a staph infection in his right leg.

Greg and his wife Denise, avid adventure racers, recently returned from Primal Quest Utah, the biggest adventure race in the world.

Competing in nine disciplines ropes, desert tracking, mountain trekking, mountain biking, horseback riding, paddling, whitewater swimming, canyoneering and orienteering the McHale's and their two Ontario teammates, Scott Ford and Bob Miller, finished an impressive fourth overall out of 90 teams from across the world.

The Canadian team, Supplierpipeline, finished the 800-kilometre race in six days and six hours, fittingly, on July 1st.

'It's the best finish in a big international race that any Canadian team has ever done,' said Greg proudly. 'We can run with the best in the world, no doubt about that.'

Typically, the McHale's have raced on 400 to 500-km courses, so the large Utah course did seem daunting at first, Denise acknowledged. Especially since the team was coming off food poisoning at a previous race last month.

'At first, we were thinking, Oh my god,' but once you start racing, 500 or 800 km doesn't really matter. You break it down one section at a time anyway.

'There wasn't any bush-whacking, it was all desert. You could actually cover a lot of ground, so it didn't really take much longer.'

Although the flat ground may have made it easier for navigating, the sand and desert weather provided their own challenges, added Greg. Shoes were full of sand and one of the team members suffered heat exhaustion.

'We had to adjust our strategy after Day 1, because of heat exhaustion. We started to sleep during the hottest part of the day.'

Supplierpipeline was doing really well positionally when one of the team members went down to the heat. When they stopped to let him rest, they went from second place to 19th in about four hours.

Fortunately, he recovered really well and they started picking teams off in front of them, eventually clawing their way into the top five for the majority of the race.

The biking section of the course about halfway through was also a headache for Greg, who by that time was really starting to feel the effects of a blister which eventually led to the staph infection.

'I didn't start to feel it until about three days in. By Day 5, I was in a lot of pain and on Day 6, it was really bad.'

But Greg and the rest of the team kept moving, making up time on the teams behind them. They had a big jump on the last mountain section, about 40 miles from the finish. Then came the orienteering section of the race.

'We knew the top two teams had finished about five hours ahead of us,' explained Denise. 'Bob was navigating and he did a great job of finding all the boxes.

'We managed to finish in five hours and one of the other teams got lost so we ended up in fourth place and just stayed there.

'That was the turning point of the race.'

One of the last sections of the race was the ropes and at that point, the Canadian crew could see the third place team Merrell/Wigwam Adventure in front of them.

They were about 25 minutes behind Merrell after the ropes, so it was essentially a sprint to the finish after that.

Next up was a 50-metre paddling section right to the end and although Greg and teammate Ford are strong paddlers Greg won the 2005 Yukon River Quest as part of a tandem kayak team with Stephen Mooney Merrell was stronger.

'They're probably the strongest paddling team in the world right now,' stated Greg. 'So we couldn't catch up to them in the paddle.'

'But it made for a good finish,' added Denise. 'It was exciting.'

All four members of Supplierpipeline were pleased with their fourth-place finish, though Greg wondered how much better they could have done if he hadn't been injured.

When they first entered Primal Quest, the Canadians were required to fill out a questionnaire which asked them at one point where they expected to finish. The options were Top 20, Top 10 and Top 5.

'Everybody put Top 10 but me, I said Top 5. So maybe that's why I was always pushing harder, because they had already reached their goal and I hadn't,' Greg laughed.

For their efforts, Supplierpipeline was awarded $20,000 to share between the four of them. The McHales said their share will go back toward the expenses of racing.

'It's not like we're going to buy a car,' Greg smiled.

It's taken the McHales four years to find racing partners they can be successful with and get along with, so Supplierpipeline is now officially a team. They've made a commitment to each other and don't plan on racing with anybody else.

'It's almost exciting now,' said Greg. 'We've got the team with the ability to win any race we go to.'

It could be a while though before the Canadian crew races again, because of Greg's injury. He said it could be anywhere from two weeks to a month before he's feeling 100 per cent.

'After the race, I couldn't even walk. But I knew that was going to happen because I couldn't walk during the race. I was just running on adrenaline.'

The team is talking about a race in the fall, but it will depend on sponsorship.

One thing is for sure, said Denise, they have to beat Nike the American team which finished first at Primal Quest before they retire from adventure racing.

'We've accomplished more than we ever thought we could,' said Greg. 'But now, I know we have the potential to be the best in the world. The only hurdle is finding sponsorship or finding the funds to be able to keep up at that level.

'All of the teams we compete against are full-time athletes. Everything they need travel, entry fees is taken care of.

'The frustrating thing is we still have to come home and work 40 hours a week. These guys go home and put their feet up. If that wasn't an issue, I honestly feel we have the potential to be the best.'

The good news is, everyone learned a lot from Primal Quest and it should bring a lot of confidence to the Canadians as they head into the rest of their adventure racing careers. It should only get better from here.

'I think other teams in the world know we're here now and they see we're not going away,' concluded Greg.