Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.

Though teams on The Amazing Race are always faced with choices, the one that dictates their entire race: sink or swim. Survivor bros Chris Hammons and Bret LaBelle struggled to keep their heads above water as they started their season, eventually getting their sea legs. But it was dipping back below the surface that did them in, as a difficult day of drenched Detours sent them from first to last place in Croatia.

From the beginning, Chris and Bret struggled alongside the other Survivor and Big Brother teams, with their Amazing Race competitors surging ahead. A night leg in Vietnam was nearly lights out for them, as their off-beat take on various dancing and singing challenges put them in last. Spared by the first non-elimination leg of the season, they made good on their second chance, and quickly put themselves back into the running (even if running itself wasn’t their strong suit). They had figured out the rhythm of the race, leading to a series of strong showings, including a near-first place in Switzerland. They admitted their confidence was riding high flying into Croatia, out in the lead and facing a Survivor-esque snorkeling Detour. But their treasure hunt proved harder than expected, causing the guys to switch Detour choices four times. Unfortunately, their high-flying poem reciting did not make up for their previous mistakes, and like a soldier of ancient Dalmatia, they were given their marching orders to leave the race.

Now eliminated, Chris and Bret talk with Parade.com about what prompted them to switch Detours so often, how their mentality shifted throughout the race, and how the bromance grew global.

Parade Daily Celebrity interviews, recipes and health tips delivered to your inbox. Email Address Please enter a valid email address. Thanks for signing up! Please check your email to confirm your subscription.

Survivor viewers didn’t get to see much of your blossoming friendship in your season. How did you feel about getting the chance to showcase that when you got the call to go on the race?

Bret LaBelle: Chris and I hit it off on Survivor right away. We made fun of each other to production’s and the other castaways’ delight. We would joke around a lot. Chris came to me after Survivor and said, “You and I need to do the race.” I was like, “There’s no way they would put us on the race! Nobody saw our relationship.” And boy was he right.

Chris Hammons: In the Survivor community, over the course of a couple of years, it caught on that Bret and I are close. We’d show up at these events together and post on social media. But it was really fun to highlight our relationship on the race.

Let’s jump to Croatia. What prompted the decision to switch back and forth between Detour choices multiple times?

Chris: We initially thought the treasure hunt was right up our alley. We thought, “We’ll dive down, find a couple of coins and a goblet, and be out of there in no time.” It was edited like it was pretty quick. We were out in the water for hours. We decided before that if Tyler and Korey switched, we would switch. And we didn’t do it. It was a crucial mistake. When we finally did switch, we thought we had to each learn the poem completely. So it seemed like too much to us, and we switched back because we only needed two coins. Surely we could find two coins! By the time we switched back and split the poem, we were neck-in-neck with the Afghanimals. It just didn’t work out.

Bret: This was our first memorization task. It never resonated with us that we only needed to do half of it. And as Chris said, there were only two coins left. We thought, “Well, there’s gotta be two coins there.” Unbeknownst to us, there wasn’t, I’m sure of it.

Chris: (Laughs.) There were lots of batteries and cans.

Bret: Yeah, I found a spark plug to a 1965 Mustang. That was pretty cool.

(Laughs.) You guys noted in a previous episode that you wanted to stick with the pack. You just mentioned passing on opportunities to not switch with other teams to stay with the snorkeling. Why did your rationale change?

Chris: Our mentality just got jumbled, I think. We thought, “We’re so close. If we switch, we’re going to have to start over.”

Bret: Two coins! It was two coins!

Chris: We thought, “There’s got to be 50 coins out here. Surely we can stumble across two of them, even if we have bad luck.” If we had just stayed with the poem on the first switch, it would have been the smarter move. We could have walked to third place. We were so far ahead of everybody, including Korey and Tyler.

Bret: I don’t even know how we were ahead of them because we got off the plane together.

Chris: It was just a colossal collapse. We were hours and hours ahead of everybody. (Laughs.)

It’s safe to say you guys struggled in the back of the pack during the first few legs. What was it like to learn the race on the fly?

Chris: Right off the bat, it was shocking how fast some of the Amazing Race teams were doing this stuff. They could sniff out the next clue. Especially in Tokyo, I thought, “It’s shocking how fast these teams are getting from place to place.” As we progressed, there was definitely a learning curve.

Bret: Absolutely.

Chris: So we were thinking, “We’ve got to stick in here long enough so we can understand some of the strategies behind the race.”

Bret: It’s as simple as if the clue doesn’t say “take a taxi,” then it’s got to be close by. When you’re new at the race, you think it can be anywhere. The racers had a thought process that the Big Brother and Survivor people didn’t.

Chris: You let your imagination go. You think, “Oh my god, this thing’s across a bridge or up a building!” And it’s probably just around the corner if you stop and think.

How much did your mentality towards the race change once you finished last in Vietnam?

Bret: We hit a brick wall in Vietnam. When we thought we were out, that was a wake-up call. After that, we went back and said, “What are we doing wrong?” The next morning, we woke up and concluded that we weren’t having fun and we were doing horribly. We decided, “Let’s just enjoy ourselves and have fun today.” And we did, and it changed our whole game.

Chris: We decided to follow our gut and go for it. We had nothing to lose at that point.

The other Survivor teams got eliminated early in the race. Do you think being the last left standing made you less of a threat when the other teams were looking to U-Turn?

Chris: I do. I think the first three legs of the race helped us because we came across as these bumbling idiots who happened to get through. [Laughs.] So we had this cloak of incompetence over us. As we progressed, we started actually to do well. But everyone’s eyes are on other teams.

Bret: Well, the “O’Reillys” didn’t give us any credit, even after that! The other thing is that Chris and I are really easy guys to get along with. We made fun of each other and made everyone laugh. Nobody wanted to U-Turn us except the O’Reillys.

Chris: That’s where our Survivor social game actually helped. You don’t get to vote anybody out–well, we did get to vote for someone–but the social matters.

You ended up being the deciding vote to U-Turn the Reilly sisters. What was your thinking behind that?

Chris: It’s on several levels. First, Bret and I had decided we were running one leg at a time. To get through that leg of the race at that moment, U-Turning the O’Reillys is the move. If we bumbled around like we did the first few legs, they had to do both sides of the Detour, and we were assured to make it through. Second, we’re staring at Colin and Christie, the Afghanimals, Team Fun, and Tyler and Korey. All these people would blow through a U-Turn like it’s not even there.

Bret: We witnessed them do it in Laos!

Chris: They actually passed us before doing it. So we’re going to U-Turn some people who probably will finish ahead of us and make them mad? Third, that vote was the most words the Reillys had spoken to us. It was edited as an emotional thing. But our emotions fit with our strategy at the time. I had no doubt Colin and Christie would finish in the top three, even with a U-Turn. The Afghanimals are famous for [surviving U-Turns]. Team Fun and Tyler and Korey had already done it. To assure ourselves not finishing last, that was the best move.

Bret: Leo is just as likable as me and Chris. I love the kid; I wouldn’t have done it to him! I think the night before the vote was the first time the O’Reillys had spoken with us. Everyone else had personal relationships with everyone.

Bret, you had some difficulties running throughout the race. What’s your perspective on your performance?

Bret: We didn’t have a lot of time before the race. I had six months to prepare for Survivor; I needed time for the race. Chris did take my bag–

Chris: The entire race I took your bag!

Bret: A lot of these other teams are like marathon runners; they’re in tremendous shape.

Chris: I want the record to be clear. I get lumped in with these statements of “Chris and Bret, there’s no way they’re going to keep up.” I will bet $100 I can outrun anybody on the race with both backpacks.

Bret: He said we were talking about me, Chris.

Chris: Sorry about that. Let the record show I am in tremendous cardio shape.

Bret: I knew this was going to be trouble. I do have strength in other things, like shooting. We complemented each other well. Running is definitely an issue. If I were to ever go back on the race, I would need to work on that. Also, in our inexperience, we way over-packed. That will be reevaluated would we ever go back. I would not bring as much as I thought, which didn’t help my running situation.

Chris: I would still pack a pair of “slimmy” jeans.

Bret: We looked fantastic! But I didn’t look fantastic when I was running up hills in Switzerland. But that’s the good thing about the race. You don’t have to be a marathon runner and you can still do well. Running did not knock us out of the race. I’ve been working on my cardio, and one day I’ll hopefully get to show everybody.

What did you learn about your bromance partner racing around the world together?

Bret: I learned that Chris is even crazier than I [expletive] thought!

Chris: (Laughs.) Bret and I have one of those strange relationships where we just knew each other from the get-go. If I was going to pick one thing out, Bret is obsessed with eating ketchup. He eats it by the barrelful. That’s why that fat ass can’t carry a backpack!

Bret: (Laughs.) It is a food group in my family. Toward the end, I learned Chris is really weird if he can hear you eating. He’ll be like, “Stop smacking your teeth and lips while you’re eating!” At one point, I looked over and thought, “I am not connected to you in any way. Shut the [expletive] up. I’ll eat any way I want to!” (Laughs.) But I think we did unbelievably well. We got along better than some spouses did. Considering Chris and I got locked together in a hotel room for a month, I thought we did tremendously.

Chris: I made us a cell phone on a note pad. While we’d be at a pit stop, Bret would be like, “Hey, can you check Twitter?” I had a Twitter app on it. So we’d walk around with this stupid paper phone, we were losing our minds.

Bret: We played a lot of cards, too. We were experts at rummy.

So you’ll pack less on the race next time, but the note pad phone has to stay.

Bret: Oh yeah! But we haven’t paid our bill. Lots of international roaming charges.