Calgary's Filipe Masetti and Clara Daval are racing across Canada on The Amazing Race

From mid-April to mid-May this year, Filipe Masetti and Clara Daval seemed to disappear from Calgary.

At least it would have seemed that way to the family and friends of the husband-and-wife duo. In reality, they were criss-crossing the country for Season 12 of The Amazing Race Canada. But they had to keep that a secret.

"It's harder than the race itself," says Masetti with a laugh, when asked about how tough it was to keep mum about their participation in the show. "When you get on The Race, you can't tell anyone. I'm pretty active on social media. I'm a motivational speaker. I travel the world for these events. What are you going to tell people? You have no internet. You're not going to be online for a whole month."

So the couple led people to believe they were spending a month off the grid at a cabin in the mountains. Masetti is also a filmmaker and author, but he is probably best known for his eight-year journey across the Americas. In 2012, he set off on a journey and eventually became the youngest person to cross the Americas on horseback. He left Calgary during the Stampede and covered 27,000 kilometres. It took him from Canada to Brazil, through South America to Argentina and finally from Alaska back to Calgary. He arrived during the 2020 Calgary Stampede and was named honorary parade marshal even though Stampede had been cancelled due to COVID-19.

Since then, he has stayed in the spotlight as a busy speaker and horseback guide. During the Stampede, he is a commentator for Sportsnet in Canada and the Cowboy Channel in the U.S. for tie-down roping and breakaway roping, and also does a segment called Fun with Filipe.

Still, while Masetti may not seem the type to "fall off the Earth for a month," it was not that much of a stretch. "Pretty much everybody believed it," says Daval. "We're used to going to the mountains where there is not so much internet. So people were like 'Oh yes.'"

So it was a surprise for many last week when they were named one of the 10 teams that competed in Season 12 of the series, which debuts July 7. They are not the only high-profile participants this season — among their competitors is a team made up of pioneering hip-hop artists Maestro Fresh Wes and Duane (D.O.) Gibson — but Masetti is used to being in the spotlight.

The couple met in Patagonia in 2017 while Masetti was mid-trek. Daval eventually joined him for a month-long journey through Southern Argentina, which is where she is originally from. It was good prep for participating in The Amazing Race Canada, and their love-at-first-sight romance makes for one of the more charming backstories in the history of the show.

Due to the commandments of reality TV, Masetti and Daval cannot reveal what they endured or how they did during the month-long shoot. Episode 1 begins with the teams atop Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, kicking off a cross-Canada trip that had them facing various physical and mental challenges. "It's very hard," acknowledges Daval. "It's go, go, go. The not knowing is the hardest part. You don't know where you are going, what time you're going, what the challenge is going to be."