The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Josh and Brent

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge

Season 22 of The Amazing Race concluded on Sunday night with an epic finale that kept the viewers on the edge of their seat for the entire 2 hour ride. After racing more than 25,000 miles across three continents, nine countries, and 20 cities, the Final 3 teams fought their way toward the $1 million prize. The most unlikely team in the Final 3, the Fabulous Beekman Boys (@Beekman1802Boys), pulled out the win in a nail-biting finish that still has fans talking about their amazing come-from-behind journey. The Yak took an afternoon recently to chat with life partners Josh Kilmer-Purcell (@joshkp) and Brent Ridge to discuss their time on the race, the memories they made, and how they’ll spend their prize money.

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The Yak: Congratulations on your win! It was an amazing episode, and a lot of viewers were pulling for you to take home the prize!
Josh: Thank you!
Brent: Thank you very much!

The Yak: It seemed like the first half of the race was much harder for the two of you. What was the difference or the turning point in your minds?
Brent: Well, actually, we were doing pretty well for the first few legs. We were solidly in the middle of the pack, and then we had a major setback with the missed flight connection. It’s tough to make up a 14 and a half hour lag. Maybe people didn’t really notice, but by the time we got to Spain, we were only 3 hours behind the next team, and that’s a pretty major accomplishment over two legs. We were as far back as any team could possibly be and still be in the same game, but we just kept going.

The Yak: OK, so I have to know. Did you fake the ankle injury?
Josh: No, it was actually funny watching the show because like any sprain, after I was on a plane for a few hours and had it elevated, it felt like brand new, but then I started running and ended up twisting it again. I can see how [The Twinnies] thought it might have been some evil scheme or strategy.
Brent: They were just grasping for anything at that point.

The Yak: It appeared that the rilvary with The Twinnies lit a fire under you. Is that how it happened on the race?
Josh: Absolutely! Up to that point in the race, we had been very cordial, as we always are in our everyday lives, with all the teams, but once we found out that there was an alliance that was more “us versus them”, that was our first kick in the butt. Then, once the twins, who are just wonderfully competitive people, realized we were their biggest threat, they really helped fire us up. We were firing each other up, and making us the best competitors that we both could have been. That’s what sportsmanship is, it’s making your competitor the best competitor that they can be.

The Yak: How were you able to make up so much time over a couple of legs? I’m not sure that any other team has been able to accomplish that during the race.
Brent: Thank you so much for pointing that out!
Josh: Nobody gives us credit for that!
Brent: The thing is that we did very well was at the tasks, when we were able to get to them. Part of our strategy for racing with Ryan and Abbie was that we knew that whichever one of our teams was going to survive, they would only survive to the final leg if we could eat into that lag time as much as possible, so by working together, we were able to blow through the tasks in Russia.

Josh and Brent prepare the dog food during the last leg of the race

The Yak: From another teams perspective, what was it like to be racing against Abbie and Ryan, knowing they were up for $2 million as the prize?
Brent: That had no bearing on us, and I think some of the other teams felt that Abbie and Ryan would be racing harder, but we know Ryan and Abbie and they were going to be racing hard even if it was for $1. The only time that the $2 million really came into play is in terms of the pressure that was put on the other teams was during that first leg of the race. Everybody was really gunning for it, but then after that, people were just running the race.

The Yak: Was working with Abbie and Ryan as helpful as it seemed? It appeared to be during the show, but we don’t get a sense of what it was like actually on the race. Was it that helpful?
Brent: Yes! It was entirely strategic! I know people think it was touchy-feely, like we were in last place and we wanted to hug it out, but Abbie and Ryan are very strong and very strategic, as are we, so we knew that only one of us was going to continue in the race, and the only chance was to make up that time. So, it was not selfless, it was selfish on both of our parts.

The Yak: Do you think it was better to be the underdogs rather than the ones to beat?
Josh: I definitely think it was better for us to be the underdogs. Only because we knew going into the race that every team has their own specific set of strengths and weaknesses, so we knew from the moment we were on the starting line that we weren’t going to beat half of these teams in a physical challenge. We had to rely on some of our life experiences, like having lost our jobs and picking ourselves up by the boot-straps and starting over. The “go with the flow” mentality that it taught us was one of our strengths. I think when you’re in the back of the pack, that strength is really, really valuable. By the time that we got to the finish line, all the other teams who approached the race with an “I have to win and come in first as many times as possible” mentality were mentally and physically more exhausted than we were.
Brent: And you can see that on the final two legs. The top three teams were starting to get frazzled.

The Yak: Taking a look at the final Road Block, how much pressure did you feel when you’re there with the other two teams, trying to get this finished?
Josh: There was a moment, and we all experienced it, when you had three right that we thought we knew, but you realized that there were thousands of combinations that we were going to have to try and that was the only way we were going to finish. It was a really bleak moment, and I think you saw it on Lexi’s face, as she had a hard time dealing with that. I knew that the only way to get past that place mentally was to try every combination of flags, so I had no choice. It was either step down and wait for somebody else to do it or get going on the flags.

The Yak: Did you do anything special to prepare for the race after you found out that you had been cast?
Brent: We trained and trained. We’re also long-time fans of the show, but we watched every season we could get our hands on and rewatched it. Josh went to the gym a couple of times. [Josh and Brent laugh] No, we trained, physically, as much as we could. We quizzed ourselves with world maps. Most importantly, what we talked about in the last few weeks leading up to the race was how we were going to communicate with one another on the race. Having watched 20 seasons of the race, we knew that generally it wasn’t one team beating another team, it was a team defeating itself, and a lot of that comes down to how you support one another and how you communicate with one another on the race. So, we really worked amongst ourselves to say, “Hey, in this scenario, how do you want me to talk to you? If it happens, what do you want me to say?” That was really what we spent most of our time focused on.

The Yak: You can tell from watching the season that the two of you got pretty close with some of the other teams, but have you kept in touch with any of them since the race has ended?
Brent: Absolutely! We’ve kept in touch with all of them. We text with them frequently, and we actually watched the finale with half of the teams on Sunday night.

Josh and Brent celebrate their $1 million win

The Yak: So, what are your plans for the $1 million dollars?
Josh: We have three things planned. First, we’re going to pay off the mortgage on our farm, so that I can finally move up and be with Brent full time again after 5 years apart. Second, we’re hoping to buy a building in our village to become the headquarters for our business, so we can reinvest the money back into the town. Third, we want to start a line of food products for other small businesses so they can pay off their mortgages.

The Yak: What’s next for Josh and Brent?
Brent: Well, Josh will move to the farm full-time in January. That’s our next big step in the evolution of our business and our farm and our relationship.
Josh: We’re also working on a new cookbook, so we can put back some of the pounds that we lost on the race. We’re also going to be working with our village. Hopefully, being on The Amazing Race has made people aware of our village in upstate New York, and people will come to visit and help out the entire economy.

The Yak: Thanks so much for your time, and, again, congratulations on your win!
Brent: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Jaymes and James

Jaymes Vaughan and James Davis

Proving that there’s more to the Chippendales team than just a couple of pretty faces, Jaymes Vaughan (@JaymesV) and James Davis (@James_MNE) showed fans of The Amazing Race their competitive drive, their incredible stamina, and their ability to don the infamous cuffs and bow ties when the situation called for it. Fighting their way into the Final 3 teams racing for the one million dollar prize, Jaymes and James escaped  straight jackets, delivered pizzas to hungry New Yorkers, and raced their way into a second place finish at the last leg. The Yak recently had a chance to chat with the dynamic duo from Las Vegas about their drive for the grand prize, their supportive families back home, and what the next step is for this pair of pals.

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The Yak: Congratulations on making it to the Final 3 during the race. It was great watching you both, and we were all pulling for you to bring home the win! We were big fans, and you did a great job at representing yourselves and the Chippendales.
James: Thank you!
Jaymes: Thank you so much! That means a lot, and I really appreciate that!

The Yak: After watching all the episodes now, what is your overall feeling about the race?
Jaymes: We had an amazing time on the race! We met some absolutely amazing teams. They had some inspirational stories. Look at Dan and Amy and everything they accomplished in life. The fact that Amy has become an amazing world-class snowboarder. Trey and Lexi – the love and support that they showed for each other. Josh and Brent were an amazing couple. We really met some amazing people on the race, and I feel like we came back with a family of 22 in our Amazing Race family. We love everybody that was on the race with us. We had a great time with everybody, making wonderful memories.

The Yak: James, have you had a chance to give your new car to your mom?
James: You know, I have not. We haven’t received the phone call yet. We’re wondering how it works. Do they mail it out? Do they ship it to us? We haven’t gotten the cars yet, so we’re still waiting to see how the prizes actually happen. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet that we’ve won these prizes. I’m sure my mom is going to be so happy once she gets her new car, she’ll probably do a back flip! [laughs]
Jaymes: We’re pretty dang-gone excited!
James: I’m so stoked about giving her this car.
Jaymes: I can’t wait to see the look on his mom’s face when she gets the car! We didn’t get the million, but one of our goals was to get his mom a car and we accomplished that. Another thing we can do, I can give my car to my parents to sell, so we can help pay for his expenses. We did win something. We didn’t leave empty handed, so we feel great that we did accomplish something for our families.

Jaymes and James complete a task

The Yak: It was nice to see you both working so hard, not only for yourselves, but for your families as well. Speaking of your families, Jaymes, how is your dad doing?
Jaymes: My dad’s a fighter. He’s in a new treatment for his cancer… sorry, it’s hard to talk about this, as I get upset really easily thinking about it… He started a new course of treatment with chemo and radiation, and he’s doing the best that he can to be the first person to take this incurable cancer and say, “Yo, it is curable! Check it out! I beat it!” My dad is a Marine, he’s a fighter, he’s hardcore, and he’s gone through this with an amazing attitude the entire time, and I feel like he might really be the first one to beat this thing! The best we can do, as family and loved ones, is to give him the means to take care of it, and that is by financially telling him to stop working. My dad is still working. It’s ridiculous. He goes to work, leaves and goes to chemo. He goes back to work, leaves and goes to radiation, then goes back to work. You’re not supposed to do that! So, I’m trying to do everything I can to help him. We’ve set up a website for him, www.forgetcancernow.com, and we’re trying to spread the word about it.
James: Every little bit helps. People think a dollar doesn’t matter, but the power of one dollar is big. It all adds up and makes a huge difference.
Jaymes: I still have faith, you know, that we were put on this show for a reason. I think it was because we were supposed to achieve that goal of me going to my dad at Christmas and saying, “Here you go. Stop working and get better!”

The Yak: What was the hardest challenge you faced during the race?
James:  Man, I had so many… you saw me struggling with the Bondo, you saw us struggle with the bamboo, you saw us struggle with the abacus lady. For me, mentally, the flag challenge at the end was the most demanding, just because of it’s proximity to the end. You’re at the end, this is the last thing you’ve got to do before you get the million, and the pressure is on. You could have cut the tension with a knife. I have to say that was the toughest challenge of the race. Honestly, we had great notes on all the greeters.
Jaymes: We wrote down everything, down to the fingernail paint color they had on.
James: We had every other details, except for “Hello” and “Goodbye”, so we knew the flags of the countries…
Jaymes: We were even looking at the mat to make sure it was the same mat every time at the Pit Stop. We took notes about everything, and we had a whole notebook full of notes. We knew “Thank you” in every language, but we didn’t know “Hello” and “Goodbye.”
James: A tip of the cap to the Amazing Race crew because they slipped that one by not just us, but everybody. Everybody was struggling with that challenge. It was extremely hard, especially when it’s at the end like that and your adrenaline is pumping and you want to get it done as quickly as possible, yet it’s something you just could not get done in 10 minutes.
Jaymes: I just want to brag about my best friend here for a second. You know how much taxi trouble we had in New York, it really got us behind, and we got to that flag challenge pretty late. James was actually able to complete that flag challenge faster than anyone else. We just got there so far behind. Leave it to a Chippendale to figure out, if we don’t know these “Hello” and “Goodbyes”, then lets make some algebra out of it. X and Y are going to equal Z, so he just went through and did it like a mathematical equation. He figured it out, so I just wanted to brag about him and say how proud I am of him that he did accomplish that. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get anywhere fast enough.
James: Honestly, it was mere minutes. It was an epic finish to an epic race, I feel.

Jaymes and James dance their way through a Detour

The Yak: It was a great season! It was a nail-biter right down to the very end.
James: We were biting our nails, too!
Jaymes: That guy in Indonesia [at the Pit Stop] was probably biting all of his long nails off!

The Yak: Did you get close to any of the other teams and have you kept in touch since the end of the race?
Jaymes: Oh yeah, we’ve got an entire Amazing Race family! We are forever part of the Amazing Race Season 21 family. Nobody will understand this experience like they will. Are you kidding me? We all keep in touch.
James: You really get to see who people really are in these crazy situations, and we met some real genuinely great people to the core. We’re very fortunate and blessed with the teams that we had.
Jaymes: Absolutely! I can’t wait for that Beekman Boy wedding, and we’ll get to get back together and go congratulate them. I’m so excited for them!

The Yak: Did you do anything special when you found out that you had been cast for the race?
James: No, but we were very hesitant at first. We actually had decided not to do it. We were just a little concerned with reality TV, and we thought people would see us as just “those Chippendales.” We thought they might wanted to portray us negatively, and we have families that watch television, with nieces and nephews that look up to us, so we didn’t want to put ourselves in a situation where there could reflect negatively on them. We should have paid attention to the fact that Amazing Race has won all these Emmys for a reason because it’s true to life. If you did it on The Amazing Race, you really did it in real life.
Jaymes: We were just a little hesitant of that, but you know, then my dad got sick and there was no more hesitation. We thought, “We’ve got to go win this million dollars. Whatever it takes. Let’s go do it!” We went and did it, and thank God, the Amazing Race won all the Emmys that it does because it’s true to life. If it happened on camera, it happened for real.

The Yak: What’s next for Jaymes and James?
Jaymes: The main focus right now is helping my dad. Also, James has got his band, My Name Engraved. They just had a new EP that came out, and they have more stuff in the works coming. My new single, called “Tonight”, will be out at the end of the year, but right now, it’s about taking care of my dad. Everything else can wait. We have our whole lives to work and make money. Right now, it’s about my dad.

The Yak: Thanks so much for your time, you guys. We wish you all the best!
Jaymes: Thank you so much! Have a wonderful day! We appreciate it!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Trey and Lexi

Trey Wier and Lexi Beerman

As one of the Final 3 teams racing for the one million dollar prize, Trey Wier and Lexi Beerman represented their home state of Texas during a leg that whirled them around the Big Apple – New York City! After fighting their way to the final leg of The Amazing Race, Trey and Lexi (@LexiBeerman) powered their way through Coney Island,  became the first team to reach the Houdini escape Road Block, and burned up the streets of New York by delivering pizzas. Even after leading the pack for most of the leg, the final Road Block tripped up Lexi as she attempted to match the greetings and salutations to the corresponding countries they visited. The Yak got a chance to sit down recently with the Texans and discussed their involvement with the Rockers found money, the toughest challenges, and what the future holds for the dating couple.

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The Yak: It was awesome watching you two on the race, and you had a lot of fans pulling for you to win the million dollar prize!
Lexi: Thank you. That’s very sweet of you!

The Yak: Let’s jump right into it – the situation with the found money and the Twinnies. How did that come up between your two teams? Was there any discussion of giving it back to James and Abba?
Lexi: When we watched the show, it was edited in a way where was was shown wasn’t exactly what happened. We found the money on the ground, we weren’t even 100% sure it was Abba and James’ money at the time, and Natalie and Nadiya found the money on the ground. When the CBS promo put “stealing” into the viewers minds, it came across even worse then it should have been. If anyone knows the rules of the race, even touching someone’s bag is illegal in the Amazing Race rules. So, we got permission that it was okay that we found the money, and we really didn’t think too much of it after that. Not knowing that it was going to be a big scandal on the race.

The Yak: With the race, what was the hardest challenge that the two of you faced?
Lexi: Physically, the hardest challenge was in Bangladesh where we moved the bamboo. It was 120 degrees, and because we were in a primarily Muslim country, all the girls had to wear long sleeves and long pants. So, we’re moving heavy bamboo and it was just an exhausting day. Physically, for me, that was the most challenging. Then, mentally, obviously, the last challenge of The Amazing Race – translating “Hello” and “Goodbye”. It’s so simple when you really think about it, but it was hard for me because I felt like every single challenge that we did, we had control over the outcome. We couldn’t move the bamboo fast enough. I couldn’t figure out the time zone challenge in Russia. It was all on me, and I felt like with the “Hello/Goodbye” challenge, I just lacked the control over the situation and it really just came down to a tricky math problem. That was the most challenging challenge of all.

Trey and Lexi catch a ride in Bangladesh

Trey: The physical challenges when we were in Indonesia and Bangladesh really took a toll on all of us. The first real time I ever got stumped was having to complete the bus challenge. The whole time, I was trying to stay positive, yet all I could think of was how I was doing terrible at it. I was looking over at Rob and he was killing it when he was puttying the bus. He does that for a living with his monster trucks, and I’ve never done anything like that before, so I was thinking that I was letting the team down. It was so physically demanding, and then it became emotionally demanding when I realized I was one of the last two teams standing there. So, that was really rough. Then, we had the bamboo challenge, where we knew if we screwed up on counting the bamboo, we had to go back, so those were some tough legs. Once we got through that, it seemed like we really picked up momentum and speed and we stayed in the top after those legs, so we struggled in the beginning, but it seemed like we kept getting stronger and stronger after every leg.

The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Lexi: Hmmm… I think there were two things that were my most favorite part. Number one: Trey and I have never traveled outside of the country before, and we got to go to nine different countries together. It was just insane. One of the camera guys said that we looked like wide-eyed puppies the whole time because we were just taking everything in for what it was. It was incredible. Opening our eyes to countries like Bangladesh and countries that nobody every goes to for a vacation was really, really special. Even though I was kind of scared being in those countries, I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to go. I think that’s a really cool part about the Amazing Race – it’s that they open the eyes of the viewers to countries that don’t get a lot of attention in the media or toursim in general. That was incredible, and number two, spending 30 days with Trey. The year leading up to going on the race, Trey was finishing up his final year at college and playing football, and I was working 60 hours a week for my mom’s tee-shirt company. It was a hard year, and we only got to see each other once a week, so having 30 quality days, traveling the country and being competitive, which is something that is instilled in both of us, it was absolutely incredible and definitely a dream come true.

The Yak: When you found out that you had been cast for the race, did you do anything special to prepare?
Trey: I don’t know if we really did anything special. We watched the episodes over and over again, trying to catch on to certain things or anything we needed to train for. We tried to get in as best shape as possible. I tried to teach Lexi how to drive a standard transmission.
Lexi: [laughs]
Trey:  You know, in case we ever got into a pickle. Just things like that.
Lexi: It’s hard to study for something like going into the race because you’re like, “Where do we start? We have the whole world to study!” Having gone nowhere and knowing nothing about anything outside of the US, it was quite a challenge and a little overwhelming when you though about it, so we concentrated on just being in the best physical shape that we could be. We did a bunch of random things, like going bowling and doing random tasks that you don’t do on a normal basis. Anything to just put us ahead.

Lexi and Trey search through a Russian library card catalog

The Yak: What does the future hold for Trey and Lexi?
Lexi: [long pause and then laughs]
Trey: We don’t really have anything planned out as far as our relationship. Lexi and I have wanted to get married for the past couple of year, but we’ve been in school and I haven’t really had time to work because of football. Now, I have a good paying job, and I want to be able to give her the ring she deserves and support her, so the future for us – maybe marriage soon. Who knows? As for now, we’re just going to enjoy being together.
Lexi: We’re excited for the holidays. We love Christmas!

The Yak: We wish the two of you the best of luck, both in your relationship and in your lives. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!
Trey: Absolutely!
Lexi: Thank you so much!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Natalie and Nadiya

Natalie Anderson and Nadiya Anderson

As we neared the end of Season 21 of The Amazing Race, one team has stood out above all the others for their loud voices, big egos and even bigger personalities. Yep, I’m talking about the Sri Lankan twin sisters – otherwise known by their catchphrase, “Twinnie!” – Natalie Anderson (@NatalieeAnd) and Nadiya Anderson (@NadiyaaAnd). With this leg of the race taking the teams through Barcelona, Spain, the final four teams duked it out for a spot in the Final 3 in the race for $1 million. Between the Speed Bump (lacing a corset), the Detour (Chow or Plow) and the Road Block (picking mushrooms), the Twinnies found themselves at the bottom of the pack and the last team to reach the Pit Stop. The Yak got a chance to chat with Natalie and Nadiya to discuss their roles as the most nerve-grating team, the story behind the stolen money, and their thoughts on remaining friends with the other teams.

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The Yak: As fans of the show, you must have been heartbroken to make it that close to the end and get eliminated right before the Final Leg.
Natalie: It was tough.

The Yak: After speaking with the Texans (Trey and Lexi) regarding the stolen money from the Rockers (James and Abba), there was talk about speaking with the Production Team and you had received the okay to keep the money and share it amongst yourselves. Were you surprised at all with how it was portrayed on the show?
Natalie: Yes. Me and Nadie were completely caught off guard with the advertisements. What was bad was the reactions of people who were taking the event as it was shown. For us, we would go back and do the same exact thing we did the first time. I have no regrets keeping the money. It was completely within the rules. It’s not a real-life situation, it’s a fucking race, and me and Nadiya have no regrets. You know, me and Nadie have thicker skin then Lexi and Trey and we did feel partially responsible, so I feel bad for them, but they had a great attitude about it and we realized that you can’t please everybody, so what can you do?

The Yak: In speaking with some of the other teams, there has been talk that you two had such fun-loving spirits and were so easy going during the non-race moments. We had hoped to see more of that during the race. You did have some great moments, but it seemed like it was edited to make you look like you were the nastiest of the teams.
Nadiya: You know, the way that me and Natalie are, we have so much personality and what you see is what you get. We don’t fake it. We can’t fake it, so I think we gave the show a lot of stuff to work with, and it’s easy to portray us in a certain light, but at the end of the day, we have no regrets and we can’t go back and say, “We wish we had done certain things in a certain way.” However, with the racers and the people that know who we are in real life, they know who we are as people and that’s what matters to us.
Natalie: Also, there are a lot of teams that are so cute and so nice and so everything else, me and Nadiya had those moments, but what’s more interesting to watch: 11 teams competing nicely together or… every team needs an asshole team, and we happened to be it. We were assholes, and we just own it.

Nadiya chows down on Hasma, a traditional Chinese dessert made of the fallopian tubes of frogs, while Natalie cheers her on

The Yak: What was the hardest challenge for you on the race?
Natalie: For me, the hardest challenge was the windmill challenge.  You know, Nadiya and I got there at the same time as the Beeks. When we got to our blades, we didn’t realize they were numbered, so we had to take them off and put them back. They also didn’t show it, but the windmill guy was really cute and I was getting distracted. Me and Nadie were joking around the whole time, and we weren’t paying attention, so we messed up.
Nadiya: You know, it’s a testament to how we are because the windmill challenge was the only challenge we struggled with during the entire race. It wasn’t a difficult challenge, it was just a matter of me and Natalie focusing and getting the job done, which we didn’t execute the task, so it was really up to us to have done a better job. It wasn’t the challenge that was a problem, we were the problem.

The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Nadiya: My favorite part of the race was racing with Natie and having a great time, winning or losing. Just having an awesome time and that was the best part. Having fun at every moment, winning or losing.
Natalie: For me, it was also just meeting everybody. Watching the finale with Josh and Brent and being able to enjoy with them and congratulate them, but still walk away with friends. I like our relationships, so that was pretty cool.

The Yak: Speaking of the relationships, since the race has ended, have you kept in touch with any of the other teams beyond the Beekman Boys?
Natalie: Yeah, we’ve kept in touch with almost everybody, except for the Freakazoids – the Monster Truckers (Rob and Kelley), we don’t talk with them, but who cares? With everybody else, for me and Nadiya, the people we can see being friends with in the long run, we’ve been in touch with Abbie and Ryan, Lexi and Trey, who will always be our “best friends from the race”. We’ll always be friends with them. Also, the Beeks, Jaymes and James, who will always be close to our hearts. Brittany and Caitlin. We love them all.

The Yak: After you had found out that you had been picked for The Amazing Race, did you do anything special to prepare?
Natalie: Nadiya and I did the more physical training. We did some kind of country memorization, but no extreme mental preparation. We started Cross Fit, and we cross fitted hardcore – 5 days a week. We focused on upper body strength because we knew we were going to go against tough guys. Cross Fit was our number one prep we did for the race. As a testament, we were running around with our backpacks, and our backpacks weighed 45 pounds each, but it never slowed us down.

Natalie and Nadiya sort fish in a Detour task

The Yak: So, what’s next for the two of you?
Natalie: We get so much feedback and so many responses from people, and I feel like people are not ready to say goodbye to us. All our Twinnie Fans are completely amazing. They’ve stuck with us through all the drama this season, and we’ll see what’s in the works, but our fans are just the most amazing people. They’ve been so supportive.

The Yak: We appreciate you taking the time to talk with us!
Natalie and Nadiya: Thank you so much!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Abbie and Ryan

Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz

After an emotional leg that saw the elimination of James and Abba, The Amazing Race continued the water works in Amsterdam, where the remaining 5 teams had to grind, vault and eat their way to the Final Four. The double U-Turn became an obstacle for Abbie Ginsberg (@abbieginsberg) and Ryan Danz (@ryandanz) that proved to be the topper to their Cake of Misfortune. The latest eliminated team sat down with Yakkity Yaks to discuss their string of bad luck, the friendships they made on the race, and if they thought the $2 million prize placed a bigger target on their chances of winning.

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The Yak: First off, I have to send my deep, deep love from our members who were touched by your decision to wait for Josh and Brent during the last leg. You’ve endeared yourself to a lot of viewers by doing that.
Abbie: Awe! That’s very nice to hear!
Ryan: I think in hindsight, honestly, getting first place and winning two million dollars would have been a dream come true on a lot of levels, but we never, ever thought that getting a relationship that we got not only with each other, but with the Beekmans that I know will be life long – It’s really hard to say that it’s not more important. What you see on TV is very authentic – the way that we treat them, the way that we wait with them – and even when they decided to move on from the U-Turn and let us go do the side of the U-Turn, there was no hard feelings. We hugged, and we were sort of preparing for that, days earlier, to happen. So, it’s very real. We’ll see them in a week or so in New York, and we’ll spend time with them, so we’re very blessed to have had that silver lining in what, otherwise, could have been a black cloud for us that day in Amsterdam.

The Yak: So, do you regret teaming up with them at all?
Abbie: Not at all.
Ryan: No, not at all. This experience for us was about so much more than just the race, whether winning the money or the travel component. We didn’t know what to expect. We were hoping to gain clarity with ourselves and our relationship, so that in and of itself was a major blessing. We got to do something that so few people ever will experience, and we developed a much deeper relationship with each other through it. Then, an off-label reward, was this relationship that we got out of it with Josh and Brent that will pay off dividends well beyond any prize money we would have won, so there’s absolutely no regrets whatsoever.

The Yak: Taking a look at the U-Turn on this leg, how do you now feel about the Chippendales and their choice to use the U-Turn on the two of you?
Abbie: You know, we look at it as two separate things. We knew there was a great likelihood we’d be U-Turned, so to be bitter about a U-Turn in general, we’re not at all. It’s part of the game. Our strategy was not to use the U-Turn early in the game because we didn’t need to. Had we been racing for last place, there’s a potential we would have used it on another team. We were shocked that it was them out of the people that were left. We knew that Twinnies [Natalie and Nadiya] and Texans [Trey and Lexi] would do it in a heartbeat, but for it to come from them, we were shocked. What you didn’t see was the relationship that we had built with Jaymes and James, pretty much from day one, when we were talking back at LAX. We had said we wanted to align with a dominate male-male team, and they had come up to us and said, “You guys are strong, so what do you say about helping each other to the Final Three? Then, all bets are off and may the best person win.” So, we did a lot of helping each other out along the way.
Ryan: Yeah, we got pretty far behind leaving Turkey. There were some flight issues that you saw, and some flight issues that you didn’t see, so we didn’t see them for a couple of days. They didn’t know what had happened. So, we finally run into each other at some point, and Blonde James comes up to us and literally says, “Oh, my god! Thank god! You’re here! I can breathe again!” I’m only bringing this up to show that either he was the best actor of all time or he genuinely cared about us and vice versa. We had some conversation, and we told them there was some concern because we were so far behind and that there’s a U-Turn coming up, and he said, “Don’t worry about it. I know that Texas and the Twinnies are plotting, but we have your back. We’re gonna make sure that everything is okay. We’ll take care of it. We all want to race together. We want to race with the strongest teams, and really take pride with beating them fair and square.” So, had he not said that, it would have been cool. It’s definitely a mechanism in the game. Go for it. Use it. We talked in Indonesia, during the first U-Turn, that we just don’t believe in them as race fans, but these guys were recruited for the show, whereas Abbie and I applied as fans, so they had other interests. One of the first things that Jaymes told us was this was an opportunity for him to get his own TV show. So, that’s fine if that’s what it is, but we just kind of felt betrayed and here we were sticking to our words with everyone that we were talking to and holding our end of the bargin up.

The Yak: Looking back, how would you have played it with Josh and Brent if you hadn’t been U-Turned?
Ryan: If the U-Turn didn’t happen, we basically would have gone to the ditch together. I think it was caught on TV that they were sort of resigned to the fact that they went as far as they could go and got as much out of the experience as they wanted to at that point, so we were under the impression that if you step on the mat at the same time, there are some rules that we were aware of that indicated which team would prevail. We were fine in knowing that if we were tied, we would have been moving on.

Abbie and Ryan get U-Turned in Amsterdam

The Yak: What about your relationship with the Twinnies?
Abbie and Ryan: [imitating Natalie and Nadiya] “Twinnie! Twinnie!” [laughs]
Abbie: What would you like to know?
The Yak: Where did that relationship break down? It never seemed like you had a real strong connection with them from the beginning, but where did it really start to turn?
Abbie: It’s funny because looking back, a lot of people like our friends and families said, “What the heck did you guys do to have this hatred for one another?” and I think if you back up, they’re competitive and we’re competitive and sometimes you just don’t like people you compete against. I think with a lot of these shows, there were little snippets. There weren’t many times when we were arguing and being horrible to each other, and I think a lot of of Twinnie stuff is humor driven.
Ryan: I would just add that the few things you saw each of us saying was probably the only things that were actually said, but since the show only gives you 40 minutes of air time, you tend to get a lot of weight on something when it comes up. So, while it looked like we said things all day long, there was really only a few comments. We were really only concerned with one thing and that was how we performed on the race course. Aside from the U-Turns, there’s really nothing that another team can do to you to slow you down and impact your race, and I think when you did see us interacting, it was sort of in a sibling-rilvary sort of place.
Abbie: It was playful!
Ryan: Yeah, I genuinely happy with the way that they talked, and I was blown away by the things that they said. I thought it was funny. I have a similar sense of humor, so for the most part, I just found them to be entertaining. I didn’t have this issues, like, “Oh, my god! I can’t run this race with them still here!”
Abbie: Like little pests. There was the one task where I asked them if they had built a scale in their backyard, it was like, “No shit!” It was sarcasm. It wasn’t as if I was actually asking them if they built scales in their backyards for fun. So, come on, really? It was all for fun, and people might be surprised by this, but we’ve actually developed a good relationship with them after the show. Between them and the Beekmans, we talk to them via text nearly every day. I think, they’re young and we both didn’t know each other that well during the show. You don’t have a lot of time to really get to know people. You’re racing on your own quite a bit, but they’re funny.

The Yak: Obviously, everyone’s curious about the U-Turns, the Chippendales, and the Twinnies, but aside from all of that, what do you think was the hardest part of the race for each of you?
Abbie: Booking flights. [laughs] The most stressful part, honestly, was booking flights. The whole thing was a welcome challenge, though, for Ryan and I. Being very competitive people, we liked being put to the test and we like those moments of struggle. Personally, nothing stands out more than Dhaka. The heat and the culture change and the tasks that day – that was probably one of the toughest physical parts of the race. Also, the demise of Abbie and Ryan was emotionally tough to deal with. Amsterdam was brutal on our spirits. It would have been one thing if we had been sucking at the course itself and making dumb mistakes, but this plane trouble stuff – for that to be an incessant problem – it just drained us by the time we got to Amsterdam.
Ryan: Abbie’s right. Along the way, we really were getting stronger as a couple. The race itself was becoming more manageable physically. The hardest part, though, was coming to grips with the notion that we were the strongest team, just based on the average finish – especially before we left for Russia, we averaged a second place on every leg, even though we had two firsts. So, we were just crushing the course in every leg, we were getting stronger as a team, stronger as a couple, and then, all of a sudden, all this bad luck happened with the flight situations and we just couldn’t get over it. That was a very hard thing to comprehend when you’re doing so well that the “race behind the race” with all this logistical stuff leaves you feeling very helpless. If we had failed on the race course, we could say, “Look, we did our best, but we’re just not the best team,” but we don’t think either of us felt that way.
Abbie: Yet, for the same reason, we love this race! We’re fans of it because the luck part is part of it. It gives anybody a shot, not just the most physical and smartest team. It really can go any way.
Ryan: The Blondes [Caitlin and Brittany] with the taxi that caused a problem. Then, Amy and Daniel with the taxi in Indonesia. Plus, us with the flights. If you said, “Would you do it all over again and take that stuff out of the equation?” I would say, “Absolutely not!” I think traveling and racing around the world was as much a part of the race as the Detours and the Road Blocks, and it’s a fun part of the race. The first day we left China, we got to the airport first and Abbie didn’t see anybody, so she was concerned we had to book our own flights and we were going to screw it up. She got sort of emotionally freaked out.
Abbie: I got freaked out!
Ryan: When, looking back, that was exciting! That was really cool. We were able to get around the world and figure it out on our own, having never really traveled together before.

The Yak: It seems to be a theme with a lot of the racers this season: everyone was really excited about the race, but they’ve all got their own personal issues behind the race itself, whether it be the taxis or the flights. It’s definitely something to consider when discussing the race that most racers never think about before hand.
Ryan: Yeah, when we were traveling between Detours and Route Markers and Pit Stops, we were doing things to get better each leg when it came to those kinds of travel, especially when it was travel by taxi. We were always trying to pay our drivers ahead of time, so that we wouldn’t have to haggle at the end, and we always had backup measures in place to make sure our driver knew where he was going. So, we were not just getting better at performing the tasks, but actually how to move around in each country. It’s too bad that we didn’t get a chance to go to the end and see how it would have shaken out. If you looked at our record up until after Turkey and before the flight troubles all started, when we were all racing on the same even playing field, we beat the Chippendales 5 out of 6 times, and we beat the Twinnies [Natalie and Nadiya] 5 out of 6 times, and we beat Lexi and Trey 4 out of 6 times, so it’s not a guarantee that we would have won, but I certainly liked our odds better than anyone else’s.

Abbie and Ryan trek through Bangladesh

The Yak: After that first leg, what was it like knowing that you were racing for two million dollars? Did it seem to be a big deal to the other teams?
Ryan: Ultimately, the game decision to U-Turn us and everything else that came along with it had nothing to do with the two million dollar prize. It had everything to do with how we were winning each leg or coming in the top until we had our flight issues. Until that point, every decision that was made against us was made just because we were a strong team. We could have been racing for one dollar and the teams would have made the same decision because we were going to impact their ability to win their own one million dollar prize.

The Yak: Did you do anything special after you found out you had been selected to be on the race?
Abbie: Oh, gosh! That day was so exciting. I remember that day: it was pouring down rain, and we immediately went to get our backpacks and started shopping for all of our items. We didn’t even celebrate that night. We were on a very strict, healthy regimin before we left. We had just spent the day together, prepping, and then we started mentally and physically prepping a little bit before, just in case, since we didn’t want to wait 3 or 4 weeks before the race to do all that, so we upped our prep time. We pretty much lived and breathed prepping for the race before we took off.
Ryan: The one thing that I think was the biggest preparation tool for us was teaching Abbie how to drive a stick shift. It didn’t happen over night, and it didn’t happen over two or three nights – it took about three weeks, and it was the bain of our existence in that time. Then, in the meantime, we were doing pilates together and doing brain games and going to different workouts and rock climbing and kayaking, but that stick shift driving really got us over the hump of communications that we didn’t have before. We had never really been in a position like that before where we were relying on each other in a different sense of the relationship. Unlike the Twinnies, who had a lifetime of being sisters, we’ve only been dating for a year and a half, so the benefit of that time together learning the stick shift was the best preparation on how to communicate during the race because it was so contentious. For a while, she was getting frustrated, and I was getting frustrated, but it really was the best thing we could have done.

The Yak: It definitely showed in the way you ran the race. You seemed to have a good chemistry together, and you didn’t appear to fight like we’ve seen so many teams do in past seasons.
Abbie: Yeah, we’re happy that we were portrayed that way. There really wasn’t much they could have used to make us venomous towards one another, and that was really important going into the race because Ryan and I are both Type-A and competitive, we both had a goal, which was to win and do our best, but you have to put the relationship and the cattiness and the nit-picking aside. We had the same goal, and that’s why I think we meshed really well when it came to the task at hand. Yes, there were moments in the hotel room when we had to work out some stuff and maybe there was a little bit of bickering and quarreling then, but the majority of our success was because we were able to just contain that side of the relationship. Ironically, with that, we were working on our relationship, but we weren’t putting focus directly on it.
Ryan: We were even being told by Phil at each Pit Stop, “Gosh, I can’t believe you guys are getting stronger as a couple. Certainly as a team, but also as a couple. That’s never really happened.” Some teams, even Ralph and Vanessa from last season, broke up on their flight out of Hawaii. The relationship takes such a toll, especially as a dating couple. You’re not really invested in the relationship the same way you are as a parent-child or sibling or some other familial relationship, so we sort of had the deck stacked against us, but the thing that I’m most proud about is not how well we did and not that we’re one of the strongest teams of all time, but it’s really how we treated each other. We watched this back with our families and our friends, but at the end of the day, we made each other feel good and respected and accomplished. Plus, I’m just so proud of Abbie with how she treated herself. She has 800 students at her dance school that are between the ages of 5 and 18, so every Monday, they’d come in and say, “Oh, Miss Abbie! We saw you on the race!” It was their world, so in keeping that in the back of her mind, these kids are so proud of her and, hopefully, me through the way I treated her, it’s a really special part of the experience for us that we’ve never had that breakdown between us.

The Yak: So, what’s next for Abbie and Ryan?
Abbie: Well, work today. [laughs] No, you know, I think we’re open to whatever comes our way. We’re excited for new things. Maybe the race again? I’ll have to twist Ryan’s arm on that one, if it was ever an option. [laughs]
Ryan: We’re blessed that we’ve gotten some opportunities that have come, just because of this race. There’s been an endorsement deal that we’ve been able to line up, and I’ve been approached about doing a book, plus, there was a proposal that was accepted – just from being on the race and having unique backgrounds, whether jujitsu or law or entrepreneurialism. We just got back from a lakeside cabin in Tahoe, where we spent a week there with our dogs and hiked and got to be alone. We’ll just keep doing things like that and sort of living our own Amazing Race every day.

The Yak: Thank you so much for your time, and we were sorry to see you go, but we wish you all the best!
Ryan: Thank you! Go Yakkity Yaks!!!
Abbie: Yeah, Yakkity Yaks!!!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with James and Mark

James LoMenzo and Mark “Abba” Abbattista

Leg Seven of The Amazing Race brought many surprises to not only the viewers, but to the racers, as well. We saw the six remaining teams make their way through Moscow, Russia, while learning that you don’t leave your personal belongings unattended in strange men’s vehicles. Unfortunately for James LoMenzo and Mark “Abba” Abbattista, they found out this lesson this hard way, when they were ultimately forced out of the race for not having passports to continue their journey. The Yak recently sat down with the two rockers to discuss their thoughts about traveling around the world, losing their personal items, and, of course, Team Twinnie.

~~~~~~

The Yak: What’s tougher – the music industry or The Amazing Race?
Abba: It depends on your point of view because you get robbed in both of them. [laughs]
James: Well, you deal with a bunch of rats in both of them. [laughs]

The Yak: So, I have to know. Did you ever get to recover your bags and how long did it take you to get a replacement passport?
Abba: We’re still in Russia. [laughs]
James: They have a great TiVo system, so we get to watch the show only in small increments.
Abba: No, we never got the bags back. The taxi driver took off with them – stole them – and despite our efforts to try and track this person down in a city of 10-12 million people, we never did get them back. We exhausted all the remedies that we could. As far as the passport situation, this happened on a Friday and a Saturday, then Tuesday was the Independence Day for Russia, so all the government offices were closed down for the whole week. That made the whole matter even worse for us, but it didn’t stop us from trying. We were able to get a passport through the US Embassy, but then you also need a Russian Visa and that one was much more difficult to get because the culture of the Russian bureaucracy is not very flexible. We wound up getting stranded there for 6 more days after this happened.

The Yak: Well, you had a little down time to do some sightseeing then, right?
Abba: Well, yeah, if you consider seeing the inside of the embassies sightseeing, then, hey, yeah, we had a great trip! [laughs] We did the best that we could under the circumstances we had, and I had said to James at one point, “If we’d have won the leg, we would have won a trip, so let’s look at this as our six day, all-expense-paid trip to Russia together!” You gotta laugh to some extent. You can’t cry all day long, and we had a nice time and met some wonderful local people that were there with us. You know, you want to cry, but let’s go out and make the most of it.

The Yak: How do you feel now about the situation regarding the Sri Lankan twins taking your money and splitting it with Trey and Lexi?
James: I think it was an unfortunate thing. Personally, it’s disappointing to think that this is what happened. We had had nice relationships with [Natalie and Nadiya] all throughout the race, as well as Trey and Lexi, which were a little bit more shocking for me. You know, you kind of hope for the best and when you see something that isn’t that, especially after the fact, since we didn’t learn about it until it was on TV. At that point, you don’t move forward by looking in the rear-view mirror.
Abba: It was a great experience for us anyway, since we had to overcome the adversity of having no money and meeting all those really wonderful people in Bangladesh, who were more than willing to help us out by feeding us. We had a great experience because of it, so it was a negative turned into a super positive and one of the most memorable days of my life.

The Yak: Since you weren’t aware of Natalie and Nadiya and Trey and Lexi sharing your lost money, have you talked to them at all since the episode aired?
James: Oh, they’re dead. [laughs]
Abba: You won’t be hearing anything out of them anymore. [laughs] I’m just kidding!
James: I had a brief communication with Lexi and Natalie. They sort of explained their side of it, and I listened. It doesn’t change what happened, at least in my mind. I don’t condone it. I think they made a poor decision, and I expressed that to them. So, onward we move.
Abba: Well, we were convinced that we had dropped it in the van we were taking, so that was what we were trying to figure out. It’s kind of a weird relief to know we didn’t lose the money, but that someone had stolen it. [laughs]

The Yak: I think a lot of fans feel the same way you do about the two teams involved with the missing money.
Abba: You know, look, if you take the high road, there’s a lot less traffic. Also, the public outcry that has happened to them because of this is punishment enough. Those are their actions, and the result of their actions. The result of our actions was that we got an opportunity to meet a whole lot of unbelievable people in Bangladesh, and the generosity of those strangers that saved us that day is one of the golden moments of the whole race for both of us. I’m not just trying to blow sunshine up my own butt here, but it’s one of those things where it was something positive. It didn’t really affect anything anyway since we ended up beating the twins that day, so if there was some sort of “Ha-ha!” kind of justice internally with us, it was that we ended up beating them anyway. It had no impact on us because we chose not to let this impact us. Not that we knew that it happened, but we had a problem, we maintained our level-headedness about it, and ended up showing our grace and dignity throughout the whole race.

James and Abba search through the streets of Moscow, Russia

The Yak: After you were given some time to rectify the passport situation, were you hopeful that your time on the race might not be over?
Abba: We were holding on to hope the whole way. We kind of realized that it was the longest shot on Earth, but it’s kind of like when someone gives you a lottery ticket for your birthday. They’re really giving you nothing, but at the same time, you hope that you might win the lottery, so that was kind of where we were at. We were a little bolstered by the other adversity that we had overcome throughout the race, including getting through losing the money, so we thought, “It’s a long shot from hell, but we’ll take it, as usual!” What else could you do? It was an interesting experience. We got to see things that we probably never would have seen in Russia, and we’d already been there three or four times prior – mostly in jail. [laughs]
James: We were inside Russian jails. I got to spend several hours inside Interpol. I don’t know anybody else that’s ever done that. At that point, we knew it was pretty dim, but at the same time, it wasn’t over yet. We weren’t dead, so while we still had some breath, we were going to keep kicking with it and take everything in at the same time.

The Yak: Abba, given how bad your knee was, do you still think you could have continued the entire race?
Abba: Well, here’s what happened with my knee; I’m going to give you an exclusive. Are you ready for it?
The Yak: Sure!
Abba: Turns out, it wasn’t my knee. We thought that it was potentially the meniscus, and when I came home, I ended up having MRI’s and it turned out that I had fractured both tibias. So, I ran the race with two broken legs. Could I have done that Russian dancing thing? You know, I probably should not have been running or anything, and even now, I’m sitting while I’m speaking to you with these magnetic bone probe stimulators on. I’m still in a doctor’s care, and I’m still healing from this several months later. So, could I have done the Russian dancing? I wasn’t going to quit. I wasn’t there to quit, so it might not have been pretty, but I would have powered through it like I powered through everything else. I’d like to think that toughness isn’t the question that’s on everyone’s mind when it comes to me, but it wouldn’t have stopped me at all. We were running on cobblestones and on broken streets. It was awful from a pain point of view, but at the same time, Amy was there with no legs, so until they cut mine off, I thought that her story was more important than mine.

The Yak: Beyond the missing money, the stolen passports and your knees giving you trouble, what do you think was the hardest part of whole race was for you?
Abba: We haven’t been asked that one yet.
James: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. For me, going into this, my biggest fear was that I’d have to do some kind of orchestrated dance. I didn’t realize it would involve trying not to drown at the same time. [both laugh] So, that was probably the hardest moment for me.
Abba: I think answering this question might have been the hardest part of the whole thing. [laughs] No, I think it was dealing with the non-elimination from a personal point of view. I know it’s not kind of a sexy answer, but it’s sort of facing the humbling reality in front of 10 million people. I think being in a speedo in front of 10 million people with that silly cap on our heads – not that it was physically hard, but it kind of puts your life into a little weird perspective when you’re forced to surrender to something. It’s like you’re thinking, “I know I look ridiculous!” I know this probably looks somewhat foolish to people, but when you move ahead in life despite that fear or the fear that you’re going to look silly, that’s probably the hardest thing. Also, I think it was great being on camera. I think everybody should live a couple of days of their life on camera. Just to see what you really look like, and what you really sound like and how you behave. Plus, the facial expressions that you make. You’d be surprised. It may not be what you think you look like. I don’t think I really had a bad experience, you know, outside of the not winning, but I also learned, too, that not winning doesn’t mean losing. The first episode in Shanghai where Phil kind of gave us a bit of heat on the mat, it really changed me a bit along the way. That’s probably the competitive nature that I kind of had going into this, and realizing, we didn’t lose a million dollars that we didn’t have. We gained a trip around the world, which validated everything that we already felt towards each other, towards the world, and having a bunch of wonderful experiences added to the book of our life.

The Yak: Did you two do anything special to prepare for the race after you found out you had been selected?
James: We got right on training and watching the show. That’s pretty much what I would recommend everybody does.
Abba: Don’t suggest that!
James: Well, we want good competitors!
Abba: What if we ever come back, dude? Then, everybody will know what they’re doing!
James: Here’s what you need to do: get a box of Twinkies before they all go away because you’re going to miss those.
Abba: You never know – there could be a Twinkie-eating challenge.
James: That’s right, it could happen! [both laugh] I mean, we did the normal stuff: we got our cardio up, made sure that we were strong enough to carry your own weight around, maybe hanging from something or standing on something. I think it’s kind of obvious. It really is a grueling trek. Most important, though, is you’ve got to get your attitude adjusted perfectly because there’s a lot of exhaustion involved. The biggest part is making sure you have a mental reserve. That’s not something everybody can do.
Abba: I think a lot of preparation was involved because we both have families. We had to leave our children and wives at home. There was a lot of preparation that involved talking with my kids and my family, who were used to us being away because we tour a lot, but there’s no contact with them [while you’re on the race], so this whole time after they dropped us off at the airport, nobody knew where we were or what we were doing. For me, it was important that my family kind of had that. I missed my daughter’s eighth grade graduation. James missed his daughter’s high school graduation. You know, how do you prepare for that? We have well-balanced families that went through a lot, so that we could go forward and do this. That’s something that’s really special, and I think that they’ve come out of this just as balanced now that they see Dad on TV. Even last night, my son was crying because he didn’t want to know anything that happened, and he was sort of disappointed. You know, if I had something bad about the race, maybe it was that. Seeing my kid crying over this game. I didn’t really want that to happen. It really affects a lot of people beyond just the two people that you see on the show.

The Yak: Did you get a chance to get close to the other teams, and have you kept in touch with them since the race ended?
James: Yeah, I think we got close to pretty much all of them, with the exception of one that we made a choice about. The thing is that you’re not really with each other. When we won the two challenges in a row, we didn’t see anybody for three or four days because we won and we’re back in the hotel before some of the other teams even started. I think there was probably only two challenges that we actually did with anybody else in the room with us, which was the balloons and the ping pong. So, we had a tendency not to be with people. We didn’t have that sort of social element. I don’t think we had a social need, where it was kind of a sorority party where everybody got together and huddled around and braided each other’s hair. I’ve kept in touch with pretty much everybody. We’re part of this strange, little fraternity here. We went through a very life-altering experience and we only have each other to kind of relate that to. There was definitely camaraderie that’s out of that and some nice friendships with some of the people. Some of the people I went through my whole life not knowing them in the first place, and I’ll go through the rest of it not caring that I don’t know them in the second place.
Abba: I keep waiting for one of them to call me up, but they keep getting the time zones wrong.
[James and Abba both laugh]

The Yak: What’s next for the two of you?
Abba: I’m probably going to have a sandwich. [laughs]
James: I’m working on an album of music right now and a couple of other projects. I have my production company, where we do videos for music manufacturing, so I’ve got my hands pretty much full.
Abba: My business will continue to go on. I’m not quite sure. Every morning, I wake up and I’m not sure what’s coming. Then, every night I go to bed and I’m not sure what just happened, so this kind of situation isn’t much different for me.
James: You gotta get a job one of these days! You can’t keep living like this, man!
Abba: We’ll keep traveling around. I’ve got some tours set up for the beginning of next year, so I do a lot of traveling. This next week, I’ll be spending with my family because now that I’m not on the show, it’s quiet time. I’ll have a nice Thanksgiving and spend it with my whole family. I’ll just continue to decompress from this whole crazy experience we just went through. Who knows? There’s opportunity around every corner, so we’ll see what happens.

The Yak: We definitely appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Best of luck to the both of you, and a very happy Thanksgiving to you and your families!
James: Thank you so much! You, too!
Abba: Thanks!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Rob and Kelley

Rob French & Kelley Carrington-French

With last week’s Amazing Race giving us (and The Fabulous Beekman Boys) a non-elimination leg reprieve, the sixth leg pushed things into overdrive with a race from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Istanbul (not Constantinople!), Turkey. Although the leg was rife with drama (lost money! shared guilt! still not Constantinople!), the Monster Truckers, Rob French and Kelley Carrington-French, found themselves as the last team to the Pit Stop and out of the race for the one million dollar prize. The team recently sat down with Yakkity Yaks to discuss their thoughts on their travels, the sights and the shady ladies known as the Sri Lankan twins.

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The Yak: Throughout the race, it really seemed like your travel choices were affecting your ability to move toward the front of the pack. What drove your decision to make the choices you did, such as the longer layover in Hong Kong and the metro line in Istanbul?
Kelley: We’re not followers. We don’t like to follow what the other people do. We definitely like to make our own choices and decisions. The first choice, when we decided to take the plane to Hong Kong, was we were just thinking that Hong Kong has such a huge airport that surely there’d be a lot more choices once we got there, so we could get there, do some research and find other choices. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. For the metro, we had asked around while we were on the airplane and then once we got in the airport what would be the best way for transportation. The people that lived there said the city streets were so busy and so clogged in the morning that the metro would be the best choice. Unfortunately, that day, the city was not very busy.

The Yak: Along the same lines regarding your choices, it’s been talked about that you were well known for your decision to ditch the backpacks and go with a rolling bag. What was the reason behind that? Did you find that it helped or hindered your race at all?
Kelley: It definitely didn’t hinder us at all. You can only go so fast. You all have to go through the airports, and there’s only so much time to get from point A to point B, then you all have to wait in line once you get there. You’re going down a city street or you’re doing a task, so you’re not carrying it. It definitely didn’t hurt us at all. They could go just as fast as we could go. They also were backpacks that could hang on our backs. The advantage was not having to carry that stuff around 24/7. When you’re in the airport and hanging around there for 10 hours, you don’t have to carry 40 or 50 pounds around with you. We just rolled them around, so they didn’t hurt us at all.

The Yak: Let’s get candid for a moment – which of the teams did you find the most annoying to compete against?
Rob: (in a high-pitched voice) “Twinney! Twinney!”
Kelley:  (laughs) Well, they were loud and they just talked constantly.
Rob: Also, Ryan and Abbie!
Kelley: Yeah, Ryan was a bit on the hyper side. Everybody else was pretty much laid back.

The Yak: Who did you get along with the best out of all the teams?
Kelley:  We got along with the Beekman Boys really well. We got along with James and Abba. We really didn’t have any conflicts with anybody. When we had down time, it didn’t matter who we were with, if we were at the airport or wherever we were waiting, we got along with everybody.

The Yak: Unlike most of the couples on the race, both during this season and in previous seasons, you did seem to bicker at all. How were you able to communicate so well during the very stressful moments of the race?
Kelley: We work together every day and our jobs are very stressful, so we’re use to working together under stress. We kind of know each other’s personalities, and we know  when to shut up or when to say something, so for me, it was just a regular day at work. It was easy to get along and go through the motion of getting the job done.
Rob: I felt that the race wasn’t nearly as stressful as our everyday life with our businesses. We own multiple businesses, and me and Kelley are together 24/7, so it was just another day at the office without all the stress.

The Yak: Since the race wasn’t as difficult as your work lives, what did you find was the hardest challenge that you faced?
Kelley: For me, the physically hardest challenge was building that scale. The heat of the day was tremendous and I had a long-sleeved, thermal shirt on, so I was sweating twice as much. We didn’t have any fluids at first to drink, and everything was tall, so I had to keep moving 50 pounds of stuff, stacking them one on top of the other to get to the top of my scale. It just took a toll on me.
Rob: I didn’t have any hard challenges. My only challenge that was hard was standing there having to watch Kelley work so hard and not being able to help her.

Rob & Kelley in Dhaka
Rob & Kelley in Dhaka

The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Rob: I think carrying the bamboo was my most favorite part. Other than every time I went to the mat, I would be so excited that Phil would back up about 3 feet because he was afraid I was going to eat him.
Kelley: I enjoyed pretty much the whole thing. The exciting part was stepping off the bridge [during the first task of the race in Pasadena, California]. It was something I had never done in my life, and it definitely would have been something I never would have chose to do, saying, “Oh, let’s go rappel off a bridge!” That was really fun and exciting!

The Yak: Did you do anything special to prepare for the race after you found out you had been selected?
Kelley: Not really. We were still living our lives. Rob was doing the monster truck shows and I was still rodeoing, so we just kind of pulled it together the last week, packed our stuff, and went to California.

The Yak: Have you kept in touch with any of the other teams since the race ended?
Rob: I just spoke with Josh this morning. I talk to Abba at least once a week. We talk to Will from “David and Goliath.” Those were the teams that we really communicated with. Abbie – she sends me Facebook messages all the time, but with Ryan, we don’t really communicate with him because he’s a different kind of guy.
Kelley: Plus, the others are pretty much in a whole another generation.
Rob: With the twins [Natalie and Nadiya] and the Texans [Trey and Lexi], now that I saw the last show, I don’t care to ever communicate with them.
Kelley: Yeah, it was a bit of a shocker.

The Yak: It seemed to have really polarized people one way or the other about those two teams.
Rob: The bottom line is that there is no place in my life for thieves. I just felt like that was the wrong move.

The Yak: Looking at your own moves, would you have changed anything about the way you ran the race?
Rob: I would have changed anything.
Kelley: Not really. Perhaps, the hindsight of seeing that there was such a delay in our arrival at the last place from taking the metro. Aside from that, I would play the game the same. We depend on each other to make our own decisions. We thought we did great on every task that we had to accomplish, so we wouldn’t change things.

The Yak: Speaking of the tasks, in looking at the detours from the last leg, what made you decide to go with the delivery task versus the bath?
Rob: We didn’t have any money.
Kelley: Well, our money supply was low because the taxi charged us so much money in the last country, and then in this country, he said it was going to be “x” amount of dollars to take us where we had to go and then he charged us double. So, when we got there and read the clue, we saw you had to buy your own bath supplies or you could go deliver the bread. We figured if we buy the bath supplies, we don’t know how much they are and if we have to take another taxi or train, we won’t have the money, so we went ahead with the manual labor.

The Yak: What’s next for Rob and Kelley?
Kelley: We’re just living life. Rob just went to Guatemala and Nicaragua with the monster truck. We’re getting ready to go to Argentina in December with the monster truck. I just got back from our PRCA circuit final rodeo down in Davie, Florida, this past weekend, and I’m off to another rodeo in Texas this weekend.
Rob: Hopefully, Hollywood calls us and we become big superstars. (laughs)
Kelley: No, not me! (laughs)

The Yak: We’ll make sure to pass your name around to our big-shot friends in Hollywood!
Rob: Thanks, buddy!

The Yak: Thank you so much for your time! We really enjoyed watching you on the show, and we were sorry to see you go.
Kelley: Thank you!
Rob: Thank you so much!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Will and Gary

Gary Wojnar and Will Chiola

The Amazing Race kicked it into high gear last night with a whirlwind of action through the streets of Dhaka, Bangledesh. With the teams racing their way through back alleys, floating back and forth across rivers, and pounding away their aggression on steel and cotton, Gary Wojnar (@GaryWojnar) and Will Chiola ended up as the superfans that became the latest casualty du jour. The substitute teachers took some time today with Yakkity Yaks to discuss their involvement in the race.

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The Yak: It looked like you guys finally hit your stride in Bangledesh. What really happened at the end of the leg?
Will: At the end of the leg, at least with us, we kept going. We didn’t know Trey and Lexi were ahead of us. What happened was that our cab driver took us to the wrong side of the river, so we had to double back. We gave him the clue, and he accidentally looked at the middle part of the clue and took us to the wrong spot, but that was our own fault.
Gary: The way the clue was set up was at the beginning of the clue was a paragraph, and the first part of the clue said to make your way to the Pit Stop and it told you where the Pit Stop was. Then there was a space, and the middle of the clue had a paragraph that said, “In order to make it to the Pit Stop, you must go to a landing on the river, take a boat across to another landing, and then walk to the Pit Stop.” We had folded over the top part of the clue because we didn’t want the cab driver to see that part, as it was not necessary at that point. We just had to get to the landing at the river. At one point during the race, he got out of the cab, took the clue with him, and we think he unfolded the clue and showed somebody the top part of it, so he actually took us to the wrong part of the river. He took us to the landing that we were supposed to take the boat across to, so it was an unfortunate error. What it came down to was if I had done the bondo task a half-hour quicker, we’d still be in the race.

Will and Gary make their way to the Pit Stop

The Yak: Being superfans, how was the race different than you thought it would be going into it?
Will: It was very hard in the fact that we couldn’t communicate with the locals. Sometimes “yes” means “no.” Sometimes they took you to a certain spot, like you wanted to go to K-Mart, but you ended up going to Wal-Mart. Trying to communicate with the Taxi Cab driver turned into, “No, we don’t need to go here. We need to go there,” so going from point A to B is very hard. Plus, the heat, the lack of sleep, and the hunger – it all adds up to trying to stay calm and not get too upset. We could get upset with each other because we’re use to it, but we did not want to get upset with the locals because we’re in their country. We were representing The Amazing Race and the United States, so we wanted to leave a good impression.
Gary: With Will and I, we had made a point that before we went on the race, we would speak to people in different countries with dignity and respect because, as Will said, we were not only representing ourselves in the race, but America, so we needed to make a good impression with them. Just because we couldn’t speak their language or they didn’t speak English, it was no reason to get angry with them. No reason at all.

The Yak: The week before, in the close finish with Caitlin and Brittany, what were you guys thinking when your driver took that right turn at the end?
Will: We were talking to our becak driver, and we asked him how to get to the market. He asked the guy behind him how to get to where the clue was pointing us, so we were thinking, “Wait a minute. If you asked the guy behind you, why are we taking you then?” So, we switched becak drivers. He was slower, but we knew that he knew exactly where he was going, so we were pretty confident we were going the right way. We weren’t worried about where the girls were going because every place he took us to was correct.
Gary: It was so exciting though! We had no idea they were behind us when we were at the U-Turn, so we u-turned Team Georgia. We took a chance that someone was behind us because we weren’t going to go out without using every tool that was available to us. So, as we were going down the road and they passed us, we said, “Holy crap! It’s the girls!” So, when we took the right turn and they took the left, we turned around and asked the driver, “Is this the right way?” and he shook his head yes, so we told him to keep going. At that point, it was either right or wrong and we had faith in him. Luckily, that worked out for us that time, but that was so exciting running that. The girls were actually about 30 seconds behind us.
Will: We knew that if it came down to a foot race, we probably would lose, so we were very lucky to get there first.

The Yak: For the last couple of legs, it appeared that you were struggling with getting to the Pit Stops and there were a couple of times where it looked like you had given up hope. What made you so sure that you were done in the race with that particular leg and did it change your outlook going into the next leg?
Will: Are you talking about the leg where we weren’t running to the Pit Stop?
The Yak: Correct.
Will: The problem was that Gary had hurt his foot running across the Bund (during the first leg) and it was really swollen, but we were afraid to get medical attention because thought that they would maybe send us home. So, he was sleeping with a shoe on, icing it all night, and at that point, he couldn’t run. That’s why he said, “I can’t run.”
Gary: We didn’t give up because we knew that you never know what’s going to happen on the race. There’s no way we gave up because we tried way too hard to get on the race, but at that point, my foot was absolutely swollen and I wasn’t running because I was quitting, but because the foot was so bad. During the night, we had stuff that we kept putting on it to freeze the foot so it wouldn’t hurt as much.

The Yak: What were the hardest challenges you faced on the race?
Will: Mine was making the balloons. I’m not too creative, and I just totally freaked out when I found out I had to make balloon animals for kids. I couldn’t tie the knot, I was sweating, I was falling apart, but Gary was giving me encouragement. I made it through because Gary put his faith in me.
Gary: My difficult one was the bondo task. I’ve fixed my cars with bondo, so when we got there, I thought, “Oh, great! Bondo! I can do this in my sleep.” Although, it’s been a few years since I did it. The heat was crazy. When I got home, I looked at the weather for that day and it was 101 degrees in Dhaka. With the heat, the bondo would set up in just seconds, so as soon as you would put it on it would harden. Everybody was having difficulty on it, but the bottom line is if I would have done that task quicker and finished sooner, we’d still be in the race, so you can talk about taxis and stuff, but I just did not get the Roadblock done quick enough. I’m very upset about it.

The Yak: Yeah, it looked like it was a pretty tough task.
Gary: We were there for probably 3 hours. It was hot and we were hungry, but everybody was having difficulty with it. I just thought for sure when we got there and I saw it was bondo, I thought, “No problem. We’ll breeze through that.” However, it didn’t turn out that way.

Gary and Will sew up a mattress during a Detour

The Yak: Did you do anything special to prepare for the race after you found out you had been chosen?
Will: I was brushing up on my Spanish speaking classes. I was also going on the Internet and doing brain activities to become more focused and more alert. Sometimes I have a tendency to lose focus.
Gary: We worked out six days a week. Will’s an athlete – he runs marathons – and I run on the treadmill, but when you run in an air-conditioned building for two hours, it does not translate in a hundred degree weather. The advice I would give to anybody who wants to go on the show: Get a backpack with 50 pounds in it, and run and run and run. Then, when you think you’ve run enough, run some more. Plus, like Will said, we were going to Internet websites and doing brain puzzles. We actually did some jigsaw puzzles and we timed ourselves in order to get our skills quicker at putting stuff together. We did a lot of biking, which we do anyway. Basically, there’s really no good way to prepare except to run with a backpack. You have no idea what they’re going to make you do.
Will: As far as the languages go, we took Spanish because it’s one of the most common languages in the world. Unfortunately, there’s two hundred countries in the world and who knows how many thousands of dialects, so there’s no way to know which countries to prepare for, but we thought Spanish would be good because we did have more of a chance in a Spanish-speaking country.

The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Will: My favorite part of the race was driving a cab through Indonesia, and I saw a moped that had a father, three kids, and a mother on it, taking their kids to school. I though, “Wow!” You don’t realize how good we have it in the United States.
Gary: That is a cliché. We do have it better in the United States, and it is a cliché, but it’s so true. I have so many favorite moments. I enjoyed it so much. I had it come down to two moments. When we were in Indonesia, we were in the back of the truck going to deliver ice, and they didn’t show this, but Will and I were waving to the people, chanting out stuff, singing songs, and people were waving back to us. Then, at the train station in Surabaya, they had a Japanese Beatles cover band, singing Beatles songs, and I got up and sang a little bit of “Ticket to Ride” with the band. We were in front of people who probably had no idea what we were singing, but that was such a fun time right then.

The Yak: Did the two of you get close with any other teams and have you stayed in touch since the race ended?
Will: We pretty much talk to all the teams on a daily basis, via the Internet, Facebook or texting. There’s a special bond that we’ll have forever since we all shared the Amazing Race experience.
Gary: Daniel and Amy – We were very close to them. Those two have amazing hearts. No only with what Amy went through, but they set up the foundation to help disabled athletes, so those guys are great. The Goat Farmers – the Beakman Boys – we love them. They’re so fun. They’re so considerate. Caitlin and Brittany – We love their competitiveness on the show. James and Abba (Mark) – We thought those guys had a great way to run the show, where they worked by themselves. We keep in touch with a lot of them, and we plan to for the rest of our lives.

The Yak: Would you have changed anything about the way that you ran the race?
Will: If we could go back, we would have definitely kept Rob and Sheila from going out on the first leg. At the time, we thought that we were the last two teams left and we didn’t want to give them the clue, but in hindsight, if we had helped them out, we could have eliminated the Chippendales because didn’t know they were behind [Rob and Sheila]. So, if we could go back, I would definitely help out Rob and Sheila. They were our friends and we did have an alliance, so I feel really bad because we love Rob and Sheila.
Gary: We did have an alliance with them, but when it came down to it being us or them being eliminated, of course we’re going to pick us to survive. If we knew we could have eliminated the Chippendales, of course we would have taken them out. They’re a strong team, and you want to get rid of the stronger teams. It would have changed the whole race dynamic because if you notice, there are a lot of alliances between the Chippendales and Trey and Lexi and the Sri Lankan twins. Who knows what would have happened? Hindsight is 20/20, though.

The Yak: So, what’s next for the two of you?
Will: We’re hoping that maybe the Amazing Race will invite us back on the show because we’re running every day with our backpacks. [Will and Gary laugh] We’re basically teaching and trying to get a permanent teaching gig, which is kind of tough in Michigan right now, but I’m working at one school all the time as a stand-in. What’s great about it is I’m able to communicate to the kids about the different things we saw, and what I’m really able to communicate with them is that the United States – even though there were times when we were down and had forces against us, we still had the most opportunity out of anybody in the world. So, we try to teach them that there’s always someone who will help them reach their goals and commit to an opportunity.
Gary: What I share with my students is that you have to work together and have teamwork to accomplish a goal and to keep trying. Don’t ever stop. Don’t ever quit. No matter how bleak it looks.

The Yak: We appreciate the time you took to talk with us, and thank you so much for being teachers to the youth of America!
Will: Thank you very much! I appreciate that!
Gary: Thank you very much!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Caitlin and Brittany

Caitlin King and Brittany Fletcher

Indonesia was once again the locale for Leg 3 of The Amazing Race this week, and with over 17,000 islands making up this country, I’m sure the teams felt like they were traipsing through every single one of them to reach the Pit Stop. This leg was full of lion heads, egg heads and hot heads, and while Abbie and Ryan reclaimed their top spot by reaching the mat first again, Caitlin King (@CaitKing7) and Brittany Fletcher (@BrittanyFletch) became the latest causalities of The Amazing Race. The best friends sat down today with Yakkity Yaks to discuss their time on the race.

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The Yak: Hi, ladies! Thanks for sitting down with us today! We were sorry to see you eliminated last night. It looked like a tough loss.
Brittany:: Thank you!

The Yak: How tough was it to accept going out like you did?
Brittany:: It’s obviously hard. That’s something you never want to see, especially with as competitive as Caitlin and I are. The most frustrating thing was that we had already been taken to the Pit Stop when we left the Detour. We were 6th when we left the Detour. We had the becak make an error and take us down a different path, so it ended up costing us everything. We ended up with the one that went left at the fork in the road, but it was somebody that we kind of relied on and had taken us to the Pit Stop about 45 minutes prior, so that was obviously frustrating.

The Yak: Did you both have a feeling that you could have beat Will and Gary to the mat?
Caitlin:: Yes, absolutely.

The Yak: What was the hardest challenge on the race?
Caitlin:: The hardest challenge for me was the balloon challenge. It was so hot, and we had to wear long sleeves because of their religious reasons, so I was on fire trying to do that task. The bike was too small for me, so my knees kept hitting the front of the Merry Go Round. In general, the hardest for us was that it was mentally draining throughout the whole race. You don’t realize that until you are actually racing. Also, having to experience the language barriers. It’s something you know you’re going to come in contact with, but we didn’t realize it was going to be as challenging as it ended up being.

Caitlin and Brittany learn their fate at the Pit Stop

The Yak: What was your favorite part of the race?
Brittany:: I would say being able to experience all the different cultures. It makes you appreciate and know how blessed we really are to do even the small things, like taking a shower. Just being able to experience the different cultures and travel the world on a competition, plus being able to meet the types of people that we did meet and create friends for life. It was definitely one of those experiences that we’re always going to look back and be so appreciative to have been a part of.

The Yak: Speaking of the other teams, were there any in particular that you got close with and have you stayed in touch since the race ended?
Caitlin:: We’ve become friends with a ton of the teams – Amy and Daniel; we were always really close with them. We became really close with the Sri Lankan twins, the Chippendales. Honestly, all of us are really, really close, but it was obviously easier for us to connect with the younger teams. We definitely plan on keeping in touch and meeting up at some point in the future.
Brittany: Yeah, we still talk with them, and we’re ready to cheer them all on.

The Yak: When you were arguing about the cost of the rickshaw ride, did you ever find out exactly how much you should have been charged?
Brittany:: The thing was that they had only showed a part of it. We had actually been standing there for about 15 minutes trying to pay the becak driver. It was one of those things where he wasn’t giving us any feedback. He was just staring at us, so we had people all around, like the locals, trying to tell us how much it was. He was asking different people, and it was one of those things that Gary and Will had already caught up with us and had started the challenge while we were still standing there trying to pay the driver. They were doing hand gestures, and when you’re in the heat of the moment, you’ve got to go because it’s only you and three other teams. We had to keep going because of the race, so it was one of those things where I came across as trying to hop out of the becak and yelling at the driver, but we had been standing there for 15 minutes trying to ask in a really respectful and nice way. When you have to get things done, it causes you to get frustrated, so we were like, “Listen, I’ve got stuff to do. How much is it?!?” You kind of put your foot down. I don’t think it was me trying to come across as arrogant when we were trying to pay. We just had no feedback, so that was what was frustrating.

The Yak: After you found out you were selected, did you do anything special to prepare for the race?
Caitlyn:: We’re both really competitive and into sports, so we knew that we could count on each other to stay in shape and be ready physically. That was the one thing we felt like we had control over, so we would always constantly be on each other’s work out plans. Also, Brittany is really good at coming up with different strategies, so she actually came up with a good idea to practice team-building skills by putting together a Lego truck, which was really hard because one of us would be at the other end of the room and had to talk the other one through the directions. We prepared as much as we could, but you really can’t prepare for the things that you do on the race.

The Yak: If you could, would you have changed anything that you did on the race?
Brittany:: Caitlin and I did the best we could at every challenge, so even with the third leg, I knew that in order for us to stay in the competition, I had to step up and represent Caitlin and I on that road block. I did it in five minutes, and it kind of worked out where we got to the train station at 7:54 and the first one left at 7:45, so we were right with the Sri Lankans. [CBS] kind of made it look different, but we were neck and neck with them at the train station. It’s just one of those things where we did what we could control. I definitely wouldn’t do anything differently, but at the same time, it just happened to come down to the becak driver. It was one of those things where I wish we could have communicated better. There’s nothing I would have changed, but I wish that America could have seen how we were so respectful of the culture and country we were in. It just came down to the way they edited it. They just saw the heat of the moment and coming down to the wire, which caused us to get competitive and determined to not get eliminated. They just showed a different side of us because we were there to win and to compete. We weren’t there to sit around and twiddle our fingers while riding a becak.

The Yak: So, what’s next for Caitlin and Brittany?
Caitlin:: I just moved from St. Louis to Atlanta, so it’s kind of exciting to start a new chapter in my life. It’s nice to be back in the South, since we both went to Auburn and I have a bunch of friends here, so it’s exciting.
Brittany:: I’m still in Chicago. I actually just took a job with a pharmaceutical company, so I’ve been busy with that and moving into a new place. I’m just trying to get settled, and looking forward to watching the rest of the race. We hate that we were out so early when we knew that we were a strong team.

The Yak: We were sorry to see you go, too! Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it!
Caitlin:: Thank you!
Brittany:: Thank you so much!

The Amazing Race: The Yak Chats with Eliminated Team Daniel and Amy

With Leg 2 taking us to far away Indonesia, the 10 remaining teams battled it out to stay in The Amazing Race. Even though the playing field was pretty much leveled when the teams got to “race” the bulls, the ever-popular, often-lost Taxi Drivers ended up putting Amy Purdy and Daniel Gale as the last team to reach the Pit Stop. YakkityYaks had a chance to chat with the eliminated racers to find out what happened when Surabaya became “Sure, ya – bye-bye!”

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The Yak: I have to know, because it seems to happen to at least one team every season – How frustrating was it to essentially be eliminated because of a cab driver?
Daniel:
It definitely was frustrating that we were unable to find the next clue as quickly as everyone else. Really, the cab drivers that we encountered were incredibly helpful or as helpful as they could be. It’s definitely frustrating that we were unable to find it quickly.
Amy: We’re athletes and we’re extremely competitive, so that made it even harder; knowing that we had exhausted all of our resources trying to find that location. In that area, hundreds of businesses had Wijaya in the name and there were tons of different Wijaya Motor type businesses, so we had pretty much gone to all of them. It was just trial and error trying to find the right one, especially since our cab driver didn’t know the exact location. Honestly, they were part of our team in getting there, so we switched cabs a couple of times. It got frustrating, but we just had to hand it over to the stars and hope that things line up for us.

Amy, how do you feel knowing that the elimination didn’t have anything to do with your leg slowing you down at all?
Amy: I’m grateful for that because I knew going into this race no matter how athletic and skilled I may be, I’m still running on mechanical legs and something could go wrong at any time. We were very prepared for it. The majority of the stuff in our backpacks was leg equipment. We sacrificed a lot of comfort just to make sure we had what we needed in case there was a mechanical failure. Going in, my biggest fear was thinking, “What if something happens with my leg?” I’m not just representing myself, but an entire community who are so capable and so able. I wanted to be a strong representation of that, and I think that I was. I’m so grateful, and my legs felt so good. That’s part of where the tears were coming from was just realizing my legs are not playing a negative role in this. I’m running just like everybody else, and I’m ready to keep going, but then, unfortunately, it was cut short for us.

Looking back at the first leg, when you helped out Abbey and Ryan by helping them find the lady with the abacus, it caused you to end up coming in second place. Do you regret helping them at all?
Daniel: We certainly don’t have any regrets about that. Like Amy said, we’re extremely competitive, but what is at the nature of us is giving. We run a non-profit organization that creates opportunities for injured veterans and young adults and kids with disabilities to get into snowboarding and skateboarding, sports like that. It was after a long leg of the race that we were being extremely competitive on, where they caught us with our guard down a little bit. It was more instinctual for us to help somebody who was in a bit of distress. Amy and I are both competitive snowboarders where we race in something called Boardercross, which is basically a Chinese downhill, where the first man to the bottom, wins. It’s about a sixty-second race, so when were racing snowboards, we’re on for 6o seconds. We’re sprinters, and although we’re extremely competitive, something that is drawn out over a couple of days, you’re not always on and they caught us in a moment when we weren’t all the way on. That kind of gave us a whack in the head and we definitely reset. The beginning of the second leg definitely showed that. We were really set to win it. We were out of the gate second, and we pretty much maintained second place through that whole leg until we got caught up in the cabs.

Speaking of the cabs, do you know how long you spent looking for Wijaya Motors and that clue?
Amy: We actually don’t know exactly how long it was. You lose track of time. It was long enough for us to realize that something’s wrong here. We had pretty much gone through one Wijaya Motors after the next, and after a handful of them, we realized this is not going to be as easy as we thought. We were up there for quite some time.

When you finally reached the Pit Stop, it came down to your team and Gary and Will. Do you know how far behind them you were?
Amy: We don’t know how close we were. I don’t think we were too far behind. At one point we went back to the balloon challenge, just to try and start back at the beginning for our search, and Will and Gary were there, so we thought, “Okay, well, we know we’re not out.” At that point, we had gotten a few more ideas of where Wijaya Motors could be and we headed that direction, but all of those places were not the right places either. I think their cab ended up taking them directly there, so we may have just been a little bit behind.

When you found out you were picked for the race, did you do anything special to prepare yourselves?
Daniel: Yeah, we did. We definitely watched every single episode of every single season. We worked out a lot. We ate really well. We worked out some more. We probably watched some more episodes. We really focused on the gear that we took. Like Amy said, we had a number of pieces that in case something went mechanically wrong with one of Amy’s legs, we had extra pieces for the feet and the prosthetics. We really focused on our packs, and we had really become minimalists as far as carrying stuff goes. I knew that if I needed to step in and carry Amy’s pack, not that she wasn’t capable of carrying her own pack, but just in case I needed to so that we might be able to move a little quicker, and that happened a number of times. For us, packing was a real significant piece to that, and then we worked out again. [laughs]
Amy: My biggest thing was making sure my legs were in order. Just in having prosthetic legs, I’m running in carbon-fiber sockets, so knowing that we may end up in places that had humidity, and since all the places we went were highly humid, my legs may have ended up fitting differently depending on the humidity of the area, so I worked with my leg maker quite a bit to get the legs just as perfect as possible for every situation. We live in the mountains, so we trail ran and we rode cycles and mountain biked. We put ourselves in different situations to see how my legs would hold up.
Daniel: Then we worked out again! [laughs]

What was the hardest challenge you faced during the race?
Amy: For us, we realized that the set challenges – the Detours, the Road Blocks – those were all quite easy. It was just a matter of getting the job done.
Daniel: I don’t know if “easy” is the right word, but it was something that we were very capable of tackling, so we would get a strategy going, mow things down and then move through them quite quickly. The biggest challenges were not the challenges themselves.
Amy: The biggest challenges were really the going from Point A to Point B. When we went into this, we had a strategy because we had watched all the other episodes, so we decided that even if it takes a bit longer, we were going to find English-speaking cab drivers because then we could have a full conversation and come up with game plans with them. Yet, when you’re just dropped off in the middle of these countries and there is not one person who speaks English within a 10-mile radius, that strategy goes quickly out the window when you just have to quickly get in the cab and go. So, for me: the language barrier, trying to find locations and being in these hectic cities where the cab drivers don’t necessarily know every business there.

What was your favorite part of the race?
Daniel: You know, the overall experience was just unbelievable and we’re extremely grateful to have just been selected and have the opportunity. For us, even though we were out second, we really are just looking at all the positives from it. Being able to see all of the amazing places that we were able to go to, and meet the other teams, who some of which will be life-long friends for us.
Amy: I think one of the coolest parts is that although we didn’t get much time to spend with the other teams, but even in the small amount of time, you really end up bonding with them because we’re all having the same experience. We all have such interesting backgrounds. For me, I knew how capable we were as a team, and I knew how capable I was individually, but of course I knew that my leg could be a disadvantage at some point. Yet, all the teams had a challenge of sorts. Everybody had some sort of adversity they were facing and trying to get through on the race, so I realized that the playing field was actually quite equal for all of us. That was kind of a big eye-opener for me. Also, for me, the best part was ripping the clue open because you could be going anywhere in the world and you have no idea where.

Speaking of the other teams, were you able to bond with any of them and have you been in touch since the race ended?
Amy: We didn’t get a lot of time to spend with them on the race. You have a little bit of time on airplanes, when you’re waiting for transportation – you can maybe just chat a little bit, but we appreciate all the other teams and we realized that everybody has their own story and their own background. There’s a handful of them that I know we’ll be in touch with forever.

If asked, would you consider coming back for an All-Star season?
Daniel: Absolutely!
Amy: Yeah, I think being athletes puts a fire inside of us to accomplish something, so because it was cut short for us, we still have it in us to want to keep going. It’s a challenge that we would be ready to accomplish if given another chance.

What’s next for Amy and Daniel?
Amy: After The Amazing Race ended, another race began. I’m a competitive snowboarder, and I’m currently one of the top in the World right now, so we found out about a week before the race started that our organization that we started together – Adaptive Action Sports – we helped to get snowboarding into the 2014 Paralympics Games for the first time. As soon as the race was over, we came back and I started training and our organization started working toward plans to train more athletes with disabilities to help make the US team to compete in the 2014 games.

That’s an awesome accomplishment! Congratulations and best of luck in the upcoming 2014 games!
Amy: Thank you so much!

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