The Teams!

I realized as I wrote the episode recaps today, that I refer to every team by nicknames we have established for them, but if you don’t know the show, you’re probably just confused, eh? So I have created a roster!

Team South Carolina: Brent and Caite are dating models. They work really hard, especially considering just how stupid they are. We refer to them as Team South Carolina because Caite is best known for her response to a question that was asked of her during the Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant, the video of which has garnered over 40 million views online. When she was asked: Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?

Caite responded: I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children

Team Lesbos: We call them this because… uh… they talk about being lesbians a whole lot. This is when they aren’t 1) making fun of other teams, 2) bitching at each other, 3) talking about how cultured they are. They are my least favorite team, as I don’t much love whining, bitching, or fighting. Proof I won’t want to watch myself on TV.

Team Losers: Okay, this might be mean. But Adrian and Dana were the first team kicked off when he was unable to make it across the high ropes. He tried really hard, and they were a sweet married couple, but they haven’t made any appearance in our blog since we started with episode 2.

Team Cowboys: Our favorite team! Jet and Cord are cowboys and brothers, plus they seem real nice and they are funny and smart. I think they’re what we would like to be as a team on the race.

Team Tri-Athlete: This team, Jody and Shannon, is made up of a grandmother and granddaughter. They are both tri-athletes, but they really gave up in the leg in which they were eliminated, which made my mom hate them for life.

Team Joe and Heidi: Okay, so they didn’t leave much of an impression. Nat loved them, because they are sweet, and I ignored them because they were sweet. They were just recently eliminated thanks to The Cops and Nat cannot forgive it.

Team Brothers: Dan and Jordan argue a lot, and are brothers who love to talk about how one is gay and the other isn’t. They act like this is unusual. However, my brother is gay and I am not, and I’m not running around trying to impress people with this information. I’ve been missing out on an attention grabbing opportunity.

Team Big Brother: Jordan and Jeff met on the reality show Big Brother and began dating. They are annoying, say a lot of mean things to each other, and annoy the hell out of me. Especially because I hate reality show cross over.

Team Cops: Louie and Michael are cops who are really out of shape, caused us to loose Joe and Heidi, and are boring. And seriously, they are cops who are out of shape. Who is protecting us.

Team Mamas: Monique and Shawne spent a lot of time talking about being moms, talking about being lawyers (if I recall…) and talking about being proud, black women. I thought they were pretty cool, and then they couldn’t lasso a hay cow and they were eliminated.

Team Philly: Steve and Allison are a father and daughter team. Nat likes them because the dad coached the Phillies baseball. I think nothing of them because they are really middle of the pack.

How do you train for a tv show?

This weekend was supposed to be the time I learned to drive a stick. However, thanks to an event called Chilly Hilly, the roads on the Island were closed, which really makes it difficult to drive. Since my other plans, such as milk a cow or practice on a high ropes course, have yet to fully develop, we were faced with a weekend, uncertain on how to train.

So we went jogging. No, this will not be a jog blog. At least, I really hope not. But it’s what we do in the evenings, and that doesn’t stop on weekends. This time we tried to jog around Green Lake, which has, unfortunately, mile markers. This experience allowed me to see just how far I was running. And by far, I mean not far. Here I was thinking, “I hate running, but I think if I tried I could be ready to run a 5K for St. Patty’s Day,” when what I should have been thinking is, “I hope if I’m ever being chased by a knife wielding maniac that he gives up after a quarter mile.” Yep, a quarter mile. That’s as far as I was willing to jog before stopping. Then when Nat tried to push me to keep going, the very thought of having to run another quarter mile was enough to make to want to cry and/or insist I be carried back to the car so I could drive home and return to the comfortable safety of my couch and the box of thin mints we bought. Instead, we herded ducks.

On the last season of The Race, there was a Roadblock where one team member had to herd a group of chickens from one part of a field, over a bridge, and into a holding pen. Some teams breezed through it, while others struggled, and we learned a lot about how each team did at encouraging their teammates. I learned this weekend that Nat and I don’t do terrifically as I am frequently unwilling to be encouraged. Some people like to be told they can do it. I’m defeatist, with a strong sense of prove-you-wrong. I do a lot better when someone tells me I can’t do something. I’ll be the John Locke of The Amazing Race. Don’t tell me what I can’t do!

I digress. I told you about the chicken challenge because Nat and I ran across a group of ducks feeding on the grass around Green Lake. To the right of these ducks was an orange traffic cone. It was as if our challenge had been created by some higher power—like the producers of a reality competition show—and we had to try our hand at duck herding. So, on a cloudy, but rain-free Saturday, at one of the most popular jogging spots in Seattle, Nat and I went off the beaten track and tried to herd a group of ducks in a circle around a traffic cone. And we succeeded. It was difficult, but as ducks are a lazy group, they were more inclined to waddle away from us then fly into the lake and out of our reach. Carefully, and as a team of two (obviously a detour, not a roadblock) we convinced the ducks towards the running path and then back towards the lake. We lost about half the group to flying in the process, but I think we have a real knack with birds that will bring us victory on The Race.

Sunday we bought a map. Then, after deciding it was ridiculously expensive, we exchanged it for a different map. We are now pointing to places on the map we have never been, and navigating ourselves there. As the tiny Seattle portion of the map only includes main roads, it’s quite the challenge. Nat managed to get us to a park on Puget Sound where I tried to teach him how to skip rocks. Not happening. I have never seen rock skipping on The Race, but if they have it, we will be eliminated that round. Those that can’t do really shouldn’t teach. However, we can navigate like mad, and will continue to practice. Plus, we got the joy of running on something new—beach pebbles. It was difficult and painful, but I think I got further on the pebbles then I ever get on a track. Nat’s right, I need to get out of my own head.

Episode 3: Run Like Scaled Dogs

Location: Argentina

Recap: Teams first rode buses from Chile into Argentina. Once they arrived, they went to an old saloon where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid apparently hid-out when in Argentina. This was the first of many examples The Race gave of why we should see Argentina as a country full of outlaws and bandits.

Team Such As (Miss South Carolina and her model boyfriend) got a late start because they went to the hospital with food poisoning. The producers tried to play up the drama in this, but failed, leaving me to believe their illness was as anti-climatic as I thought. Thanks to the way the show tries to even the teams up each leg, their trip to the hospital did nothing to delay their game.

At the hide-out, they had to beat a Travelocity Gnome in a game of five-card stud. As this game takes no skill, this challenge was completed quickly by all teams. I don’t think we’ll be practicing laying cards out in front of ourselves, but maybe in the name of The Race we’ll have to.

Once teams got their gnome, they were directed to the Road Block. One of the team members had to learn how to control a lasso and use it to rope in a little hay bale cow. The Mamas (Two friends/lawyers/moms) had an extremely difficult time with this challenge. Believe it our not, Team Cowboys didn’t have even the tiniest bit of trouble, getting it on the second try. I love you Jet and Cord, even if Nat won’t stop talking about your silly names. Team Lesbians spent a bunch of time bitching about how unfair it is that the Cowboys are born ropers instead of trying to be nice to each other. Nat decided he would be the one to take on this challenge because, apparently (!), he’s lassoed before. You think you know your own husband… I still think it would be fun to try lassoing, and maybe if I can find a place willing to let me milk one of their cows, I can rustle me some cattle.

The Detour choices were Horse Sense or Horse Power. In Horse Power, teams used a wooden polo training horse and hit polo balls down a field. They only had nine tries to get it completed, and had to drag their heavy wooden horse down the field with them. In Horse Sense, teams were given a set of coordinates and had to use a standing, old-fashioned wooden compass to find a bag of gold, which they brought to the lead bandit. We decided we would do Horse Sense, though upon watching the teams go through the challenge, it seems Horse Power might have been the better choice. Still, I have Nat and he has a head for numbers that I lack. The coordinates given were the direction and the number of steps, like follows:

SW 166

E 4

NE 67

W 53

Nat, being brilliant, pointed out that you could subtract the NE from the SW, and the E from the W, and walk straight to your spot. Just 99 paces SW and 49 W. Still, I am not quite as brilliant and not super good with a compass. As the grocery store is full of plastic eggs and Easter candy right now, we will be doing a hunt this weekend using compasses. We’ll pick a starting point, count our steps, and then write down the coordinates for the other person. Anyone in the Seattle area who wants to join, really, really should.

The polo was similar to a slog golf they did last season, where teams had to hit what looked like giant croquet balls through a wet field of tall grass. One of the teams never completed the challenge and Phil (the host) had to come out to them and kick them off. Obviously we need to work on our power swings, and thus we will start with the fine art of croquet this weekend.

Winner: The cowboys, Jet and Cord. For the second week in a row, the challenges were just perfect for them.

Loser: The Mamas. They couldn’t bounce back from how long it took them to lasso their hay bale.

The weekly challenge:

We did not get out to the island to work on my stick shift skill this weekend because of an event called Chilly Hilly. Almost all the roads on the island were closed so we have to postpone that lesson. However, as teams struggled once again with manual transmissions, my belief that I must learn stick was reinforced. We did manage to do all sorts of other embarrassing things in training this weekend that I will write about soon.

Croquet. We will start on a proper field and move on to tall grasses, marshes, and maybe even hitting the ball from atop a sawhorse. I’m realizing now that this blog needs pictures.

Compass work. This is important not only for the challenges, but so that we can navigate ourselves. We’re going to be traveling through foreign lands, but north, south, east and west remain the same.

Now that we have a week of jogging behind us, we’re ready to rev it up a bit. Not only will I be expected to continue running for more than a ¼ mile at a time, but we’re going to start jogging hiking trails. The terrain on The Race is rarely flat, rubberized track made from old tennis shoes, so we’re more effective training in the woods.

Rules for the race

Each week I will list the rules for running the race that we have put together while watching the week’s episode.

- Pay attention and read the clues (This is from last week, but damn if it doesn’t keep tripping people up)

- Don’t just take off driving if you don’t know where you’re going. It’s more effective to figure it out and then go.

- If you’re the passenger, trust the driver. And if you’re the driver, trust that the passenger is doing their best to navigate you