Ken and Tina entered The Amazing Race with much more on the line than any other team. Their task was bigger than money. Long-married, they had separated for the better part of a year and were looking to reconcile their relationship. Throughout the season, they not only proved themselves as one of the two best teams in the field, but started the process of fixing their marriage. We spoke with Ken and Tina earlier this week about their time on The Amazing Race, where they are at as a couple, and what the future holds for them.
Below you will find the written transcript, as well as the full mp3 audio of the interview.
Hey, this is Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV and I’m here with Ken and Tina from Amazing Race. Ken, Tina, how are you two doing?
Tina: Great!
Ken: Great, how are you?
So what was it like watching the finale last night, i imagine it got pretty emotional there in the end?
Tina: It did. It was a very emotional night for us and especially for me. I mean, I kind of broke down a little last night on a personal level and also you’re kind of reliving everything that happened and thinking, “If i would have done this or if i gotten across the log faster or if I just moved quicker,” because we were close. We could have won the marriage back and won the million dollars, but it didn’t quite work out the way.
How many minutes did you guys actually finish behind Nick and Starr?
Tina: It’s around five or seven somewhere in there.
Ken: Close!
Watching the episode last night both you and Nick and Starr seem to run pretty flawless legs. Was there anywhere you lost a significant amount of time that the viewers might of missed?
Ken: Yeah, where we missed was when we finished the boxes and went to the dragon, the green dragon building. They got out of their cab and they saw it as soon as they stepped out of the cab. We came up on the other side of the street and didn’t see it initially and actually went down and walked around an entire block, so that’s where we lost time. Looking back on it last night and realizing we finished so close that when I offered the cab driver the 50 dollars to take us to the mansion, I had more money in my pouch and I still don’t know way i didn’t offer him everything I had in my pouch because I believe if we had gotten in the cab we would have won the race.
You should have offered the people inside the cab the money.
Tina: Now that we’ve thought about it, I think it must have been his girlfriend. She wasn’t in the back she was in the front and so probably they were going on a date or taking her home or something. You know hindsight is always 20/20 we thought, “We are in a big city, Portland, there’s probably plenty of cabs.”
Ken: As soon as we got in the last group I was figuring there would be more right behind.
So the story for you two obviously during the season was the reconciliation and bringing your marriage back. How have you two been since the race, which ended about 6 months ago, right?
Ken: Yes. Well, I moved to Tampa been there since September. We knew that we had a lot of work to do, not only during the race, but figured there was something we continue to build after, which all marriages need to do. It’s been a work in progress. We’re enjoying each other, things are going very well and we want to take this from a good marriage to a great marriage and we learned a lot along the way and hopefully we can share that with some other people because we know that marriage is not an easy thing for anybody.
Tina: Well, Ken didn’t tell you – he did move to Tampa but he did it in a pretty demonstrative fashion. He ordered a U-Haul and drove 43 straight hours across the country form San Diego to Tampa to arrive early the morning of my birthday. And that was a pretty astonishing feat there.
Ken: Got to keep the race going a little!
What are the long lasting effects of the race going to be? Was the experience something that was so unique that you couldn’t have got what you got on the race anywhere else?
Tina: I totally think it was. It was one of the most unique experiences of either of our lives. I was extremely well traveled all over the world and nothing that I have ever done compared to this. The people we met, the cultures, the whole crew that works on the show are amazing. A class act from top to bottom, and we learned so much about each other. I saw so many strengths in Ken that I didn’t even know he had. When you spend almost 5 or 6 weeks with someone and you are not more than 20 feet apart, you obviously see so many things as you’re working as a team and having been forced to work together. You see a lot of strengths in the other person and I think his strengths are absolutely my weaknesses and I think a lot of my strengths are his weaknesses.
Ken: Another thing too that we hope we brought out of this is we’ve got a legacy for our kids and their kids to see some day because we are not spring chickens. We are in our 50’s and life is moving on and I gave us one last chance to compete in a situation that we would never have another opportunity to do. It was all around phenomenal.
Tina: Don’t say last chance. We’re hoping they will do a new race where they will take all the second place finishers and let us all run against each other. I think that would be awesome.
In terms of competition, or just the race in general, what surprised you most about being on the race?
Ken – For me, it was the lack of sleep and food. I thought I didn’t really – I knew about and heard about it but I didn’t anticipate it to be quite the factor that it turned out to be. But I was not surprised about Tina because I knew that she would be very good under those circumstances, because typically she never sleeps anyway and doesn’t eat very much. She’s sharp, the effect on her is going to be much more minimal on her than it was on me and it was tough.
Tina: Oscar, I think we thought we were really prepared and we have watched all the old episodes. We had trained hard physically in a lot of different ways and unique ways. We went to the military and different things. I really thought we knew we were going to handle it well. It is so hard to comprehend unless you’ve done it. The mental stress, the physical stress, the emotional stress, us dealing with a broken relationship. I think it added more drama and stress, but it is a difficult challenge the entire race and I think a lot of people…I used to be the one sitting in my living room saying, “Why did they do that? What were they thinking? Why did they run here?” When you’re in the heat of the battle and you’re dehydrated, hungry and tired it can overwhelm you and it’s something to be revered. I think the show should have won all six Emmys because it is really a phenomenal show and a phenomenal challenge.
You two have any big plans for the future, anything coming up soon?
Tina: We do. We are working on a couple different things. We’d really be interested in some kind of adventure travel show, because I think both Ken and I, even before the race – we’re very adventurous travelers and when we travel we really dig into the culture. We dig into the physical aspect of everything where we’re going and we think we can show a lot of other people how to have more fun and more enjoyment and be more physically active, no matter what your age is when you’re on vacation. We’re looking at that and hoping that maybe CBS, Travel Channel and Discovery, we don’t know the venue ye,t but we’re working on it and hoping that someone will get excited about that and we’re praying that maybe we will be selected for an All-Stars or something else because we want another shot at this. Those are a few of the things we are looking at.
-Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl
(Image Courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
