Oh I am going to miss them!!
Deadbolt Interview:Trading Amazing Horses with Monique and Shawne of The Amazing Race
by Reg Seeton
With three legs now complete on The Amazing Race 16, The Amazing Race teams had to race their way through Chile en route to Argentina. This week saw the amazing mom/attorney team of Monique Pryor and Shawne Morgan hit the mat in last place to become the third duo to be eliminated from The Amazing Race after Monique got tied up in a lasso Roadblock that set them back behind the other Amazing Race teams.
Although Monique and Shawne gained ground, the two were put to the test with a choice between two different horse related tasks, "Horse Sense" and Horse Power", both of which required quick Amazing Race decisions, efficiency, and physical strength. Although Monique and Shawne didn't give up, it all came down to time and which Amazing Race team could get to the mat first in front of The Amazing Race host, Phil Keoghan.
The morning after the third leg of The Amazing Race, we jumped on the line with Monique and Shawne for a post Amazing Race update on their experience and journey on The Amazing Race.
THE DEADBOLT: Was it awkward watching yourselves on TV?
MONIQUE PRYOR: At the beginning it was awkward. We were looking for ourselves a little more but it was awesome. [laughs] We were happy to see it. Actually, it was pretty funny, because we knew what we were thinking at that moment. Then to have everybody on pins and needles waiting to see what happened and getting texts, people updating their Facebook status with "Why couldn't you guys last longer?", that was pretty awesome watching it with our families again. It was great.
THE DEADBOLT: So what was going through your minds during the lasso task?
SHAWNE MORGAN: Lord, please let me do this. I was thinking I didn't want to lose focus, that's why I was just calm and I could just hear Monique. I could hear her and she's like, "What do you want me to do?" And I'm like, "Just pray with me." That's after being out there for awhile, watching teams come and go, but I didn't want to lose focus. I think throughout the race, it's just like we have to run our own race and we can't let other things distract you, like, "Oh gosh, what time is it? How long?" or start panicking.
I was just like, "We're going to do it. I don't care how long it takes, we are making this happen." But after I did do it, to see that once we got to the detour to see that so many of the other teams were still there, that was the nature of the race. At any moment you can catch up and we saw that throughout the race. So you know people were like, "Oh, we were done." But like at any moment that just running it, we saw how you could catch up and still be in the race. That's why it was important for us to just continue to hustle the entire race while we were in it.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you think the rope challenge gave an unfair advantage to the cowboys?
MONIQUE: [laughs] My eight year old daughter thinks so. She said, "Mom, it's not fair. They lasso every day, it wasn't fair." What I told her is that everybody comes to the race with some advantage. Brandy could speak fluent Spanish and I ran track. So I knew if there was a sprint challenge, I was going to be the first person there, especially after I sized up the teams. Shawne has great upper body strength, so you come to the race with certain advantages and the cowboys lucked out.
THE DEADBOLT: Would you say that was the turning point for you guys, or was it something else?
SHAWNE: No, because we knew we were still in the race. And after that, we were out in the field. More so, as we were doing the horse challenge with those wooden horses, they were so awkward and heavy. To have to carry it back - you had nine chances to get it between the goals - and we're like, "Okay, no need in tiring ourselves out at six if you know you're not even close. Let's be strategic about this and take it back each time." So we thought we weren't going to be close enough. Physically, that was very grueling. But at some point, we were just like, "Wait a minute, the sun is going down. It's cold. Let's try to move to the next challenge and at least give it a try." We wanted to make sure we gave it a try. We didn't give up. That was so key for us throughout this experience, we were not giving up without a fight.
THE DEADBOLT: If you had won with "Horse Power" first, do you think it would've made a difference?
MONIQUE: The clues are so vague and you're not sure what you're choosing. In particular, for this challenge, the challenges were so far apart that it was hard to tell exactly what we were doing. But Shawne and I knew we were in the race to experience it as well. So we saw the horse thing and we thought, "Oh great, we're going to ride a horse." We had dealt with the Llamas and now we're going to ride a horse. So that was exciting as well and we didn't want any one team to have an advantage over us. So that's why we chose "Horse Power". We didn't know we had to walk a mile in cow dung to get there, but that's why we chose that one.
THE DEADBOLT: At what point did you guys know it was over?
SHAWNE: Never, until we walked up to the mat. If you look at my face, I'm thinking, "No, no, no, no," because you can never tell with Phil. So I'm thinking, "Hey, maybe this is a non-elimination." We kept hustling and, like we said, we weren't giving up. So, we're like, "This is still our race. We can still be in it." We knew even before we started the race, we are not giving up. It was just one of those things and it happened to be an elimination leg. But we were proud of ourselves for not quitting, that was key for us.
THE DEADBOLT: So what did that teach you both? Was that the message you took away?
SHAWNE: It taught us about who we wanted to inspire, our children. That was first and foremost. We were like, "Oh my gosh, we can't wait for them to see this," because we wanted them to see, "Hey, at least try and do something different." That was the big key message. I do a lot of mentoring with other moms in terms of growing an "at home" business. Monique is also partnered with moms, she has an online magazine for moms. So our thing was that we wanted to continue to inspire women, particularly moms, to know that, "You know what? We're moms but we can still have our lives and we can have businesses and we're attorneys second.
Our thing was, let's step outside of the box. I enjoy practicing mom but now let's do something else. We're like, "Hey, we had to take a risk to start a business and then to start another business." I was thinking about what else could we do next. When we saw the race, that's what it meant for us. We were like, "However far we go on this race, let us at least be inspirational to somebody." To see that we got it is so very awesome. I'm just so humbled by the positive comments. Not just from moms who were like, "You guys have shown us we can definitely do the things we thought about putting on the back burner. Why not today?" So that's been awesome. From dads, that's been great to hear how they've been able to relate with their families. That's been a great experience.
THE DEADBOLT: Was there anything we didn't see that you guys wished got aired?
SHAWNE: Yes, that the travel time was just huge. Not only travel but running, too. There were some points where people would see us huffing and puffing but they didn't see the scene before where we were actually running through woods or rough terrain. We ran two miles with a heavy backpack on and we were running up hills. And the fact that Monique and I had a lot on point, where people were like, "We don't see you." Interestingly enough, we had moments where we were leading and showing others where to go. So that was awesome. We're just proud that we were able to endure it. That was huge. The running I think was the thing I'd definitely say they should have shown more of.
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