Hi, Jen! Glad to have you here! After six legs you and Kristi are definitelty my fav team of the season.
Now..., before starting the race did you have a planned strategy or topics on how to approach the different difficulties you could face along the way? And if that was the case (and talking about the six legs aired) did you need to make changes or adjust it once on the race?
Awe, thanks Alenaveda!! That means a lot. There are so many likable teams this year. We felt really lucky to get along with everyone. I know drama makes the show a bit more interesting, but selfishly, it was nice to not get mixed up in it!
Kristi and I watched a lot of the show before leaving. We would talk about different scenarios, who would do what Roadblock, etc. We're obviously both pretty physical, but with my history of knee injuries, we opted for having Kristi do more of the seemingly "physical" tasks. Kristi has a history of concussions, so her memory isn't quite as solid as mine, so we'd have me do the more mental tasks. This is of course based on very little information, so we did our best at assessing the location, not just how the question was phrased. So far, the Roadblocks we've each performed have been completely suited to our strengths.
The other thing we discussed was how hard it would be to be together 24/7 for 30 days! We addressed the fact that we'd probably have moments of complete meltdowns, screaming fits, f*ckups and more. Haha! Production has been been kind in not showing too much of them, though the bits that I've seen, sounded way worse in my head than they appeared in the show. We decided that we'd take nothing personally, that we were both there for the same reason, to be a kick-ass all female team, to make the F3 and become the 4th F/F team to win - some say this is insignificant because it's been done before, but it hasn't been done enough. We were serious about this goal and weren't going to let interpersonal drama get in the way of it.
Both of us have an insane competitive drive and focus, almost to a fault. We were caught off-guard about the "race-blind" phenomenon that makes you miss obvious details (like the perfect pour sign in the brewery or not getting a map in Iceland for a self-drive leg). It took a conscious effort to slow down and THINK before we started running/racing/driving. You can't even imagine the amount of adrenaline you feel during this race.
Also, the self-drive was much more difficult than we anticipated and we had a lot of it! The other piece that started getting to me going to Zimbabwe actually, was the amount that the "not-knowing-what's-coming" scenario would have on me. I would spend too much energy trying to anticipate what production had planned. It would drive me mad. We would research every detail of every place we were going before arriving and try to anticipate what was coming. Might have been better served doing a little less of that...
Oh, we also discussed U-Turns and Alliances. We decided that we would only use a U-Turn if we were in the back of the pack and HAD to use it. Otherwise, we didn't feel it was worth the risk of potentially making an enemy or at the very least losing the trust of our fellow racers. As far as alliances, we did NOT want to make any rigid alliances. I don't think there is a blanket right and wrong answer for alliances. I think a lot of it depends on the kind of racer you are, how strong of a team you are, what type of game you're playing, how you're seen by your competition, etc. We took the approach of forming genuine relationships with teams on the race. Trying to get to know who they were OUTSIDE of the race context. But we were always mindful of the conversations happening around us, the teams that spent more or less time together, and so on. At this point in the race a few teams had agreed about teams that they felt threatened by or didn't trust (not who you may think), so we definitely had some soft agreements in place.
