When Tyler Adams, a 2010 graduate of the Boston University School of Management, signed up for CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” he prepared himself for a lot of unthinkable situations. There was one, however, that he didn’t plan for: being set up on probably the longest, toughest and most unbelievable blind date of his life.
“They were like, ‘Well this season is going to be a little different, so I hope you’re open to something new,’” he said.
“The Amazing Race” is a reality TV show that follows 11 competing pairs as they race around the globe in an international scavenger hunt of sorts. Each week, the partners travel to a different city, competing to complete all of the assigned tasks before the rival pairs do. Whichever duo finishes last is sent home that week. The winning team wins $1 million and, sure, bragging rights.
“I remember seeing it and thinking it was just so cool,” Adams said. On a whim, he and a friend submitted audition tapes about a year ago. After hearing nothing for several months, he said, Adams by chance bumped into the show’s casting director in Santa Monica, California.
“She asked me if I wanted to be on ‘Survivor,’ actually, and I was like, ‘No I don’t want to be on ‘Survivor.’” he said. “‘But I did apply for ‘The Amazing Race’ recently.’”
She obliged. Adams’s would be the 26th Race, and there would be a catch: six of the 11 pairs are actually dating, with the remaining five set up on “blind dates.”
“I definitely thought we were the underdogs,” Adams said. He didn’t meet his partner, Laura Pierson, until the starting line.
“If you’ve been wanting to do it [the show], you think about your best friend or maybe even your parents, but to do it with someone that you don’t know is kind of actually insane to a certain extent,” Pierson said.
Like Adams, Pierson said she submitted her casting video to the show with her best friend, but, ironically, neither she nor Adams was chosen until they went in on their own.
With that, the training began. Both contestants agreed that mental preparation was key, citing how they studied previous seasons of the show, watching for tricks past contestants used or mistakes they made.
“The curveball still was the fact that I know how I’m going to react in this stressful situation or what I might do,” Adams said. “But still in the back of my mind, I was trying to prepare for how I was going to manage with this other person where I have no clue what they’re going to bring to the table.”
Even worse, they had to prepare without each other. Pierson, used to backpacking and camping, relied on yoga and meditation. Adams admitted he didn’t change his gym routine so much as his state of mind.
“Most mistakes [on the show] just happen because people are tired or they’re stressed out,” he said.
Adams and Pierson agreed that while some viewers may think the actual couples have an advantage for knowing each other beforehand in such a mentally and physically demanding game, that may not be the case.
“The benefit for not knowing each other was that you didn’t have an expectation of what the other person was going to bring, and you wouldn’t get upset if they didn’t meet that expectation,” Adams said.
Pierson agreed that starting from a fresh slate with a partner could be a benefit.
“With not knowing somebody, they don’t know your strengths and weaknesses, and you don’t know theirs, but then also not knowing someone brings something really cool and really beautiful into it,” she said. “So you go into it with a clear vision rather than with these preconceived notions of each other.”
“The Amazing Race” premieres on Feb. 25 at 9:30 p.m. on CBS.
