Interview with Margie and Luke from "The Amazing Race"

AE: Luke, do you have a boyfriend? I see your Facebook profile says "in a relationship."
LA: I'm single.
MA: And looking...

AE: I'll be sure to stress that Mom said he's looking!
MA: [laughs]

AE: Back to the show. The two of you have such a great relationship, and your closeness really seemed to play to your advantage in the game — especially your ability to communicate using sign language. Were there ever times when Luke's hearing impairment was a distinct disadvantage?
MA: I think when we were on the rickshaw in Phuket, Thailand. He was just out of my reach so I couldn't get his attention. I couldn't touch him to get him to stop, I couldn't give him directions, so if he was running, I couldn't get his attention. That was really frustrating for me. He was just out of reach, even with the hat or whatever. That was the one time I think we had a disadvantage.

AE: Margie, Phil nicknamed you the bionic woman, and for good reason — you were like superwoman for most of the race, annihilating much younger competition on both physical and mental challenges right up till the end. What's your secret? How do you stay in such amazing shape?
MA: [laughs] Well, you know, in truth, I'm not really in such amazing shape.
LA: Yes, you are mom. Yes, you are.
MA: I don't know. I exercise pretty regularly, not too extreme or anything like that. I run two or three miles a couple times a week, I go to the gym a couple times a week. I don't have a trainer or anything like that. I just try to take care of myself. The Colorado lifestyle lends itself to being healthy. There are so many beautiful places to hike.

When it's nice, you just want to be outside. And I'm fortunate; I come from a large family, I have five brothers and three sisters, and we're all pretty athletic, we're all pretty natural athletes. We were brought up playing sports, running, swimming, and things like, so I've always been exposed to things like that. It's just part of who I am. I don't go out of my way to exercise or anything like that. I guess I'm just very fortunate.

AE: what was the hardest challenge? Was it the rickshaw challenge?
LA: The makeup challenge! I have no skill for how to put makeup on.
MA: And it was frustrating for me because he did such a horrible job and made me look so horrible, that... [laughs] You know what? I don't think there was a physical challenge that we really minded. The rickshaw challenge when I fainted, that was supposed to be a two mile run, but Luke and I got lost with the help of some British tourists who told us to go to the wrong place, so we ended up going five miles that day.

It was almost a hundred degrees, it was so humid, and we didn't have water with us. It wasn't that it was a difficult challenge, it just went too long for us. All the physical challenges were hard, don't get me wrong, but there was nothing there we didn't feel like we couldn't do. It was the mental things like the Chekov puzzle that gave us a little more of a challenge. [laughs]

AE: What was your favorite challenge?
LA: Carrying the pig and the cheese hill. The first challenge and the last challenge.
MA: Those were the favorites for me, too. We lived in Hawaii for three years; Luke's dad was in the army. We didn't live on Maui, but going back to Hawaii for the final leg of the race was really fun for us. We'd been to many luaus, so it was a really cool ending to the race for us because we were back in a place we were very comfortable in, and familiar with the culture. It was just awesome to be back there. So yeah, the first and the last were amazing for us, even though we didn't win the last. [laughs]