Terence Gerchberg and Sarah Leschner - Newly Dating

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The Amazing Race: Terence and Sarah Blame It On The Editing. After You Read This, You May Not

Terence
and Sarah were this season’s Type A semi-dysfunctional couple. The
antics of the competitive business woman and her often undermining
passive-aggressive running coach boyfriend made many viewers wonder,
“What the heck does she see in him?” The duo was favored to make the
finals, but a decision to pursue a Fast Forward that involved eating
massive quantities of Sheep Butt proved fatal for the Kosher and
Vegetarian team. Was Terence really a jerk? Or does he have a sense of
humor that didn’t survive the editing process? Decide for yourself.
They gave a very candid interview about getting the villain edit, their
intense training regimen and Starr’s shocking meat eating prowess.

How far were you behind Dan and Andrew when you got to the Pit Stop?

Sarah:
We don’t have any way to validate this but the production team told us
they thought it was seven minutes. It was very painful, so part of us
hopes that it’s not true. But we certainly gave it are all even when we
knew there was a very small chance we were ever going to catch up to
anyone else. We never stopped running. We did our best. We couldn’t
have taken down those seven minutes.

How much time did you spend on the Fast Forward?

Terence: It was an hour there and an hour back.

Sarah: Plus any time we spent in the restaurant.

Terence: Which seemed like an eternity but probably was only about twenty minutes.

What did the clue for the Fast Forward say? Did you know it was going to be an eating challenge?

Terence: Great question. No!

Sarah:
We, of course, were poring over all the blogs last night and this
morning. We saw that everybody thought we were so stupid for going for
it. But all it said was, “Sit at a table with a Hookah.” So that whole
hour long cab ride we’re brainstorming about how we’re going to have to
brand ourselves with a Hookah, we’re going to have to smoke the
entirety of the Hookah. We were so focused on last season, where it was
a tattoo. So, clearly this season it’s going to be branding. That’s
what we decided.

Terence, you’re a vegetarian. Sarah, I’ve read you keep Kosher. I’m assuming that was extremely Treyf. Yet you attempted it.

Sarah: There was a rabbi standing next to the table.

Terence:
I hadn’t eaten meat in fifteen years. That wasn’t a nice steak or an In
N Out burger. That just goes to show how competitive we are and how
much we immersed ourselves in it. Both of us were willing to make
tremendous sacrifices of our beliefs. It’s not like I became a
vegetarian ten days ago or she started keeping Kosher recently.

Sarah:
Going into it we said we will do absolutely anything. I will shave my
head. I will brand myself. When we had to go down that cargo net in
Brazil we didn’t even pause. Nothing gave us pause except in our
interviews and our applications we always knew that eating would be our
Achilles heel.

But when you saw Nick and Starr, who weren’t
under any dietary restrictions, were doing the task why didn’t you turn
around right away? You could have out hustled Dan and Andrew.

Sarah:
The minute that we left there we said, “Oh God. Why didn’t we have our
wits about us to leave right away?” There were two things. One was that
the cab ride was so long that we knew we were going to be way behind
anyway. So we just wanted to do whatever we could to get through it.
The other is we kind of approached the challenge the same way we
approached the rest of the race. For good and for bad we didn’t take a
minute to think. We just were so focused on winning and convinced that
we were going to win that if there was something that was in front of
us we were just going to throw ourselves into it.

Terence: If
you look at all the tasks we did throughout the race, at no time did we
ever quit any of them. Nor did we do them slowly. We did every one
fast. In our training, I practiced eating stuff that was nasty. It was
all vegetarian. But I would just swallow it. If you noticed, I was
holding the water and I tried to swallow the meat, thinking I would not
have to chew it and taste it.

How do you feel about the way you were edited? Terence, you especially were given a bit of a villain’s edit.

Terence:
Everybody who knows me has said, “Due, that’s so not you.” But I’m
like, “Look, if I followed you for ten hours I’m pretty sure there’d be
some moments that aren’t totally cool.” I don’t necessarily care about
the edit.

Sarah: Really? You don’t care about the edit?

Terence:
Okay, I do. But I got over it after the first few episodes. It was nice
that the last couple episodes were really warm towards me but I do care
what some of her friends or her family might think. Anyone who knows me
knows the real me.

Sarah: I didn’t actually love the way that I
was edited. I thought I looked a little bit silly and a little bit
obsessed with people liking me.

Terence: But you are.

Sarah:
We learned something about the process which is that they need
characters and if you give them anything to create a character about
you they’ll use it. On the other hand, we did say those things. We did
do those things. They didn’t put words in our mouths. They did omit the
really nice things we did for each other. I think we learned about
ourselves. We learned about our relationship.

Afterwards, did
you beat yourselves up about the way things ended? Phil gave you some
grief about being unable to eat the sheep for a million dollars.

Sarah:
Yes. I think right afterwards at the pit stop and in the discussions we
weren’t mad at each other. I never said, “Why did you tell me to go for
the Fast Forward? Why didn’t you try a little bit harder?” Because we
were really in sync about intensity and our competitive approach to the
race. I don’t think one of us ever had to carry the other one or
convince the other one to try harder. But the race definitely took a
toll on our relationship. Right when it was over we were very
depressed. We were really mad. We were really frustrated. We took it
out on each other.

Terence: We went into the race with the attitude that we were never going to blame each other for anything and we never have.

Sarah:
When we did the Maori warriors in New Zealand they were very generous
with that edit because it looked like it only took him two times. It
took him six or seven times. I was sitting there going, “Oh my God. The
other teams are going to catch up to us. We’re going to lose this
because he can’t match up the stupid tattoo.” But once he did it, I
never said, ‘Why did you take so long?” The wrestling thing in Bolivia,
I had to do it twice. He never yelled at me. He was just sympathetic
and supportive. It was the same with the Fast Forward.

What unseen moment of the two of you do you wish made it on to the show?

Terence:
When we were going down the cargo net and we passed Mark and Bill they
edited it to have me say, “You can’t climb and talk.” We were actually
singing and chatting. What I actually said was, “You can’t sing when we
pass Mark and Bill.” I high fived Mark. That’s the sportsman I am. The
fact that they didn’t show that really upset me because if you look at
everything, when did Sarah and I talk s--t about anybody? We were
intense during the game. We never said one bad thing about anybody.
Even last night when we knew we lost the food challenge, I was like,
“You guys are rock stars.” I tipped my hat.

Sarah: I wish they’d
showed more of the stuff in between the challenges. I think we made
huge mistakes that we came back from in ways that other teams probably
couldn’t have, like our boat breaking down in Cambodia or getting lost
in Brazil. We estimated that to be four or five miles out of the way. I
would have liked America to see how hard we worked. We never stopped
running. This was the hardest workout either of us had ever done.

Who did you consider to be your biggest rivals on the race? Who made you step up your game?

Terence: Without a doubt it was us. We got in each other’s way.

Sarah:
We were so focused on winning. We were so confident. Every leg we
didn’t win we would debrief and say, “These are the very specific
reason we didn’t win. What can we do to win tomorrow?” But we never
said, “They’re better than us,” because in our minds we never conceded
that anyone was stronger than us or smarter than us. Now that we look
at it from the outside, maybe our relationship got in the way. But we
didn’t have that perspective.

Does it kill you that the frat boys, who have been at the bottom of the pack the whole time, outlasted you?

Terence: A broken clock is right twice a day. Whatever. I have no comment.

When you debriefed, did you figure out why Nick and Starr keep winning legs?

Sarah:
Most of it was luck. You finish a lot closer at the end than you
realize. Most of the time it was a matter of minutes. Once you start
winning it gives you momentum. One thing I realized from watching them
that I didn’t know while I was on the race is that they were a bit
calmer than anybody else, particularly Nick. Nick really impressed me
by being calm and levelheaded.

Terence: I actually think they work for CBS. I don’t think they were competitors. The way Starr ate that meat is ridiculous.

Are you saying that Starr enjoyed eating Sheep Butt?

Terence:
I’ve never seen anyone eat meat that quick in my life. I don’t think
you could eat ice cream if you like ice cream that fast.

What inspired the two of you to try out for the race?

Sarah:
We loved the show. We’d been watching it individually before we even
met. It’s everything that we love. It’s about competition. It’s about
physical strength. I love to travel. We’d always thought about it. We
were on a trip to my friend’s wedding in Latvia. Somebody said, “You
would be good on that show.”

Terence: We travel like on the show – hectic, crazy.

Sarah:
Terence went home, looked on CBS.com, found the rules for applying,
said, “Honey, let’s make a video.” I was like, “We’re never going to
get picked. You’re so crazy. But okay.”

Terence: I said, “Of course we’re going to be on the show,” because I’m the eternal optimist.

Sarah: So we made a video and sent it in. I put it out of my mind.

Terence: We? We made a video?

Sarah: Terence made the whole video.

Terence:
She had me send it to her. She was like, “Can you change this?” I was
like, “I don’t work for you.” It was a really interesting process. We
sent in the video. They called her and I was like, “I filled everything
out. Why aren’t they calling me?” It was a really fun time for us.

How did going on the race change your lives?

Sarah:
We learned a lot about ourselves from watching the show. We’ve had
really good introspective discussions. Even though it was edited, we
did do those things. I consider myself to be a serious business woman
but I necessarily think I looked like a serious business woman on the
race. Terence is one of the most giving, compassionate people I know
but that didn’t really come through. That was very useful for us.

Terence:
I’ll say this much. I got to learn a lot about myself and about Sarah.
Whatever you can learn about yourself, I think that’s invaluable.

What advice would you give to future contestants?

Terence:
It’s such a whirlwind trip. Enjoy the person you’re with. It’s a once
in a lifetime, maybe twice in a lifetime experience.

Sarah:
Don’t go on the race with someone if your relationship cannot withstand
great challenges. It’s one thing to treat somebody badly if you know
they’re going to be in your life forever, like your family member or
your best friend from childhood. Part of the reason we wanted to go on
the race was to see how our relationship would do under this kind of
stress. That’s not a good decision.

Is there anything else you would like to get off your chest about the race?

Terence:
There is one thing. I am a running coach. I’m a very fast runner and I
take a lot of pride in that. They kept editing it to make it look like
I saying, “Slow down.” I’m must faster than I was portrayed. How about
you Sarah. Is there anything you’d like to get off your chest? How much
you love me or how much you adore me? How happy you are watching the
show with me?

Sarah: I do think he is a much better person and a
much better partner than they edited him to be. We wanted to win. We
always thought we had what it took. We still think we do.

Would you go back if they had an All Stars edition?

Sarah:
We would. One hundred percent. And we would do our training completely
differently. We trained really intensely in all the wrong ways. We
practiced milking animals, hitchhiking, snow shoeing, repelling. We
never practiced sleep deprivation.

Terence: I’d leave with just the clothes on my back.