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Winner Describes
'Amazing' Experience
For Reichen Lemkuhl, Being in Shape Was
Key to $1 Million Victory
Anyone who’s visited the Outsports message board's
“Amazing Race” thread knows that I’m a big fan of the show.
The program gets lumped in to the dreaded “Reality TV” genre, but in
fact, it’s really a contest that involves 12 teams of two people each
that are connected to each other by marriage, friendship, dating or,
well, hostility. Over four continents, 29 cites and 40,000 miles of
travel the teams race, the goal a $1 million prize.
 For this years
fourth edition, one team consisted of two gay men from Los Angeles,
Reichen Lemkuhl (pictured left) and Chip Arndt. Having been in
relationship for four years and subsequently getting “married,” the
two men were open to the viewers, if not the other teams for most of
the race, about their relationship. Whenever they were identified, it
was “Reichen & Chip, Married,” something that CBS did without very
much prompting from the two.
Reichen, a big fan of Outsports, agreed to an interview. I was
excited, and very nervous to say the least, but after some screwups on
my part, I finally got to talk to Reichen about the race and his
future.
Reichen was born in Cincinnati. His parents divorced, but when his
mom remarried, he moved with her to Boston. From the age of 8 until he
was 18, he grew up in the Boston area. Reichen had a typical sports
upbringing: “T-ball, baseball and soccer.” In high school he
gravitated towards more individual sports like “track, tennis and
golf.” After high school, through the auspices of openly gay
Congressman Barney Frank, Reichen won a coveted spot at the Air Force
Academy. While at the Academy, he played “intramural water polo,
because my grades weren’t good enough for varsity sports!”
While at the Air Force Academy, Reichen began to explore his sexuality
and eventually came out as a gay man to a small circle of friends.
Despite a few scary moments, he managed to leave the Air Force with an
Honorable Discharge. During this time, he met Chip Arndt, Ivy League
through-and-through and for four years, the pair had been in a
relationship. Reichen was spotted by a casting agent for “The Amazing
Race” and after an arduous interview process, they were selected to be
one of the 12 teams that would get to go to exotic locales, be
sleep-deprived, yell at cab drivers and possibly win a million bucks.
Tough Regimen
To say that “The Amazing Race” is physically demanding on the
participants is a vast understatement. There’s running, climbing,
swimming and other tasks that require the participants be in good
shape. Whereas some of the teams look like the only workout they get
is lifting pizza or a beer to their mouths, Reichen and Chip
definitely took the opposite route. “We got cast at the end of
October and we worked out every day until we left for the Race,”
Reichen said. Their routine was as follows:
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Alternating
routines focusing on the chest and triceps, back and biceps, legs
and shoulders.
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For cardio,
running, bike riding and swimming was done three days a week.
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Anyone who’s seen
the pictures of Reichen knows that he has an eight-pack. Ab work
was done every day, focusing on a different part of the abs.
One point that is true is that during The Amazing Race some things are
unavoidable: bunching at airports, bad luck with cab drivers and so
on. “You can overcome the bad luck by being in shape,” Reichen said
and that was proven when he and Chip got lost in the side streets of
Allepey India, trying to find a chicken farm. Reichen was driving the
bicycle carrying the chickens that they needed to deposit there and it
was surely his great stamina that allowed them to get lost in side
streets and still have the drive to make it.
Surely the grossest task the racers had to go through was also in
India. The teams had to choose which team member would be dragged
behind a team of bulls in a muddy field the length of a football
field. Reichen was the “lucky” member for his team and he described it
as “disgusting.” But even worse, the teams only have 12 hours between
the end of one pit stop and the start of the next leg. Of that 12
hours, about two of it is doing the interviews that are used as
inserts, an hour for the communal meal and two-three hours doing
laundry, calling travel agencies, planning the next days travel, etc.
Given the odd hours that the teams leave (often 2 or 3 a.m.), the
six-seven hours of sleep they get doesn’t amount to much. “People
think we get 12 hours of sleep, but that’s not true, we’re so
sleep deprived” Reichen said, laughing.
 Going in to
the final stretch of the Race, Reichen and Chip were neck-and-neck
with the team of Kelly and Jon. By planning ahead, Reichen and Chip
got seats four rows ahead of Kelly and Jon on the flight from Hawaii
to the final destination of Phoenix. This allowed them enough leeway
to complete the tasks in Phoenix and beat Kelly and Jon to the finish
line at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe by about 10 minutes.
I
asked Reichen why, after they had made so many mistakes along the way,
they ran a flawless final leg. “Because we learned after the first
leg that you don’t have to be first; as long as you’re not in last,
you’re fine, so by that final leg we were more relaxed and we believed
that it was important to eat right, get enough sleep and take care of
ourselves.”
Relationship Strain
Unfortunately, after winning the million dollars, Reichen and Chip had
a six-month wait until the show aired this summer and fall. All the
contestants sign contracts as thick as phonebooks, contracts that are
ironclad. Reichen and Chip were liable for $15 million if they let
slip that they had won. This enforced silence caused strains in their
relationship that ultimately lead to the final dissolution of their
marriage a few weeks ago.
“Chip and I had four years of marriage and while we still love each
other, it just didn’t work out,” Reichen said. “I think we are
role models” he asserts, and it was certainly a landmark of sorts to
see two gay men described as “married” on national television. Too bad
their passionate kiss after they won was not included in the final
show.
Reichen and Chip continue to fly all over the country attending Air
Force football games; when we talked, he was excited to be going to
Washington DC for the Navy game (which AF lost, 28-25). He’s has a
budding acting career, with a small cameo on “Frasier” just the
start. In October, Reichen fulfilled a dream by appearing in a short
cameo run as a waiter on the long-running soap “The Young and The
Restless.” As we saw on “The Amazing Race” and “Frasier,” the camera
loves him and I wish him the best of luck.
Oct.
23, 2003 |
