Before even stepping onto The Amazing Race mat, Carson McCalley and Jack Dodge had mentally prepared by going to therapy together.
“We knew we were capable [of winning]. But we always talk about the No. 1 thing that we did before going on the race was we actually went to therapy together,” Carson, 28, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, May 16, after winning the competition series. “Which is not [something] that friends do a lot.”
Carson added that the decision to get professional help was “essential” for them and the race they ran.
“I think it was the No. 1 thing that helped us,” he explained. “But a lot of that is about actually taking expectations off [ourselves]. We knew we’re capable [of winning], but we also are capable of going home first.”
One of the things that the best friends worked out in therapy was how they could support one another when in a high-stress situation.
“Obviously, everyone’s different. Everyone knows what they need more than I do. What was so awesome is, right out the gate, it sets us up to know this is somebody who has the same goal as me,” Carson told Us. “We’re coming together, we’re putting our egos away and saying, ‘How do we communicate so that we are one team?’ You are all I have in this race, right? So if we can’t work together, you can’t build on that.”
Carson shared that removing expectations also made him and Jack, 27, work together as a cohesive unit.
“I think a lot of people go into it being like, they know they’re gonna get stressed. They know they do some mental preparation, but a lot of it is, ‘OK, when I’m stressed, I need this from you,’” he explained. “When we actually dug through therapy, we realized, ‘Actually, when I’m stressed, I can’t expect you to act, talk, or be the way that I want you to act, be, and talk, because that’s gonna make me even more stressed. Because you’re not gonna say it exactly the way [I want]. You’re not gonna run exactly the way I want you to.’”
Carson shared that he and Jack came up with ways to “self-soothe” so they wouldn’t take out any of their frustrations on each other.
When it came time to run the race, Jack and Carson were ready mentally. However, Jack shared that he knew getting to the million-dollar prize wasn’t going to be easy, especially when he got a look at the competition.
“When we showed up and we saw how buff [everyone was] … like these people were rock stars and they meant business, and I won’t lie, I was a little scared,” Jack told Us. “We saw like Alyssa and Josiah [Borden], Brett [Hamby] and Mark [Romain] and Pops and Jeff [Bailey], and we were like, we don’t compare to them in certain categories, like in the strength category, it’s a blowout. Let’s never get caught up in a strength competition against them.”
Despite not having as much muscle power as the other teams, Jack knew he and Carson’s superpower would be their friendly nature and love for competitive games like Dungeons and Dragons.
“We have our own strengths as well,” Jack said. “Which I think a lot of that was, being gamers, loving games, being strategic and being really silly as well. I think silliness was our superpower.”
Carson and Jack proved their dominance all season long, minus one disaster leg in Bulgaria. The pair won a total of five legs, including the final and its million-dollar prize.
“We were sobbing on the mat. It was so overwhelming because these are people that you develop such a strong bond with,” Jack said of reaching the finish line in Miami first, where they were greeted by host Phil Keoghan and the previous eliminated racers. “They’re the only people you can talk to for a month, and only they will ever be able to understand what we all went through. It was so touching to have them be on our side and be our cheerleaders just for a minute and yeah, just like the love was filling an entire stadium.”
As for Carson and Jack’s plan for their prize money? While they don’t know what they’re going to do just yet, the game streamers want to pay it forward to their community.
“I think something I keep coming back to is that we attribute so much of our success on the race to being self-proclaimed nerds and weirdos and freaks, and the communities that have surrounded us who created that passion in us,” Carson told Us. “If we could create more of that community, whether that is through our D&D show, through our podcast, or creating maybe a board game store or a board game, developing a board game, maybe making a tavern. We have so many ideas of bringing communities together, nerds and freaks and weirdos. To give back to the community that helped us succeed on the race.”
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