A Vancouver Island couple is encouraging others to say yes to opportunities and go for it after their experience on Amazing Race Canada.
Allie Seller and Eddie Pariñas are one of two teams participating in the competition from the Comox Valley in the show’s ninth season, and the first episode aired on Tuesday. The opportunity came as a surprise, with both not necessarily planning to apply for the show.
“We’ve always talked about doing something but talk and action can look different sometimes. I noticed I was tagged on Facebook by Eddie saying ‘me and Allie are planning for the Amazing Race Canada’ and I was like ‘oh, we are?’,” said Seller.
“When he did that and we got a ton of fun comments back I thought ‘you know what, why not do it?’.”
Seller adds that she is not sure what was more surprising, that she was tagged that they were applying or that they got accepted.
The married couple are active, energetic and adventurous. Seller works as a business coach in the fitness industry, and Pariñas is a health and fitness coach.
This combination helped them to learn and overcome many obstacles throughout the race, with Pariñas adding that the Island is a natural training ground for the show.
However, the most difficult part for the couple was the mental components as they say the show is targeted to not favour certain strengths.
“Where this race challenges you is you can go in with a plan on who’s going to do what type of challenges. So, for me it would be more of the mental challenges and Eddie’s more of that daredevil,” said Seller.
“It’s really set up to get the person who doesn’t have that strength to be the person leading in that challenge.”
Pariñas adds that is what makes the race, but working with memorizing challenges was the most difficult for him.
Despite the challenges, both Seller and Pariñas say they want to communicate that these opportunities are open to everyone when you say yes.
“It’s not about the end of the journey, it’s about the journey and that’s what’s the most fun,” said Seller. “This entire process is so fun and really it’s available to anybody and everybody.”
“You never know, the worst thing that can happen is you fail but you just get up and do it again,” added Pariñas. “This opportunity was presented to us, and we went at it and we just manifested everything and here we are.”
The duo was not eliminated in the first episode and the season will continue to air every Tuesday on CTV.
They add they would like to thank Vancouver Island and its community for supporting them.
