'The Amazing Race 35's Todd and Ashlie Martin Clarify Their Thoughts on Robbin and Chelsea
Todd Martin (L) and Ashlie Martin (R)
Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.
Todd and Ashlie Martin came into The Amazing Race with a very specific dynamic. Ashlie was the one making sure they enjoy the experience of racing around the world. Todd, pulling on his previous career as a professional basketball player, had his eyes on the prize. That meant finding any competitive edge, from forming alliances to making mid-task deals with other teams. And though the tallest pair in the race never reached the heights of first place, their skills did make them one of the most consistent, always finishing between second and fifth place.
Perhaps even more impressive than their track record was their stability as a team. After going down a rocky road in their relationship, to the point where they nearly split, the married high school sweethearts felt confident in where they had gotten to put it to the ultimate test in a globe-trotting trip. And though their time certainly wasn't without disagreements, they were far from substantial. Unfortunately for Todd and Ashlie, as the competition winnowed, one mistake could be enough to take you out. And just that happened in Stockholm. Ashlie struggled on the Midsommar Roadblock, leaving them in a not-so-flowery situation. As they were heading to elimination, their energies had flip-flopped. While Ashlie was unhappy at losing, it was Todd who was taking in the opportunity, happy he just had fun with his wife.
Now out of the race, Todd and Ashlie talks with Parade.com about how their relationship repaired enough to get onto the race, their true feelings on Robbin and Chelsea, and what they learned about their partner even after over a decade together.
Related: Everything to Know About The Amazing Race 35
Todd, last night on the mat, you said that your relationship with Ashlie five to six years ago would not have allowed you to go onto The Amazing Race. Can you talk more about that?
Todd Martin: So about five or six years ago, we're going through a lot. We're going through it. Our marriage was a little bit rocky. We had a death in the family. The show didn't touch on it, but I was a police officer at the time. I was a cop for eight years. And so my heart was getting hard through the job. I wasn't finding that joy in life. I was being Mister Tough Cop. And that just didn't suit our family.
Ashlie Martin: And there started to be a rift in between us where we just stopped enjoying each other's time. And we stopped working as a team. We kind of just were passing ships in the night. And there came a moment where we had a "come to Jesus" moment, where we were like, "Hey, we need to figure out what's going on with us, or we need to go our separate ways. It isn't working."
Todd: And I wasn't being a good husband, I wasn't being a good father. And I decided to make a complete life change and just become a teacher. Complete switch. Big time pay cut, but we're happier for it.
Ashlie: It brought us back together and it kind of rekindled why we fell in love to begin with.
Todd: So yeah, if we were on the show then, we would have been at each other's throats not being nice to each other. We would have come off looking so bad.
Ashlie: To see how far we've come from where we were five or six years ago, coming on this race was really just the celebration of us and how far we've come. Kind of full-circle.
Todd: The celebration felt a lot like a test, though. Because it was really stressful.
To that point, you said a couple of weeks ago that the motto of your marriage is "forgiving and moving on." But I would imagine that's easier said than done when a million dollars are on the line. And we definitely saw you get into a few arguments on the race.
Todd: Absolutely. It's really tough not to go back to your old ways. But we stayed grounded. We talked to each other off-camera, kept open lines of communication. Reaching out to other people, people that are on there with their significant other. Ian and Joe, we talked to them. Victor and Jocelyn. And we just kind of talked to them, and said, "Hey, how are you guys doing? How are you guys holding up?"
Ashlie: I think the key for both of us is we don't take things personally. Wwe have moments where we banter or bicker back and forth. But then we get over it really quickly. And a lot of those times we were going back and forth, especially after we missed the Express Pass, I was so mad. But when we left, we had a moment in the car where I was like, "Hey, I am so sorry. I was a total jerk back there. I shouldn't have been like that. Do you forgive me?" "Yeah, yeah, we're cool. Let's move on."
Todd: The show didn't show that much. We were apologizing a lot to each other. It's like, "Hey, sorry about it back there. I was going through it." And like, "Hey, I got you. Let's go." And so we did do a really good job. When I'm really stressed, she dials it back. And then, when she's really stressed, I dial it back. Because if we were both at level 10, it just wouldn't work out.
Was The Amazing Race always in the picture for you two, and you were just waiting for your relationship to be strong enough? Or did aspirations for this only recently come about?
Todd: Mike, it was always on the table for Ashlie. She's always wanted to go on that show. And I was the one saying, "No, no, no." Because I knew that five years ago, I wouldn't have been the person that I should be. So I was like, "Absolutely not." I talked to a lot of other people that said, "I could not go on with my significant other." And so yeah, I think once we started getting in a better place, then she was still asking me every couple of months.
Ashlie: Well I started watching the show years ago when we lived in Europe when he played basketball overseas. We had one little computer and the only thing that I could access that was in English was The Amazing Race. So I watched the first episode and I was hooked. And we actually lived in Reims, France. And there was one season where they went to Reims, France, right by where we lived. And while I was watching that I was just like, "Oh my gosh, this is incredible." And I was just hooked with all the travel and the challenges, it was just right up my alley. So I felt like we were in a really good position now where we are with our relationship.
Todd: Well don't get it twisted. We weren't sure how we were going to act. You know, once, once that stress gets jacked up, you're like, "What kind of person am I going to be right now?" It's tough.
Well, to that point about stress, let's talk about how you got eliminated. On the show, we saw you two run to a train, but we never found out if you made the train, or if it was even the train with the other teams on it. Do you know if the other three teams that hadn't checked in were on that train?
Todd: I don't believe so. I'd like to hope so. But I don't know. We didn't see them. We were just rushing. We heard it was pretty close.
Ashlie: So what happened was, as soon as we ran down the stairs, you saw the doors closed, and we missed it probably by three seconds. And the next train wasn't until another 10 minutes. So they could have very well been on that train. We had no idea.
Todd: And we were told we're about 15 minutes behind.
Ashlie: So when they when those doors closed, I just was like, "That's it. That's the race for us." The edit was very kind and in showing that. So who knows. I don't know how what train they were on.
In the premiere, we saw Ashlie say that she wanted to have fun on the race, while Todd said winning was fun. Cut to your final leg, where Todd is talking about what a blessing it is to be here and Ashlie says, "That's what people who are losing say." How did this flip-flop in energies happen?
Todd: Mike, yes. Welcome to our marriage, man. I'm telling you, when she goes dark, I get light. When I go dark, she gets light. We balance each other out naturally. And so I think that's what really happened. Because sometimes I was in that mood, "Let's win, win, win." And she's like, "Hey, listen, we're fine."
Ashlie: "Let's take a moment." There was this shift.
Todd: Like yin and yang going on.
Ashlie: And the race is so interesting, because like, as much as it is a race together, you also are dealing with things personally, too. Like managing stress and anxiety and falling behind. So it's also working through that internally but then also together. And Todd gets over things pretty quickly, where it takes me a while to process things. And so I was genuinely so happy he was positive because I wasn't there yet. That pill was very hard for me to swallow, knowing we were way in the back and probably going home.
I want to talk about some of your relationships with the other teams. Todd, we saw you in that first task broker a deal with everyone where you'd give them the answer in exchange for jumping to the front of the line. Were those tactics something you intended to do going in?
Todd: Going into the race, I was keeping my political game strong. You have to always be thinking ahead. My strategy is to be open and honest, but also figure out where you could get ahead. And I think everyone would kind of play that way. But that's kind of my strong suit is really just figuring out who's who in the zoo, so to speak, and how to work it. And the whole time I was politicking, off camera, on camera. Wherever you can, you're always trying to learn people.
Ashlie: He was so good. In moments where we weren't allowed to talk, Todd would be communicating with his eyes without talking. And I was like, "Dude, this guy just doesn't quit."
Todd: But I'd my politicking is natural because I truly have love for people. I love everyone on the cast. Everyone is great people. And so I love the connection. And I think that's what the show is. It's a connecting of people and cultures around the world. And so whether it's with the cast, the crew, the strangers on the train, I always love just connecting with people. But when it's a competition, it's like, "Hey, how can I get ahead as much as I can?"
Let's talk about Robbin and Chelsea. You were one of the most outspoken teams against them, criticizing how they wouldn't help you when you asked for it. When I talked to Chelsea this week, she had said that your relationship was fine and that the contention was manufactured. Do you agree?
Ashlie: I think so. I will say what I appreciated about Robbin and Chelsea is they made their intentions known right out of the gate. Where it was like, "Hey, we're not here to make friends. And we're not going to just help you." So I appreciated that.
Todd: Yeah, and no hard feelings. You knew where they stood. How could you get mad at that? They made their intentions clear. "Hey, we're not going to work with anybody."
Ashlie: Which I appreciate. And then what you didn't see was we did make an alliance with Anna Leigh [and Steve] and the military brothers. And then you see when we were in Vietnam, looking for the tiles, where [Anna Leigh] saw Todd's and then chose not to tell him. So I much prefer Chelsea and Robbin's approach where it's like, "We're not helping you," rather than, "Let's work together and then not help you."
Todd: But to be honest, you kind of knew how Chelsea and Robbin were gonna play. And I kind of knew how Anna Leigh was gonna play. She's working the system too. So there's no hard feelings. It's all part of the game. But definitely, I respect Chelsea and Robbin's game, because they made them they made their intentions clear.
Ashlie: A lot of these decisions are gametime decisions. If I were in Anna Leigh's position, and I saw that one tile, I probably would have been like, "Yeah..."
Todd: I probably just wouldn't have said anything to the camera.
Ashlie: But the race makes you do crazy things. In life, you naturally want to help people, but when there's a million dollars on the line, I think you can't.
Todd: I call Robbin "Game face." She always has her game face on, which is great.
Lastly, you've been together for 15 years. What did you learn most about your spouse racing around the world together?
Ashlie: Gosh, what I've learned. I've thought about this. I don't feel like I've learned anything from him or about him that I didn't already know. It just confirmed what I know about him, [which] is that he is just so positive. And he's just so great at everything. And he's able to pull me out of my funk. I felt like I just confirmed everything that I already knew about him.
Todd: The thing I learned from Ashley was new. It was brand new on the shelf. It was two things. I didn't realize how competitive she really was. I knew she's somewhat competitive. But man, she really wanted to win; she wanted it bad. And just seeing like how much she cared and wanted to win, I love it. Because I'm a sports guy. Our kids play sports. And in life, you gotta want it to be successful. So I love that. And then number two, how physically active and strong she is. I mean, in Vietnam, she was the only female to do the mattresses, which was a really tough challenge. And she smoked some of the grown men. So I learned those two things about her.
