How to Succeed on THE AMAZING RACE CANADA? ‘You Tell Your Body The Story it Needs to Hear,’ Says Host Jon Montgomery

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   “Never, not in a million blinking years.” That’s how host Jon Montgomery responded to the observation that THE AMAZING RACE CANADA couldn’t possibly ever run out of places to visit and explore, given the vastness and diversity of this great nation. “This season we’re crossing over that invisible line that is the Arctic Circle for the first time in the history of the show,” said Montgomery, as Season 11 of THE AMAZING RACE CANADA premieres on Tuesday, July 8 at 9 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. “Yeah, we’re heading to our third ocean on the coastline of Canada, so it’s a really special opportunity to visit a really special place, and share it with the people of the community, and the rest of Canada.” Montgomery continued, “but even with the places that we’ve been to previously, we’ve hardly scratched the surface on what these places have to offer. So we can continue to go back to some of the familiar haunts, the big cities, the urban areas, in perpetuity, while having an endless, bottomless pit of resources to be able to leverage, to showcase to Canada and let drama play out in a bunch of challenges that people put themselves through in an attempt to, well, ‘level up.’ ” Season 11 features 11 hopeful teams vying for the title, and Montgomery – who, of course, is a champion athlete, having won an Olympic gold medal in the men’s skeleton event at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics – used the terms “flexible thinking” and “endurance” when asked to identify the key factors that can make or break teams on THE AMAZING RACE CANADA. “Season over season, we’ve seen that the strongest team physically is not necessarily the one that crosses the finish line first on the final leg,” Montgomery said. “You have to be able to last the duration that is running this gauntlet. You know, this season, we have 10 physically challenging legs of the race, with racers sleeping on floors, traveling on airplanes, getting whatever food you can get into your body, and you have to be able to survive that. But again, it’s not necessarily the person with the biggest muscles that can endure that type of a grind.” Montgomery said he literally gets goosebumps recalling those inspirational moments on THE AMAZING RACE CANADA when embattled racers were faced with a basic decision – “is this the moment when I decide to keep going, or is this the moment when I decide to quit?” – and it was transformative when the choice was to push ahead. “You can flip that switch and change the narrative from ‘I can’t do this,’ to ‘I can,’ ” Montgomery said. “Maybe you don’t necessarily believe it in your mind, but you tell your body a different story. You tell your body the story it needs to hear. It doesn’t know the difference between B.S. and the true narrative.” Montgomery said we all do a version of this every day, with little things. “I mean, literally, at a physical level, your body can’t differentiate between an authentic smile and a fake one,” Montgomery said, “And when you put a smile upon your face, the chemical reactions that take place within your body, with dopamine and serotonin and the release of feel-good chemicals, can’t be stopped, even by something that is contrived. If you aren’t having a great day, but you force a smile upon your face, there is a physical reaction that takes place in your body. And so when we tell ourselves things that are negative, inevitably, your body believes it. But we can trick ourselves. We are sometimes our own worst enemy, and at other occasions, when we’ve got the right presence of mind, we can be our own best friend.” Before letting Montgomery go, something that he said in an interview with The Lede last year, setting up the 10th season of THE AMAZING RACE CANADA, must be addressed. Montgomery was asked a year ago to name his top three memorable moments in the history of the series, and for his No. 1 spot, he teased, “my all-time favourite memory is actually on the upcoming season … so everyone will have to tune into Season 10 to find out.” So what was it? “Well, getting back to that question, one year later, I can finally reveal that it was definitely being in Russell, Man., my hometown, sharing the mat with my mom, sharing my community with our great team of traveling professionals, and with the country of Canada. I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to top it. But I’m definitely geared up to keep adding special moments to that list.”     billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv