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A winning formula

A marriage is a partnership - a fighting force some might say.

And while most couples relish the chance to enjoy weekends together, making the most of each other’s company, the idea of doing everything with their chosen one would probably have them getting the divorce papers at the ready.

Let’s face it, you entered into an agreement to spend your lives together, but that doesn’t mean spending every minute of it by their sides does it?
Well, for Richard and Elina Ussher, ‘til death do us part’, really does mean just that.

New Zealand born Richard and Finnish Elina, who met while taking part in an extreme adventure challenge in South Africa, spend most of the year travelling around the world taking part in other challenges.

They have been on the winning team in the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge both years since it was set up in 2007 and are set to enter it again this Friday.

The multi-sport race, over six consecutive days, involves teams of four doing activities as crazy as mountain biking through the desert.

Richard and Elina, who took part in the challenge in its first year - on their honeymoon - say the shared experiences are what keeps their relationship alive.

They both also say that undertaking these challenges helps them to understand each other a lot more.

“It’s great to share such a common interest in what we do, as when we are tired from training or gearing up for a big race there is a lot of understanding about what we each need,” Richard says.

“The team racing took a bit of time to work out a good formula to manage our relationship but now I think we do it pretty well.

“We’ve found the best way for us is to just treat each other solely as team mates while racing as it helps avoid any favouritism within the team and also means we can be more objective when trying to push the team to its limits.”

Most men claim their wives like to control every aspect of their lives, with their bossy attitudes impacting on everything from how they park their cars to what shelf they store their aftershave on.

So when it comes down working out how they’ll tackle unexpected obstacles as part of Team Qasr Al Sarab, which half of the married couple gets the final verdict?

“Usually there aren’t so many problems during challenges - we’re both there to win the race and in-fighting doesn’t help? anyone on the team,” says Elina.

“If there is a disagreement it is usually about a direction to go when navigating or a strategy and these are sorted by just taking a minute to check our options and come to a consensus within the team.

If a consensus can’t be reached then it’s up to the captain to make a call and then we just get on with it.

“We definitely still have our disagreements but I think if you can make a relationship work on top of competitive sport then there will be very little to rattle you outside of that.”

Sounds sensible.

But surely training for challenges or being on the road taking part in said challenges, means the Ussher’s are always in competition mode?

Richard says he and his wife do manage to separate their ‘work’ and home lives but it is difficult.

“It’s probably our biggest challenge as quite often they do seem to merge into one.

When we are really focused on our racing we try and structure our days like a normal work day and have a point in the evening where we try to be home and relaxing.

“The thing that crosses over more than anything is the associated office work like answering emails and media enquiries.

When it’s busy, we try and keep at least a couple of evenings free each week to relax together and stay away from any race related things.” And Richard says he’d recommend other couples get involved in some kind of competitive sport together.

He adds: “It is fantastic to be able to share the experiences with your partner and it makes the rewards of even completing the races even greater in my view. “You definitely see a new side to each other as well.”

Sorce:http://www.7days.ae

Categorized | Metrolife

Tags : airport, berries-gents, dhabi-adventure, honeymoon, most-department, pink, race, rewards, surely-training, team

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