Renee & I headed to Lake Lanier at 5am on Saturday morning June 5th, and it was super foggy! We arrived to the Lake Lanier Island Resort at 6am and headed to checkin, where we starting to get really excited! We received a packet and our numbers, Renee got 747 so of course we starting saying she was a 747 JET plane! We headed into the bike transition area to set up our station - there was not many people there at first but the lot filled up really quickly. Before we knew it nervous first time triathletes were swarming around like bees!
At 7:45am we decided to walk down and take a look at the beach which was also the start of the swim. We realized it was going to be longer than we envisioned - time to panic! We went and got our goggles and made our way to the beach with everyone else. I started to get really nervous as we stood on the beach and saw the "next-timers" get into the water and the whistle blew. We ended up in the last group to leave the beach because of my age group so this was a relief. When the swim started I had a little panic attack because I got pushed out to a 6ft deep water level and couldn't see Renee. Once i was able to get towards the beach the swimming started. Jeff has this part of video but it was HILARIOUS. I was attempting the backstroke but kept hitting people and getting hit by people. I did my best to swim as much as possible but at one point Renee just said "start running!" and i put my feet into the sand and started running through the water!! haha
When we got out of the lake we really started losing time - we walked when most people ran to the transition zone. We took our time in transition and got our bikes and headed out for the 12 mile bike ride. We were fairly confident that the bike ride would be the easiest but we were WRONG - it was the hardest. We did not practice on hilly roads and this of course was full of hills. The weather was also a problem - high 80's. We were definitely tested during the bike ride - it was the hardest physical challenge i've ever had. I pushed through so many hills it was intense! On our way back to the transition zone I saw a few cars leaving with their bikes and realized people were already done with the race and we had yet to finish the bike ride - i started feeling really upset and down but Renee zoomed by me on her bike and I realized it didn't matter and we just needed to finish!
Coming into the the bike to run transition was a little anti-climactic because no one was there!! hahaha We dropped our bikes and headed for the run and thats when we saw our "fans". Im so happy we saw them when we did - we both realized that many athletes had finished the race and we were just starting the 3.1 mile run. I remember saying to Jeff "Hey, we like last!!!" and he just said it was fine and we could do this, also he made sure i knew he was so proud. That was just the boost we needed!
We set off for the 5K run and i wish we could say we did a lot of running but at that point our legs were jelly and we were just excited to be able to walk! The walk was reaaaaalllly long and soooooo hot. Of course there wasn't any water left for "runners" so we had to be tough and focus on finishing. When we turned the last corner we knew we had to finish strong and thats when we ran full speed - at this point we also saw our fans again at the finish line - this was the most rewarding experience. finish that race with my big sister was amazing and it ended up being exactly 1 year from the day we got on a plane together to Ethiopia. Amazing experience and I hope to have many more with my amazing sister!
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