-Gymnastics-
I've always had a competitive drive since I was young, probably from my mom putting my in gymnastics at the age of 4. She said I was always climbing the door frames and standing on my head. I started competing in gymnastic in a level called JE(junior elite). We were tested on press handstands, bridges, long jumps, and other skills. I eventually progressed to other levels, learning more skills. I started learning back handsprings, vault, beam, uneven bars, and floor routines. Levels 5 and 6 all do the same routines on all events,at least when I was in gymnastics. It's changed so much now! I competed until Level 8, where our routines were designed for us and based on skill level and a points system. I quite gymnastics at the age of 12 and then took a year off from any kind of sport.
~Dance and Swimming~
My mom eventually put me into dance because she said I needed to do something and dance seemed like the best option since I was always dancing to everyone elses floor routine music. She also begged me to start swimming, a sport my mom did when she was younger. I swam in summer league until the age of 18 years old, which is the cut off age in summer league swimming. When I got into high school I swam for Independence from my freshman to junior year. During that time I also danced for Steps N Motion. I started at another company before ending up at Steps N Motion. I took hip hop, ballet, jazz and lyrical. The company wanted to me do competition dance, but my tapping skills weren't there so I never competed. The company I was at before that also wanted me to do competition dance.
Break
After high school was over I was never involved in an official sport for years. I don't really remember even working out after high school. I think that I swam on occassion for the exercise. I remember transferring over to UNCC and thinking about how incredibly hard it was to climb the stairs and how out of breath I was. So after being in gymnastics for years I was still a horrible runner. So I started running. I ran my first 5k at UNCC in 2009 and ran it in 36 minutes. My friend Meghan and I ran/walked the whole thing. Ever since that day I started running every day. The next 5k I ran was at my church, Hickory Grove Baptist. It was free and I said hey why not give it another shot. It was a trail race and was very muddy that day. I remember those days of running every single day to help me improve. I started out running one mile and then gradually increased it either by minutes or by 1/2 mi every couple of weeks. At the race at chruch, I improved my race time by 7 minutes and I was completely excited about it!
My First Triathlon(East Coast Volkswagon Tri)
I started running on a daily basis around my neighborhood and could gradually run further and further. I started swimming on a regular basis as well. Which I thank my mom for pushing me into swimming because today it is what takes away all my stress and just calms me down. My neighbor Ron and his wife Linda bought a house down at the beach. Ron and his friend Karen one year decided to relay a triathlon(swim, bike, run); she swam and he biked and ran. After seeing me several days a week running through the neighborhood and knowing that I was swimming he mentioned to me a triathlon that he and Karen had done. He said that I should really think about doing it. I was very skeptical, why on earth would I want to swim, bike and run all at one time. Triathlons had never even crossed my mind, but of course a lot of the sports I do now I had never even heard of. So eventually he convinced me to try it. I started training myself for this major obstacle that I decided to take on, even though I had access to a triathlon coach Nicole Gross. I started riding the stationary bike at the aquactic center and swimming longer distances, and running more. On the stationary bike I could ride 13mi in thirty minutes, so I figured the bike leg of the triathlon would be a piece of cake. I had not been on an actual bike in years, since I was a little kid. In the process of all this training I met Nicole Gross, one of the owners of a company called One2Tri which is a novice triathlon training company. I also met my friend Jonathan who had started training for triathlons as well. I for some reason trained for this triathlon all by myself. So the big day came over a year and a half ago for me to compete in something that I had never considered before. I looked around and had also asked Nicole about some places to rent a bike for a triathlon. I ended up renting a bike for Bicycle Sport. I finally got on the bike the day before my race. And I had no idea how to use it, changing gears and chains! My neighbor Ron took me to the transition area to get set up with my bike on the rack, and lay out everything that I would need. The night before I had to make sure I had my bathing suit, swim cap, and goggles for the swim, my tennis shoes, helmet, socks, shoes and something to drink for the ride, and for the run I would need my sunglasses and my bib number. I put all my numbers on my bike and helmet the night before. Before he left to go back to the house for a little bit I asked him if he would pray really quick with me. I truly felt like I was his and Linda's daughter that weekend. My mom wasn't able to make it down to my first triathlon because she had to close the pool for the summer.
The swim leg of the tri was my easiest part. The only difficult part was getting past all the waves. It was really nerve racking watching people in the first heat getting pulled out, but I had plenty of confidence in my swimming abilities. But as soon as I hit the water my timing chip came off, a $30 charge. After getting out of the ocean from the swim I ran up the beach and into the tranisition area with sandy feet. I tried to rinse then off in the small swimming pools they had, but they were already full of sand. I got on my shorts, socks, shoes, and helmet and headed out on what was the worst part of my tri...the bike. In the process, I changed the bike to a lower gear and was basically pedaling and going no where. I remember wondering when I was going to hit the bike finish, and hearing Linda, Karen, and Ron all cheering me on! Once I hit the end of the bike leg I started to stand up to prepare myself to get off my bike and as soon as my legs hit the ground the almost gave out. One thing I learned to train later was going from a bike straight into a run. I took off on the run and a guy that I had met before the start of the race was cheering me on as well, his wife was racing too. I started out on the run and could feel that I was moving slowly. I only walked when I got to the water station and then picked up back into a run after that. I was determined to run the rest of the race. There was one little hill right before the finish and there were people walking back to the transition area to get there things saying only 100yds left. I was right around the corner. As soon as I saw the finish line I was super happy that it would be all over. Upon seeing the finish line I some how picked up my pace, last little burst of adrenaline! I crossed the finishline as I did I looked back so I could see what my time was. 1 hour and 44 minutes. I was completely exhausted. I remember the whole time Ron was texting my mom and giving her updates on where I was in the whole progess. He finally called my mom when I got done so I could talk to her. It was great to have them all there cheering me on.
~!!Celebration!!~
Later that evening after I had taken a nap and gotten I shower, I went down to the beach to relax. That was one of the good things about this tri, it allowed me to have a race and vacation all in one! We all went out to Gordon Beursch, a brewery, for dinner. I got a drink to celebrate and some fish. But the next day it was time to head home and back to my life at school
I did the same triathlon this past year 2011 and improve on my time by 13 minutes(1:31:00) and came in 2nd place in my age group. I had also competed in two more triathlons earlier in the year, Amica 19.7 and placed 3rd in Novice and Lake Norman and didn't place in the top 3 in that triatlon. But I have different goals for this year and to improve on times from the previous year.
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