At 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning, when many of her classmates hadn’t woken up yet, Lauren Frisbie, sophomore in LAS, felt pretty accomplished. She, along with about 500 other individuals, had just finished the Tri-the-Illini triathlon.

“Finishing one of these is always a feat,” Frisbie said.

She started 99th in the rotation, followed by a constant stream of swimmers in waves of 50, leaping into the ARC indoor pool one after another and swimming in a snake formation — The swimmers completed five laps (300 meters), starting in a lane on one side of the pool and finishing in the pool’s opposite lane.

“Last year, I wrote down my time as 3 minutes, so I was No. 2,” Frisbie said. “I was in front of all these really fast people. So this year I had the correct placement. It was a lot better.”

Once the swimmers exited the water, they began running barefoot along the side of the outdoor pool and up the stairs to get to the transition area.

“That run was such a shock, your hands and feet are just numb, when you’re running on the pavement,” Frisbie said.

The destination was at First and Peabody, where the bikes and other supplies were stored. Only participants were allowed to enter the area and they were identified by their race numbers, written across their arms and legs.

The area was filled with runners in a frenzy of drying themselves off and putting on their clothes and shoes.

“It would be awful if somebody forgot a towel,” a race onlooker said with a laugh.

The racers then sprinted with their bikes out of the area and proceeded to stage two, a 14.5 mile bike ride, with the highest elevation being 750 feet. The ride went down First Street, winding through Urbana and ending at the intersection of High Cross Road and Old Church Road, where the racers looped around and returned to the transition area.

“The bike was brutal,” said Kyle Boerke, 30, of Peoria, Ill. “There was a lot of wind on the bike course today. It was very fast on the way out but then coming back towards campus was very windy and slow.”

The transition from biking to running was not as busy for runners, who simply hopped off their bike and began the 3.1 mile run across campus, the final stretch of the race.

“The first mile of the run is the hardest because your legs are like Jell-O,” Frisbie said.

The course spanned the main campus and quad area, running around the south side of campus.

“I’d never been on this campus before, so I enjoyed being able to see everything during the run,” Boerke said. “It was just neat being able to look at everything.”

More than 150 volunteers were helping throughout the course.

“The volunteers were really energetic,” Frisbie said. “I was surprised, every single one of them was cheering someone on.”

The racers gathered at the race’s conclusion, waiting to cheer one another on before heading back to the transition area to collect their bicycles.

More than 490 racers competed, making it the largest triathlon in central Illinois, race director Ryland French said.

French said 100 of the racers were collegiate athletes from various universities competing for conference points. Most of the Fighting Illini Triathlon team’s members were required to help with the event.

The race field included about 60 Illinois students as well as racers from 10 different states and various countries, including Belgium and Singapore.

French was most excited about his father and grandfather racing, the people who got him interested in triathlons. His grandfather, Frank French, 80, was the race’s oldest competitor and has done more than 100 triathlons, choosing this one to retire on.

“That is very special to me,” Ryland French said.

“This race seems to bring a lot of people together and everyone seems to be pleased with how it turned out.”