Pack your bags, because The Amazing Race is back! Every week, Parade’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the team most recently eliminated from the race.

This season of The Amazing Race has showcased there’s a clear difference between running through scenarios on an island or in a house and running around the world. Big Brother legends Janelle Pierzina and Britney Haynes notably struggled with the latter, as a series of mishaps in Uganda led to their emotional elimination at the hands of BB alum and fellow mothers Rachel Reilly and Elissa Slater.

Janelle and Britney came onto the race as fan favorites from their Big Brother seasons, with record-setting competition wins and trademark snark under their belts. But they got a quick lesson in “Amazing Race 101″ in the very first leg, as navigation issues led to them falling to the middle of the pack. That ended up being their position for the rest of their race, as they attempted to avoid elimination while simultaneously learning on the fly. They were able to survive as other teams (and one poor Vietnamese polar bear) fell, most recently avoiding extinction as dinosaurs in Dubai. But landing in Uganda, a first for the race, would prove their last stop. After heavy traffic put them far behind, Janelle’s confusion at procuring a “rolex” during the Roadblock left “Jedi Janie” wandering a planet-sized marketplace. They got to the Head-to-Head in last place, and Big Brother 12 houseguests Britney and Rachel squared off in a game-ending puzzle. The Reillys were able to drum up a crucial win, tearfully eliminating their TAR BFFs.

Now out of the race, Janelle and Britney talk with Parade.com about the events that led to their elimination, the physical toll the race took on their bodies, and how they hoped they changed the perception of motherhood.

Before we get into your race, I would love to hear what made you choose each other for teammates. Especially considering that last time we saw you on our screens, Britney was part of the group that evicted Janelle.

Janelle Pierzina: (Laughs.) Britney and I actually became really good friends, which a lot of people may not know. We really like each other. When it came to The Amazing Race, there was no one else I would want to partner with. She’s the only one I still talk to.

Britney Haynes: (Laughs.) It was so long ago. We also have the mom connection and have kept in touch when we’ve had babies. We’ve gotten closer since Big Brother 14.

Let’s start where it all ended. Britney, what prompted the choice to have you do the Head-to-Head against Rachel?

Britney: To be honest, I was pretty confident. I think I’m good at puzzles; it’s something I’ve always been relatively good at. I also felt like at that point I had been putting so much of what we were doing in the race on Janelle. She had been stepping up the whole race, and I felt it was my time to do something for our team and save us. I needed to take on some responsibility.

Janelle: Britney hadn’t done a challenge in a while. So I was like, “Yeah, you know what? Let’s go, let’s do it!”

Janelle, can you elaborate on the struggles you had with the Roadblock in the market?

Janelle: All the other teams were gone. When we got there, people were finishing up. So it was very scary. We had fallen so far behind with the cab that we took. We were the last ones to get to the marketplace, so that really set the tone for what happened.

Britney: Getting there last set everything off. We felt fine getting into the cab, and on the way there, we thought we would be among the first to arrive. We thought everyone was in that traffic. When we found out we were last, everything went upside-down from there.

Janelle: The cab we took brought us through the worst traffic I’ve ever been in in my life.

Britney: We had never been in dead last in the race up to that point. That set us off to panic.

Janelle: I wish we would have known there was another way to get to the mosque. I wish I would have said, “Let’s get out of the cab, and we’re going to jog up this freakin’ hill to the mosque.” You could see it over the hill.

You mentioned trying to utilize feedback at the end of every leg to improve your performance. How difficult was that given the race’s circumstances?

Britney: We did try to learn from our mistakes, trust me. After every leg, we would say, “Okay, what did we do wrong? What can we improve on?” But you can’t improve on your cab getting stuck in bad traffic. That was something really out of our control. We didn’t know where we were going; we certainly couldn’t direct our driver in another direction. That one incident just, unfortunately, set us on a path, and we couldn’t recover from that.

You’ve also spoken about the physical toll of the race, especially compared to Big Brother. Can you elaborate on that?

Britney: The race is a very physical competition. I’m not even referring to just the challenges. It’s physical to carry around the weight of every single thing you’re traveling with on your back. Even more so when you’re of a smaller stature! (Laughs.) You’re carrying a significant percent of your body weight on your back. The sleeplessness also weighs on you. I was in physical pain after the first leg for the rest of the race. I’m not used to using my body in this way. Outside of the race, Janelle is athletic and has worked out for years. I get a call a month before The Amazing Race saying we could hypothetically be on it. I can’t go from a sedentary mom of three who sits around changing diapers to a super-athlete in a month. It’s just not possible.

I’m just not generally an athletic person. I’m small and not fit. I’ve never prioritized fitness, and I saw the consequences of that. It’s so much more physical than Big Brother. Big Brother is contained in that backyard, and The Amazing Race is all over the world. It’s a lot of running and stamina. There’s a lot that also comes down to strength. That’s why you see a lot of people who are fit do better. I do not fall under that category. Janelle was so much more prepared than I was just by having a very active lifestyle.

Janelle: I wanted to run everywhere. I was constantly like, “Let’s run; let’s go!” (Laughs.)

Britney: It didn’t phase her the way it did me. If I have to run any distance, that’s going to take me a while to recover from. Janelle can attest to the fact that I could barely walk in our hotel room. I was in pain, overdosing on freaking ibuprofen every single day.

Janelle: I will say even though I work out every day, the first two days of the race had my body sore in weird places. It’s a different kind of workout.

Britney: I’m not a fit or athletic person and never have been. In fifth grade, I was the only person who didn’t make the basketball team. There’s a lot of physicality that goes into The Amazing Race. It’s not an excuse; it’s just a fact.

What do you make of the social dynamics of the teams on the race, and how do they compare to Big Brother?

Janelle: The Amazing Race is by far the friendlier competition. On Big Brother, you get a sense when people don’t like you. I never got that feeling on The Amazing Race.

Britney: We really got along with all the teams. As far as not U-Turning one another, I think those “alliances” were formed by what you had in common, whatever show you came from. All the teams had that. We were so separated by the theme of the “Reality Showdown,” it almost made the alliances for us. But overall socially, we got along with everybody.

Janelle: Because the race is so physical, you don’t have to rely as much on mental and social. In Big Brother, you’re always sizing people up. In Amazing Race, you say, “You can’t vote me out. You have to beat me.”

What did you learn about each other from racing around the world together?

Janelle: Britney was a good partner for me. She was better at navigating and reading directions than I am. She overanalyzes things; I just go. I’m very happy Britney was my partner, or I could have been the first one out.

Britney: We learned so much about each other. I can’t even tell you how much time we spent laughing. In our downtime, we would just hang out. I already knew Janelle was a comp beast and a superwoman. But we spent a month staring into each other’ s eyes 24/7.

You spoke throughout your race about representing being a mother. How do you feel you’ve changed the perception of motherhood?

Britney: I feel great about it. So much of the time, when you’re a mom, your identity gets wrapped up in being only a mom. Your job is to take care of your children, and that’s it. And that’s so wrong. That’s such a double standard.

Janelle: You’re a mom, you can go through anything! Do you want to go around the world for a million dollars? Do it.

Britney: It’s not even about how we fared in the competition or how we stacked up next to other people. It’s about the fact that we were able to do it at all. We felt like we could take on the challenge. We’re not just moms who have to sit at home and raise our kids. We can still take risks. That was a huge part of it.

Janelle: Just because we’re parents doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.