The Endura Sport Half Triathlon: Sharon Schmidt tells her story!

The 3 H's...Hot, Humid, and Hilly...tell a good portion of the tale of the Half-Ironman Triathlon held on Saturday, September 8 in Quakertown, PA. Race day started out beautiful but with temperatures already in the 80's as the gun when off at 9:00AM, competitors knew it was going to be a long, hot day. And unfortunately, the breeze that created a nice headwind on the 1.2 mile swim and 56.7 mile bike didn't do much to cool us down.

The swim was uneventful but I sadly realized about 1 mile into the bike that I'd left all of my "riding food" back in the transition area. Beginner's mistake but I didn't turn around for it and ended up getting some gels from support later on in the bike ride. It also occurred to me that casually pre-riding the bike course with friends earlier in the summer had not really prepared me for the true hilliness of the course. Riding at race pace, not drafting, and not chatting with friends made me very aware of the terrain and it was much hillier than I remembered. The whole time we were out climbing hills on our bikes, the temperatures continued to climb with us, up into the mid 90's. And we still had more tough climbing to come, on the 13.1 mile run.

While I did manage to maintain my 2nd place overall for the women, the run was very difficult and disappointing for me. What should have been the strong "leg" of the triathlon for me turned into my weak "leg"; although I know that there were many others that faced the same struggle, fighting against the heat and fatigue.

Needless to say, I was very happy to see the finish line (and even managed a little sprint to the line)...and the lake to cool down in! It was a great physical challenge and it was great to walk away with some hardware and some lessons learned for when I'm ready to tackle another one.

The facts: Sharon finished the race in 5:22:55, second in the women's division and 11th overall out of almost 100 competitors. Here is how the race broke down: Sharon completed the swimming portion in 31.26 and was in 9th place. Her bike time was 2:46:54. Sharon averaged a speed of 20.4 mph and had the 14the best bike time. Sharon finished with a half marathon in 2:02:36 which placed her 19th amongst the runners. The overall results are posted here: compuscore.com/cs2007/sept/genhalf.htm

The Endura Sport Half Triathlon...Sharon Schmidt does it all!!
(photos by Christian Mongrain)

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