Last saturday, both Rheiner endurance sports men Rouwen Schmitt and Mike Sonntag from the Pirate-Team participate at a competition.

This time we did a duathlon in Herford.

Rouwen Schmitt did his first duathlon ever, so he started on the smart-distance. The start was for the 70 starters at 12:00°´clock. The athlete hd to run first 1,6km. Schmitt started moderate, trying not to over-push in the first chapter. After a fast change he had to ride a 6,3km round and were able to move forward to the 50th place.

On his last run of 1,6km he gained some places to the front and his reward was at his first duathlon start ever, the 43th overall place and in his age-group 30-34, he took the 4th place.

Mike Sonntag started at the „ Race of the Tops“ and had to run at first 5km, than to ride 20km and after all 5km run again.

Many top stars of the Bke-Cross and MTB scene were at the start as well. The favourite on this course was Clemens Coenen from TV Lemgo, he won his age-group on Hawaii in 2008 and finsihed there 20th overall. Here in Herford he did a start-finish victory with a time of 1:01:54h. Sonntag ran the first 5km in 19:40 and changed than on his bike.

The speed was even with front wind constantly around 40km/h.

After 34min on the bike he was back to run the last 5km.

Sonntag finished the race with 92 starters with a time of 1:14:39h on the 21th place overall and reached in his age-group 40-44 the 6th place.

Mike Sonntag