Scott Swanson
After years of running competitively in junior
high, high school and then college, Crawfordsville
resident Kambria Schumacher was ready to try some-
thing new.
“I’d been running all the time and you kind of
get burned out,” said Schumacher, 23, who graduated
from Sweet Home High School in 2006 after a high
school career that included four straight trips to state in
cross-country and twice in track. She ran for Oregon
State University for two years, clocking a personal-
best 18:40.77 in the 5K.
“I love competing in sports and stuff and I loved
swimming and biking, so I thought, ‘Triathlon, that
would be fun. I could do that,’” she said.
She launched her triathlon career last year with a
couple of sprint triathlons (750 meter swim, 12-mile
bike, 5K run), starting with the Portland Triathlon,
where she finished third overall in the women’s divi-
sion and first in her age group. Then she won the wom-
en’s sprint event at the Best in the West Triathlon at
Foster Lake last September, running 19:23, the third-
fastest 5K time in the entire field – men or women.
This year she’s moved up to Olympic-distance
events (1,500-meter swim, 25-mile bike, 10K run)
after winning the Albany Sprint Triathlon women’s
division, placing fourth in her age
group in the 1,929-competitor
Wild
lower Olympic-distance tri-
athlon at Lake San Antonio in Ca-
lifornia, and sixth at the Blue Lake
Olympic-distance triathlon.
Her finishes in 2011 were suf-
ficient to qualify her for the Olym-
pic Age Group Nationals in Burl-
ington, Vt. on Aug. 18.
She is hoping to make the
trip, but needs some help with the
$3,501.39 cost, she said.
Schumacher’s best triathlon
finish came last weekend at the
Amica Mid-Summer Triathlon, an
Olympic-distance event at the Blue
Lake Park in Fairview, where she
placed second overall among fe-
males and
first in her age group, in
2:14:33.
“That’s the same course as
the Blue Lake triathlon,” she said.
“I wanted to see where I was at.
I dropped seven minutes off my
time.”
Schumacher said she’s
in-
fished with college and is working
in her family’s Internet sales busi-
ness. She said she’s interested in
turning pro in a couple of years
and going to the nationals will give
her a chance to compete against a
wider variety of athletes. The top
18
finishers at the nationals qualify
for Team USA for 2013, which
competes in International Triath-
lon Union’s world championships,
which attract the best athletes rep-
resenting over 50 countries each
year. Membership on the team in-
cludes help with travel, insurance
and support.
She also wants to see if she
can qualify for the 2016 Olympic
team. That means bringing her
times, particularly her running
times, down. “This year I wanted
to get down to 38 or 37 minutes
(for the 10K),” she said. “I haven’t
quite met that goal yet (40:56 at
Amica).
“I have high expectations for
myself. I expected to do well in
triathlons, especially with my run-
ning background. If you’re really
good at running, a lot of times you
do really well in triathlons.”
To support Schumacher, e-mail
her at [email protected].