About 44 years ago, at the suggestion of a friend of hers, Sharon Becker Roggenbuck took up an exercise trend that was growing in popularity: jogging.

She started sensibly, trotting off a mile, adding a couple more when she felt comfortable. She ran two or three times a week, just wanting to keep in shape.

She and her family were living in Michigan when Roggenbuck heard about a 10K race. She wondered to herself if she could run six miles, so she decided to give it a shot. On the day of the race, Roggenbuck was just shy of her 40th birthday, and was placed in the 30- to 39-years-old age group.

Not only did she finish the race, but Roggenbuck took first place in her age group in her first 10K race. She was hooked.

“I enjoyed running and it came easy for me,” Roggenbuck said. “So, I continued running competitively. I was a dental hygienist at the time, and my dentist knew that I was running and so he said, ‘Well, can I run with you?’ We started running together and he wanted to do a marathon. Our first marathon was the Detroit Marathon. Our spouses went with us and we went out to dinner, really made a nice weekend of it. I did very well in that marathon, and then I just continued running competitively and doing marathons.”

A few years later, Roggenbuck took up another exercise trend that was growing in popularity among a more exclusive group of fitness-focused people: triathlons. Her first was relatively short: half-mile swim, followed by about a 15-mile bike ride, and then a 10-mile run, but she liked the challenge and the variety of swim/bike/run. 

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