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Race Result
| Racer: |
Heather Rosso |
| Race: |
Culpeper Triathlon |
| Date: |
Sunday, August 1, 2010 |
| Location: |
Culpeper, VA |
| Race Type: |
Triathlon - Sprint |
| Age Group: |
Female 35 - 39 |
| Time: |
2:19:14 |
| Overall Place: |
504 |
| Comment: |
A series of personal bests appears out of nowhere. |
Race Report:
A race delivers personal bests all around, despite almost no training. Sometimes things just don’t make sense. The Culpeper Sprint was an odd race, although I’m not complaining about the results. Hectic days at work combined with continued metro delays and break downs, back trouble, and an abusive winter led to a triathlon season with near no training — snow shoveling and lawn mowing replaced many workouts. There’s been the occasional bike ride or run, but not the type of training I’m used to doing. And then the distraction — I’d completely forgotten about Culpeper until I looked at my calendar a few days before. So much for preparation. So I just relaxed, made the most of the situation, and decided to just enjoy the race and do whatever best I could. Somehow it worked. For sprint distance, I had a personal best swim, personal best bike, and personal best run, and of course personal best overall time. From my first sprint several years ago I’ve moved from a 33 minute swim to a 20 minute swim, from a nearly 2 hour bike to a 1:12 bike, and from a 52 minute run to a 38 minute run. This season alone I’ve improved my personal best in the swim by 11 minutes, bike by a few seconds, and run by 2 minutes. I can understand to a degree the run and bike, since I’ve done a few runs and rides. But the swim? And by so much time? The only thing I can figure is that snow shoveling and lawn mowing are the secret weapons to swim training. And there may have been emotional power behind my race today too.
A friend who lives life with passion and energy is suddenly taken from life. That doesn’t make sense, either, although I know it is something that happens to people more than we’d like. This happened just a couple days before the race. Tony and I used to talk about racing, training, his son’s bicycling races, and making the most of life. His smile and friendship will be sorely missed. It only seemed fitting to race in his honor today. As I went through the race, I could picture Tony on the sidelines smiling and cheering me on. It meant that on occasion, I started to well up with tears, but then pulled those emotions in to power my legs and arms and carry me through. Perhaps Tony’s wings helped my fly today. At the end of the race, I let it all out, and allowed myself to sit at the finish for a couple of minutes and just cry.
It was an interesting race. It was emotionally meaningful, performance-wise fulfilling, and a beautiful course all around. I still don’t understand it all, but maybe sometimes I don’t need to. I’m still here and alive to wonder at it all and enjoy the results.
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