Rasputitsa 2023 Reflection
As many of you have learned, things didn’t go as planned at the Rasputitsa 70k a couple of weekends back.
About 30 minutes after the 70k wave departed we were passed by a number of emergency vehicles, which caused my heart to sink, especially after the tragedy that happened at Overland last summer. At mile 12 we arrived at an intersection where a bad accident had taken place involving a vehicle and one of the 100k riders that had set out an hour prior in the wave ahead of us. After waiting for several minutes it was announced that for myself and everyone who had not already passed through the intersection that our race was over, and that we would head back together to the race start. Everyone was shocked and quiet for a while, and I think we all assumed they were kidding. But one by one the me and the hundreds of 70k riders who had not made it through the intersection turned our bikes around and began the slow pedal back to the start.
Some people were very vocal about how they felt. Most were silent. For myself the ride back was filled with a rollercoaster of competing feelings and emotions:
Confusion about what actually happened.
Sadness and concern for the rider(s) involved.
Gratitude for my own health and safety.
Disappointment and frustration that my race ended so early and abruptly.
Most of us only get a limited number of opportunities in our lifetime to do stuff like this. As selfish as it sounds, it felt unfair and unjust that this happened at an event I was participating in.
We didn’t know at the time, but it was later revealed that the rider in the accident died. As frustrated as we all were in the moment, the race directors made the right call to end it, and I don’t think there is anyone who disagrees with their decision knowing the tragedy that took place.
While I continued to wrestle with a wide range of feelings and emotions in the days following the event, this experience reminded me how important it is to prioritize process over outcome and the journey over the destination.
It sounds cliché, but it really is all about the journey, and you should get just as much value and joy from the process of training and doing the thing itself as you would from any potential outcome or result. Otherwise you’ll always be discouraged and give up the sport altogether when things don’t go your way on race day or in competition.
Strength coach and author Dan Cleather puts it this way:
“For most athletes, the intrinsic rewards of training or competing should be compensation for training hard or making sacrifices. In many cases this will mean that the process of training itself should have a positive influence the athlete’s life generally.”
Of course I’m disappointed things didn’t go as planned and I wasn’t able to test my fitness in a competitive environment. But the truth is I would do all the training and preparation over again anyway, even knowing how things turned out. I’ve never regretted the months of training, grueling workouts, sacrifice, solitude, and discipline that comes with preparing my mind and body for a meaningful goal, regardless of how things went on race day. The process of training and competing in endurance sport has brought me some of my highest highs and lowest lows, but I genuinely believe it has been a net positive on my life, and I can’t imagine where I would be without it.
The outcome of the day only tells one small part of the story and is often out of your control. This doesn’t mean that competition or chasing performance goals isn’t worthwhile, but the process of training and competing and all that comes with it (the good and the bad) should enrich and add value to our lives.