There’s a great scene in an episode of “Seinfeld” in which Jerry and George are hashing out a concept for Jerry’s TV pilot. George, of course, wants to do a show about nothing, figuring everybody else is doing shows about something so they should do nothing.
At first, Jerry doesn’t grasp the genius that is Costanza, but he eventually comes around.
“So, we go into NBC, we tell them we’ve got an idea for a show about nothing,” Jerry says to George.
“Exactly.”
“They say, ‘What’s your show about?’ I say, ‘Nothing.’”
“There you go.”
Jerry pauses for a moment and nods, “I think you may have something there.”
Rachel Ross had a similar reaction when she immediately had success in triathlons.
Ross had been a runner for years. In fact, she ran five miles the day her third child, daughter Sky, was born. A short while after that, she watched Ironman Wisconsin and decided she’d try “the Tri,” so to speak.
Her first effort, in 2004, was a sprint triathlon. She finished in the top 10. More importantly, she had great fun competing. She thought to herself, “I think I might have something.”
She moved up to the Olympic distance — 1,500-meter swim, 40K bike ride, 10K run — and found more success. By June of 2006, she was ready for the Half-Ironman, or Ironman 70.3: a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run. She finished second in her age group and earned a spot in the Ironman World Championships in Kailua-Kona.
Since that time, Ross has become one of the top triathletes in Hawaii, completing five Ironman races and numerous other multisport competitions at shorter distances. She recently won the Mokuleia Triathlon and was scheduled to compete in the Escape From Alcatraz race June 14, in San Francisco.
“First of all, I think we have a person of enormous athletic gift,” said Katherine Nichols, a training partner and close friend of Ross. “She just has a wealth of talent and a great work ethic, too. She put the work into that talent and it all came together.”
Ah, yes, the work. She’s a mom of three, with sons Henry and Wyatt, and daughter Sky. There’s a full-time job, writing environmental impact statements for TEC, Inc., in Honolulu. And then there are her elite triathlon workouts. The parts of this puzzle are connected.
Ross said she starts most days at 5 AM with either a run (eight to nine miles) or a swim. She then rides her bike to work two to three days a week. Those are 30-mile round trips. When she’s training for Ironman, which she says she is skipping this year, she also gets in a hard bike ride “with the boys” from Boca Hawaii “or with Katherine” on the weekends.
She swims in the ocean a couple of times a week with a triathlon training group, but admits, “I’m not a huge fan of the swimming. I do enough to get by.”
All that work pays off with results that have been stunning. At her first Ironman competition, the 2006 World Championships, she shocked the field and herself by winning the 30-34 age group. She said her goal was to finish in 12 hours. Her winning time was 10:05:58.
The following year in Kona, she outdid even that performance despite a strength-sapping 102-degree fever.
Ross said she decided to try the swim and see how it went from there. After 2.4 miles in the water, she said she felt great and deemed herself ready for the 112-mile bike ride. During the bike she felt horrible, but kept on pedaling. Ross said she took some Advil during the transition between the bike and the 26.2-mile run. Although she said she was still “burning up” during the run, she posted her best marathon time ever and broke the 10-hour barrier at the Ironman distance for the only time in her career so far. Her finishing time was 9:56:21
Ross said she’s philosophical about racing, especially Ironman. “You have to kind of take what you get and adapt,” she said. “People freak out and their race is over. There’s always something that goes wrong. Nothing is ever perfect in a 10-hour athletic event.”
Last year in Kona, Ross finished third in her age group in 10:06:33.
Ross said she sees no reason she can’t keep getting faster, at least for a couple of more years. Her latest goal is to break three hours in a marathon. To that end, she and Nichols are training to run the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco, Oct. 18.
Nichols believes Ross is up to it. “She has tremendous ability to focus during races that is exceptional,” Nichols said. “She’s also one of the strongest female athletes that I’ve encountered, both physically and mentally. She also has a special gift for the long distances.”
Sounds like Nichols — and Rachel Ross — may have something.