Photo by Beatrice Yaxley for Tamara Lackey Photography
Self-esteem is not for sale.
You can’t buy it.
But you can cultivate it – from within yourself, through personal experience.
There are a lot of opportunities to buy products and services that make you feel better today – and, believe me, I am an avid consumer of many of them (my morning coffee, the occasional dessert, frequent massages at the spa…). But it’s only the personal experiences you have that can create a perpetual degree of self-esteem that is available for you to reference as needed throughout the more challenging episodes of your life.
It’s one of the reasons we launched the Ramblin’ Rose Women-only Triathlons program.
Our publisher, Steve Lackey, wrote those words in his Endurance Magazine publisher’s note in 2007 when we announced the expansion of our Ramblin’ Rose triathlon from Chapel Hill to Huntersville. Since then, we’ve grown to include Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Raleigh. When Erika Hollingsworth crossed the finish line at Ramblin’ Rose Chapel Hill in 2006 little did she know that she would be the first of more than 15,000 women to cross a Ramblin’ Rose finish line.
By all standard measures, Ramblin’ Rose is one of the most successful, if not the most successful, women’s triathlon series ever. Ramblin’ Rose has seen participants as young as eight and as old as 77 cross our finish line. This year will mark the 10th Anniversary of our Chapel Hill event. As proud as we are of the more than 15,000 participants and 10 years of events, those are just numbers. What makes us most proud, and what keeps us motivated to continue to grow and improve and provide an amazing event for our participants, is the self-esteem we’ve seen women gain when they finish a Ramblin’ Rose triathlon.
From Erika Hollingsworth in 2006 to Andrea Peet, whose inspiring finish (read her story in this issue) closed out the 2014 season, we are truly grateful for not just the women who have participated in our series but, for all of the volunteers and support people as well. We promise you another awesome season of quality events that will make you laugh, cry, dig deep, and welcome you to the empowering community of triathletes.
“Self-esteem may not be ‘available in stores’, but the beautiful thing is that it is always there waiting for you – at the end of your early morning run, at the other end of the pool, at the top of that climb, and on the other side of the finish line.” — Steve Lackey, Publisher of Endurance Magazine and Founder of the Ramblin’ Rose Women’s Triathlon Series
