A different finish line

Original non-fiction-style practice text.

For eleven months, Rosa had trained to complete the coastal route faster than anyone in her club. She knew where she could refill her bottle and which climb would slow her most. Her friends planned to record her departure and meet her at the final gate. A week before the attempt, a section of the route closed for repairs.

The signed diversion was shorter and avoided the steepest climb. The club secretary said she could still walk that weekend and report her finishing time. Rosa agreed, but asked him not to put it beside the earlier records. She would be doing a demanding walk, yet not the same demanding walk. A faster time could reflect the missing section rather than any improvement in her own performance.

On Saturday, she left her stopwatch at home and took a younger club member who had never covered the full distance. They stopped to examine the diversion signs and reached the gate well before dark. Afterwards, several friends called the outing a wasted chance. Rosa wrote the distance in her training notebook, leaving the record column blank. She would return when the usual path reopened. The empty column did not mean that the day had produced nothing; it meant she knew what its result could honestly claim.

Explain why Rosa asks for her finishing time not to be compared with the earlier records.