So how does a woman sum up a year of her life events leading to making the decision to compete in the Iron Girl Triathlon. I guess I should start with the beginning, the death of a friend's neighbor who was a great mother. The end of her life brought to light for me an organization that she cherished dearly for her own daughters, Girls on the Run. I found my local chapter in Howard county and met the director Susan and immediately I knew this was going to change my life forever. As a woman who had lost a lot of faith in herself, I am a little surprised that I let myself attempt to be a mentor for young girls. I was drawn to this program in a big way though seeing as my years of running had been what pushed me through the hardest times in my life.
Over the coming months, as I would teach lessons and coach these girls on, I began to change and start to believe in myself. When you are told this program works, you assume they just mean it works for the kids. You never take into account that, it works for adults too.
And the most amazing thing happened, I began running again. I had dabbled in running for nearly 10 years off and on, but there is a difference between dabbling and waking up every day and trying to figure out when you can squeeze in a couple of miles because you need to get your feet into a pair of running shoes.
So when the spring season came and I was given the opportunity to coach again, I couldn't hand Susan my papers fast enough.
I made life changes by not only running but following another dream of starting to take a martial art. And I of course decided to go big and train in Brazilian Jujitsui.
It was a night after a great workout with my gym and coaching of 15 wonderful little girls that I came home to an email from the director asking people to join their fundraising team called Solemates. A group that raised money in support of Girls on the Run through running events and Triathlons. On my workout high I decided to join and chose the Triathlon. Something I had never dreamed of doing in my entire life.
And then it set in, I just enlisted to do what I always told myself was impossible. And I started to feel that doubt creep back into my body. How was I was supposed to find the time and energy as a single mom to train properly for such an event? To make matters worse, I didn't even own a bike anymore because I discovered days after signing up for the event, that my bike had been stolen. Oh, and there is also my irrational fear or swimming in open water where there are fish. Yep, I am petrified of swimming with fish.
But I found this quote:
“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
Who was to say that competing in a Triathlon was impossible other than me. So what, I am afraid of fish. So what, I don't own a bike. So what, that I work a full time job, have kids, in school, coach, and all the normal things people have in life, I can add training for a Triathlon to that!
But I refused to train in swimming and biking that first two months.
But Susan in her genius ways seemed to know something I didn't and went to the root of who I am, with competition. Let see who can raise the most money. And I wanted to raise so much money for these little girls to give back to them, what they gave to me.
So I pushed it out to my friends, family and coworkers what I was working towards.
In a 24 hour period I received $700, and over a 30 day period I raised over $1000. And during that time a friend of mine also learned of my battle with no bike and showed up at my house with a wonderful bike. I thought to borrow until I could afford to buy one, and she shook her head and told me it was mine to keep.
And it sank in, all these people believed not only in my cause, but also in me.
So the next day, I jumped into a pool for the first time in years and swam till my arms turned into shaking jello messes.
And now, as I stand here on the ten day countdown till I compete, I realize something that I couldn't believe when I started all this. I am not just a runner anymore. I am not just a mother or a coach, a friend or a coworker. I am not even just a Triathlete. I am already an Iron Girl. What makes a person an Iron Girl isn't competing at some event. It's living to tell the journey of the struggles and milestones that you have gone through as a woman to achieve a goal, you never thought possible. By the day of the Iron Girl, I should have raised more than double my original goal, I will have earned being a SoleMate to 15 little girls who will benefit from all my hard work, and I will be the mother that runs across a finish line in front of her own daughter to show her that no matter what the world may say about how she can't do something, or she is "just a girl". That as long as she says and believes she can do it, she, like her mother, can do the impossible.
This is what drives me, not to become an Iron Girl, but to show the world, just what an Iron Girl can do.
Jillianne M Shear
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