The message I wanted to send with my self-supported IronMan
After having had all these troubles with the IronMan and Nirvana organisations, it was really tough to make a decision about what I should do. Should I go ahead, fly to Austria and risk that their lack of organisation would mess with my race? Should I cancel it and simply throw away everything I’ve worked for and deprioritised over the past year? Or should I try to do it myself? Do I really dare to even think that?
The days passed and I don’t cope well when decisions are up in the air. I knew I need to make a decision for myself soon. This uncertainty about what to do looming over me was all consuming and draining. I didn’t ask anyone for advice because only I knew what would be the right call for me. Since I shared my training story on Instagram in ‘real-time’ for the first time, I knew that people would want to know how my IronMan journey ended. I always try my best to be authentic and transparent in the way I communicate and share my story so I didn’t want to hold back the end of this chapter in my IronMan journey.
That was when I was starting to think about what message I want to send with my decision. And it became clear to me:
I want to live in alignment with my values.
This meant to me in this specific case:
I didn’t want to travel to race such an important event for me with an organisation I don’t like and not being able to enjoy it and especially I didn’t want to celebrate with them at the finish line. I knew that the red carpet would look amazing on pictures on social media but it doesn’t align with what I’m feeling. Also, I did more digging into the owners of the IronMan Group and when I found out that the IronMan Group was bought by Advance Publications - a privately held American multi-billionaire company who also owns companies including Condé Nast (Vogue, Vanity Fair), Reddit, Warner Bros. Discocvery, etc., it wasn’t surprising at all anymore why this all went down how it did for me. They are interested in the money - the BIG money. It explained to me why their brochures are full of high-end, bougie advertisements, whey they mainly show male professional athletes and why they have a dedicated time slot for complaints on their event schedule, why it costs so much money to register for an IronMan and last but not least why they treated me the way they did.
At this point in my life, I decided to live in alignment with my values and I simply don’t want to support these kind of money making business machinery anymore. I love my sports too much and for me it’s about the personal challenge. Hence, I’ll be doing more self-supported challenges and locally organised events in the future.
I reminded myself of my WHY. My goal always has been to finish a full IronMan distance. It has nothing to do with the organisation. I wanted to overcome my fear of open water swimming and see how far I can push myself and if I can really pull of this incredible endurance feat.
I wanted to inspire anyone out there who also has a dream. No matter the circumstances: No matter where you come from, if you’re naturally gifted in what you want to achieve or not, my message is: Be brave, dare to dream and believe in the impossible. Work hard, be patient and make it happen. You’ll find a way and you’ll see, it’ll all worth in the end.
This goes out especially to women and girls who’s passion lies in a male-dominated area. It can be anything: An IronMan, becoming a physicist, a race car driver, whatever lights up your heart. Don’t let others, yourself or the the social pressure intimidate you.
If this resonates with you and you’d like to go on your own health and fitness journey, I’d be more than happy to work with you. Get in touch and we can set up a free consultation call to get to know each other and talk about your aspirations.