What is it that holds you back from trying something new or taking a leap of faith? Is a fear of crossing a line? Being judged, having a mid life crisis? A fear of failure? Perhaps a fear of success? You simply don’t have enough time? Maybe being disappointed? Fear of showing your true self to the world? Fear of facing your true self? There are so many “what if’s” that hold us back. I’ve decided to turn the negative “what if’s” and fears around. Harness the power of my fears! What if something wonderful happens?! What if, after the age of 40 (48 to be exact) I discover who I am? Hold the Goat is going to celebrate women over the age of 40 who put themselves out there and my hope is that they will inspire you to do the same. They certainly have for me! Their stories are their own and in their own words.
This is Sylvia, honest and open about her journey not just to the Ironman but to her self discovery.
“I had joined LA Fitness. When you walk in, there is that wall of glass overlooking the pool. Every time I walked by, I would just stand there and watch whoever was in there swimming. And I’m like, why does it look so effortless? I love the water, I thought I knew how to swim.”
Sylvia is naturally an active person… 100 mile ultra runner, horse back rider, cyclist, and she has completed several shorter triathlons. At 19 years old she left home in Germany to move to The United States where she married and had six children. Sylvia is full of life and loves a good adventure! She felt ready for a new challenge and signed up for an Ironman distance triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run) knowing that she would truly need to learn how to swim and be comfortable in the water. But even before her training began Sylvia told herself she could quit if it got too hard. Self doubt was how she began her journey to the Ironman….
To begin her official training she signed up for a Master’s age swim class at Brenau University where you could get three free lessons before committing to a full session. It didn’t go quite like she planned… “I can’t do this….then it started that I would just stand on the edge, start crying because I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know how to fix it. That’s what happened in my third session with Masters swim. I just started crying and coach Nate, who is a wonderful coach, didn’t know what to do, because he had all these other swimmers there. I had the worst headache and tension in my neck and shoulders and the goggles were always leaking and my head was hurting. And I was like, stop this shit. I don’t ever need to swim again…..”
Joy Kelleher, who was a massage client of Sylvia, saw her breaking down at that last lesson. Joy also happens to operate a local swim school, Swim Gainesville and has a full time therapy practice Thrive Gainesville. Joy’s coaching style is not a conventional one, she just doesn’t teach a person proper swim strokes but also helps her clients conquer their fears and discover what is holding them back in not only the water but in their lives. After seeing Sylvia break down and cry in the locker room, she approached her to let her know that she could help. Joy told her, there’s something that water brings out in you. “I’m thinking, what is she talking about?!”
Sylvia has an amazing support system of her family and friends, they knew she was struggling and offered their help and advice. From my personal experience, when a loved one is trying to help me they can point out something that I need to work on or a behavior I need to change. I’ve taken it as a personal attack on my physical ability or intelligence rather than helpful and loving advice. In reality it’s something I didn’t want to admit to myself or even realize was holding me back, a mirror is being held up to my face. It’s not always comfortable to honestly look at yourself, diving down deep to the discover the real reasons of what is holding you back. Self discovery ain’t easy!!
Her husband tried to help… “at the same time, my new husband started swimming on his own and was watching these YouTube videos. He took to it like nobody’s business. I got upset because I would try to swim with him at the Y. And he’s like, just do it, just do what they say in the video. I thought I was! He’s like, you’re not doing it. And I’m like, What do you mean? He’s said, you don’t put your head in the water. Well, no, I can’t do that! Him pointing that out made me so angry! Made me so upset, because it’s like, he was questioning my ability. And I was like, I’m okay with water. Right?”
Friends tried to help… “I had a friend at Massage Envy and she’s like, oh, I love the water! Well, I do too but I’m trying to figure out how to do this whole swimming thing but I can’t. She’s like, well what’s the problem? I’m like, I can’t breathe like they do with the head over to the side. She’s said well, you don’t relax in the water and I didn’t speak to her for days, because I was so pissed off. How can you say that, you’ve never even seen me in the water.”
Friends Randy and Susan are accomplished athletes who have both completed 100 mile races and double iron man. (a double Ironman is 4.8-mile swim, 224-mile bike ride, and 52.4 mile run!) Both of them are huge inspirations to Sylvia. Soon after her lessons with Joy started Randy and Susan invited her out to do an open water swim at Lake Lanier.
“We squeezed ourselves into the wet suits, walked down to the boat ramp and they start swimming immediately. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, I’ve got a cull the water, I have to feel the water first. When I standing there and start walking in, I’m feeling the water. I’m thinking, I can’t, I can’t feel it. I’m not getting that feeling that I’m supposed to have and now I’m panicking. Yeah. They’re people that I want to be like and I want them to like me, so I want to be strong, but I couldn’t, I was nailed to the boat ramp. They’re like, come on! They really had the best intentions. Randy swam back to me, he’s says, all right come in, float on your back, and float on your front, and switch, and switch. And I’m like, that doesn’t help me I still can’t swim. He said I’m swimming ahead of you, just follow my feet. What? Follow your feet? I can’t even see in the water much less follow your feet. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to breathe. So he swam off and I took two strokes and there’s water in my Goggles. I’m just standing straight up in the water, just treading water. What do I do?. They all stop at the Olympic tower and turn around, they see where I’m at, I’m still at the beginning. My chest is tight, I see the side of the lake and I swim over to that. I didn’t want to hold them back from there so I told them to just go on. I went back to the boat ramp and got out of the water. I’m like, I’m a fake, I’m absolutely a fake. we get out of the water, we peal ourselves out of our wetsuits. I don’t even want to look at them. I was mad at them. I don’t know why I was mad at them. They couldn’t help me.
So anyway, I didn’t want to say goodbye to them. The next day at work I didn’t want to see them. We usually eat lunch together. I snuck out the front door, went to Dollar General got an ice cream cone and walked in the field next to work so I didn’t have to see them.
I didn’t know I had an issue with abandonment.
While I was out walking Joy messaged me to ask how did the open water swim go. She knew me better than I knew myself. I told her that I cried then, I’ve been crying since and I’m still crying now. She’s like, could you please meet me at my office after work? So I went and we talked for two hours. Two hours of non stop crying for me. Oh my gosh, I am so embarrassed to cry in front of people! There was so much that was from my from my childhood, that I didn’t even think about, that was coming up in the water. The feeling of a sense of helplessness from my mom, you know, because she tried to fake her way through the marriage, to save us. She and my dad had a restaurant that was a bar and a hotel. He was an alcoholic, he spent most of time just drinking in the kitchen. While she was pregnant with me he would yell harder. When she went into labor with me, he beat her with a piece of frozen meat and she couldn’t believe she was in labor but had to finish cooking for a wedding at the restaurant. She just barely made it to the hospital. She said when you were a baby, I could hear you crying upstairs and I couldn’t hold you. I think her guilt made me feel so heavy, she felt so bad that she couldn’t help me. Joy said to me, that water is your comforter but I see that you’re pushing it away. I want to help my mom and tell her it’s okay. I’ve always identified with her where I had to just fake it. I couldn’t any longer and that was super super hard.
There was one boy, back when I was in middle school. We were in this fun group in Germany and we would go to the to the pool together in the summer. I had crush on him but he would dunk me unmercifully and hold me underwater. It was like a dream, I saw myself dying in the water but I always came up bouncing and laughing.
I met with Joy on a Wednesday, had another break down and cried. But after I cried she did some “psychobabble” on me. She’s said to picture a color. What do you see? All I thought was black. Now, she said, think of a happy place, close your eyes and tell me what color. This time I saw yellow. She told me to picture yellow when you swim and nothing else, don’t run through the checklist in your head of what you need to do. And then I swam a lap and a half! She’s like this is best swim you ever done! The weird thing was while I was swimming, I didn’t even tell her this yet and I’ve not told anybody but it’s so weird, but as I was swimming, it’s like somebody was telling me, this is what you were meant to do, you just forgot how. That’s been running through my head. On Friday when I went by myself, it was incredible, all of a sudden, something clicked. It was like all of a sudden, I’m not panicking when I’m swimming. When I’m gliding now, I get to where I don’t have to panic. I never knew! It’s like something in me is telling me I was meant to do this……I just didn’t remember how.
Amazing! I’ve never met anybody like her! I usually have anxiety before every swim class,. This time I can’t wait to see if I remember what I did right. Joy once asked, Who are you? Nobody’s ever asked me that! It ruffled my feathers. I was like what do you mean? She said, Well who are you?
I hate I think I hated water. You couldn’t hide, it’s like you were in it and nobody else can come for you. You have to do it yourself, you’re going to have to learn how to do it and work hard. That was the reason why I really resented water, because I would have to run through all that. Really know who I was.
Water was not my enemy.
When I signed up for the Ironman, I felt like I was self sabotaging myself already. I signed up thinking oh, I can quit. I don’t have to do this. I was okay with that. I was already seeing myself, I was gonna sit at the edge of the water and cry. Yeah. Why would I do that? Instead of fighting through it? I feel like I’ve fought through it now.“
Stay tuned to find out how Sylvia did in her Ironman!!
Hold the Goat 