Irish athlete Róisín McGettigan has been an inspiration for runners and women everywhere over the last number of years.
The talented athlete was born in Wicklow but is now based in Providence, Rhode Island and was home in Ireland recently to launch a new schools athletics programme in partnership with GloHealth.
Róisín made headlines at the end of 2014 when she was retrospectively awarded a European medal from the 2009 European Indoors 1,500m. Here, the mother-of-two and co-founder of the company Believe I Am, tells Her.ie about how she kick-started her career in athletics and how it felt – six years later – to get the recognition she deserved with a European medal.
“I was a very active kid,” she explained with a laugh. “It all started with the Community Games in my local area and my brother was involved in sport so I kind of followed him around.
“From there it was on to the Athletics Club in Wicklow – we were small but fierce. We had a really good coach and though as a kid I was involved in all different sports, as a teenager I really focused on it [athletics] and I made the commitment then.”
“I suppose I took ownership of what I really wanted and then I got the scholarship to America, where I went to Providence College. I’ve stayed in the area since then.”
Looking back through her career, she acknowledges that although she was extremely proud to recently receive the 2009 medal retrospectively, that race was one that essentially changed her life forever.
“It was great to get the medal last year. I was working so hard for so long as an athlete that it got to the point where I started to question myself, wondering if I was just not good enough, if I needed to do more and more.
“What happened then was that I ended up over training and I stopped listening to my body. I kept pushing myself and I got sick as a result. Everybody wants to see results, to see medals and I pushed myself too far.
“Just before that happened was the race in the Europeans, were I’d come fourth. After that, it pushed me over the edge, I can’t seem to recover from that,” she reflected candidly.
“To now get a medal is showing me that I was good enough at that time – I just didn’t know that. It’s unfortunate that people were cheating as it had a ripple effect then that changed everything.”
“If you have a European medal that’s a good thing, it would spur you on so now you think, would there have been more medals? If I’d taken the medal back then perhaps I wouldn’t have had to ignore my body telling me that I was tired. I would have been able to say to myself ‘I’m tired I need a break’ but instead I pushed myself thinking, ‘more, more, I need to do more’.
“It is a bit of a bummer, but at the end of the day it’s great to have a medal now. It was always one of those dream goals. I always thought I could get a medal at European level, the Worlds is different, it’s a different level, but I always thought the European level was doable and achievable.
“It’s great to have that medal now, I’m delighted,” she added.
“I think that all of that, along with my other experiences from running professionally including the Beijing Olympics helped lead me to where I am today,” she continued, explaining that in 2011, she set up the company Believe I Am with friend and fellow athlete Lauren Fleshmann.
“After being on the pro circuit for a number of years, going to the Olympics and that, I saw that it was only when I was able to get the mental approach right that I was able to perform to my potential.
“Everyone knows about the physical preparation for training, but there’s not much said about the mental approach so Lauren and I came together and decided that the mental side of sport needed to be talked about.
“We wanted to share with people how we reached our potential so we decided we were going to join together and share anything useful that we learned along the way. We felt that it was the right thing to do to talk to people about goal setting and how to be resilient.”
“It’s been proven that sports psychology can be useful in all areas of your life. It’s helpful for people to be able to set goals and go on that journey
“So I published the first training journal and made some designs with mantras in them. Then I had my first baby and it was all pretty busy, before we got a publishing deal for a second version which just came out last year.
“I love being able to do these projects though. It’s a passion of mine – I really enjoy it. I did a degree in Psychology and a Masters in Education Counselling. It caught my interest as I was running as I was reading all the books to try and get the best out of my own performance.
“My dream was to get these principles rolled out through schools everywhere to help children learn the importance of sport and setting goals and that’s where GloHealth has come in with their Irish Schools Athletics programme.
“The programme will see athletes going into schools talking about representing Ireland and all about being an athlete and their experience. The kids will be encouraged to write down their own goals, their hopes and dreams.
“This all ties in with academics. It’s a holistic approach, helping people to become more conscious of the choices they are making and if we can instil that from a young age then we are doing something right.
“You can show kids how to break down a goal, to take it step-by-step so that even something that seems as enormous as going to the Olympics should just be the next of a course of little steps.
“A big dream like that comes down to lots of little steps – it’s the little steps that you do as teenager, the same steps you do in college, the same you do after that, and then suddenly, the next step is the Olympics.
“It’s all about goals and achieving them and it makes such a difference getting your goals out on paper, not just having them in your head. Essentially, you are communicating to yourself what you are really want and writing it down helps you to visualize that.”
“Children are so interesting though because kids are more open to showing what they really love and they don’t put limitations on themselves – they believe they can be anything. Then you go through adolescence and that all changes.
“Working with the GloHealth programme is brilliant as promoting exercise for school kids is a huge part of my beliefs. People don’t realize the extent of the benefits that come from exercise.
“It prepares your brain to learn better, it helps you focus better, it helps you memorise things better, it motivates you more to learn and you are ready to absorb information – it’s so good for kids in school.
“There’s also the life skills that you learn such as how to accept failing and getting resilience from that, along with putting in hard work and goal setting, team building and intrinsic motivation of getting yourself going and feeling good. These are all things that you can apply to all areas of your life.
“For me, I’m just excited that this idea I’ve had for such a long time is finally starting to happen.
“I’ve learned a lot along the way and now, I don’t mind putting myself out there anymore and trying things, I’m not afraid of failing, and when you realize that, you are able to do anything.”
