“It’s not a very dramatic story, but it’s mine,” Jill once said when I asked her about her diagnosis story. Diagnosed 13 years ago this summer, she recounted how the hot weather meant that drinking water en masse seemed nothing out of the usual, until she got what appeared to be a cold virus that wouldn’t let up. A family friend checked her blood glucose and found she was sitting at 35 mmol/L. “I got to the hospital and ta-da! Type 1 diabetes,” she concluded.
Another important summer that I know of in Jill’s life was the summer of 2013: that’s when Jill decided to start running. She had signed up for the 5K event at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in October, and was determined to make that goal, despite feeling nervous about the whole affair. “It was good, but it was scary and it was hard,” Jill reminisced when I last caught up with her on one cold, but sunny spring day in Montreal. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it, until… I did. I did, because I had support with me. And I remember at the finish line, there was this lady… I guess she saw the look of death on my face, because she was like ‘You got this girl! You got this!’”
I remember that moment too—not so much the woman cheering Jill on to the finish, but the moment about 500 meters from the finish line where it seemed as though Jill had reached her limit. I remember her pushing herself to run through that last bit of race and the elation she had reaching the finish. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to run the whole way,” she confessed afterward, “so I was kind of surprised when I did. I was really excited. I was really proud. That feeling of having done it was really incredible.”
After Scotiabank I wondered what Jill would do with all the excitement after accomplishing her first running goal. Was this it for Jill and running? Or would there be more? The answer came not too long afterward, when Jill was one of the first people to sign up to run with Team CIM at the 2014 Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend.
I recently asked Jill what her thoughts are going into her second 5k race. Her response? “I liked the feeling of accomplishment that I got from the first one—I want that feeling again. And I want to go to cheer on other people the way that I was cheered on, because it was amazing and I want to do that for other people.” I noted that it sounds like the support is as much a part of coming out for Ottawa Race Weekend as the running, and Jill responded with a resounding, “Absolutely. Connected in Motion is basically the reason why I’m doing these things. I wouldn’t have had the motivation to do it. I wouldn’t have had the support to do it again. To do it with just anyone wouldn’t have the same spirit, support, and community that makes it more than just about running that 5K.”
In addition to running and cheering at this year’s Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend event, Jill is also fundraising in support of Connected in Motion. If you would like to contribute to Jill’s fundraising campaign, please visit her page by clicking here.
And don’t forget to check out all of the amazing people running and cheering with Connected in Motion, by visiting our Team CIM 2014 page!
