Life has a way of testing all of us, one way or another. Not everyone makes sweet lemonade from life's sour lemons. Jean-Marié had her moment at just 14, on Valentine's Day, when she was struck by lightning. And that turned out to be the first of many times she'd choose to pick herself back up.
Jean-Marié has just completed her very first Comrades, taking on the brutal 87 kilometres of the world's oldest and largest ultramarathon. Surprisingly, running wasn't even her first love. That title belongs to swimming. A sport she was so brilliant at, she competed at the Commonwealth Games at just 15.
She's just as open about the parts of her journey that don't come with a medal. Her fertility journey, and her daughter Everli, who she adores completely. By sharing it all so honestly, she's become the "me too" that so many other women need to hear. She's living proof that determination and grit aren't something you're born with. They're something you choose.
And that's exactly why she's our One With The Superhero Cape this Women's Month.
You were struck by lightning at just 14 years old and walked away from it. Looking back now, do you feel that moment shaped the way you approach challenges later in life?
I think at 14 I was probably too young to fully understand just how extraordinary it was that I walked away from that. It’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve really understood how quickly life can change. I don’t know if I consciously thought "I survived being struck by lightning, so I can survive anything", but I do think my life has taught me very early on that we’re far more resilient than we realise.
I’ve only become someone who will try the hard thing later in my life, probably before I’m completely ready for it. But I’ve also learnt that being brave doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t scared. Sometimes it’s simply deciding to keep going.
You weren’t a runner before 2021. What made you decide to start?
I actually started run-walking around 2020, and there was absolutely nothing that suggested I was going to become a “runner”! I had been a swimmer my whole life. I competed at the Commonwealth Games at 15, but running was completely different. I was told I “ran like a Teletubby” in primary school, so I genuinely didn’t think it was something I was good at.
I started very simply. There wasn’t this huge goal of becoming a marathon or ultra runner. I just kept showing up, got a little better, (after a few wobbles of passing out on a 10km fun run and then at the end of my first marathon in 2023) went a little further each time, and somewhere along the way I fell in love with it. That’s probably one of my favourite parts of my running story. I didn’t discover something I was naturally brilliant at; I discovered something I was willing to work at. And in my thirties, I found this whole new version of myself through it.
Comrades is one of the toughest physical and mental tests out there. What was going through your mind in the final kilometres, and what did crossing that finish line mean to you?
Those final kilometres were a mixture of absolutely everything. My toes had been hurting for a while by then and the water in my stomach was sloshing around. It was incredibly hot, and there comes a point in Comrades where there really isn’t anywhere to hide. You just have to keep moving forward. But I thought so much about how lucky I was to even be there. Less than a year earlier I’d had a hysterectomy, followed by another surgery, and there were weeks where I couldn’t run at all. I entered Comrades before I was even properly half-marathon ready, and there were so many points along the way where I wondered whether I had bitten off more than I could chew.
I also thought about my sister, Elsje. She fought brain cancer for more than 30 years and spent the last decade of her life in a wheelchair. Her resilience completely changed my understanding of what it means to endure something difficult. When I was hurting, there was a huge amount of perspective in knowing that I had chosen this pain and that my body was allowing me to do it. Crossing that finish line in 8:45 and earning a Bill Rowan medal was bigger than a running result for me. It was less than a year after surgery, after everything my body had been through, and I think there was this overwhelming feeling of: Look what my body can do now.
You’ve spoken openly about your fertility journey and becoming a mom to Everli. Why was it important to you to share that so honestly?
When you’re going through infertility, it can feel incredibly lonely. We struggled for three years before eventually having Everli through IVF, and when you’re in that world it can seem as though everyone around you is falling pregnant effortlessly while your own body is letting you down.
Four years after having Everli, I would eventually discover just how much was going on in my body with adenomyosis and endometriosis, and ultimately, I had a hysterectomy in 2025.
The takeaway?
If there's one thing that comes through in every one of Jean-Marié's answers, it's that resilience was never a single, dramatic moment for her. It was a concious decision to keep going.
She wasn't the fastest, or the strongest, or even convinced running was for her. She simply kept showing up. And she kept moving forward.