“In the face of difficulty, radiating optimism, especially on social media nowadays, can inherently give us the belief that no matter what difficulty we are facing at the moment, this optimism drives our energy forward and towards our passion.”
This is what Rossyle Ayuro advised when asked what she can impart to her fellow students at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) where she is currently enrolled in the Masters in Development Communication (MDC) program.
Rossyle won first place in the women’s category of the 2021 edition of the Qatar East-to-West Ultra Marathon Run. According to an article published in The Peninsula, the Qatar East-to-West Ultra Marathon Run is supervised by Qatar Sports for All Federation (QSFA) and is the “longest and the only ultra road running race in Qatar where athletes run across the country from coast to coast covering 90 KM.” A total of 661 runners representing 56 nationalities participated in the competition. As such, winning the marathon is a feat that only exceptional runners can achieve, and most can only imagine.
Rossyle felt an “overwhelming mix of joy and gratitude” when she reached the finish line. But there is more to Rossyle’s win than meets the eye. “For me, the entire journey has been a metaphor about pain, struggles, and survival in life,” she shared in an email interview with the UPOU Office of Public Affairs (OPA).
Rossyle is an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) based in Doha, Qatar for seven years now. Before embracing the life of an OFW, she was a single parent who considered herself to be a “hopeless and helpless individual,” trying to survive from her dark and difficult past. “I was a product of poverty, of domestic violence, of a woman scarred by physical and emotional abuse, and succumbed to the cruelty of life,” she revealed.
She then decided to work overseas and started a new life in Qatar, where she worked as an office employee. Rossyle worked ten hours a day, six days a week. Securing work overseas has helped to solve Rossyle’s problems back home, but the monotony of office work has caught up with her and made her believe that there seemed to be no life at all. “Dealing with papers every day, the routine of waking up, eating breakfast, going to work, going home, sleeping and getting up again the next day, then repeating everything, gave me an impression of a boring life,” she declared. She also gained weight as she loves food and did not like to eat less to lose weight.
Instead of giving in to boredom, Rossyle decided to change her routine and started running. Despite her tight work schedule, she was able to find time for running until it became part of her lifestyle. “It gave extra meaning to life and brought me to a purpose. I consider this as the highlight of my life more than my professional career,” she said. The life-changing decision widened Rossyle’s horizon, which led her to discover her other side, and find her passion and purpose in life. Her passion for running has opened numerous opportunities both for her personal and professional life. She joined various running activities and met new friends along the way.
When joining competitions, Rossyle maintains a completely open mind. As a self-coached runner, she is guided by her own PDF acronym which stands for Patience, Dedication, and Focus. She also finds motivation and excitement to keep going in activities that she considers as “something new, something great, and something different.”
Rossyle became a member of The Desert Roses, which is an all-female team who made history as the first women to circumnavigate Qatar on foot. The attempt of traveling around the periphery of Qatar on foot took five days. Rossyle shared that it was organized “to inspire women and girls to engage in challenging, arduous activities and raise the profile of females in sporting competence.”
The OFW runner was also invited as a guest speaker in Qabayan Radio 94.3, a Qatar-based Filipino radio station where she promoted a running event and gave an inspirational talk.
Rossyle is now an accomplished runner without a doubt, but she has never forgotten her roots. With the aim to connect, inspire, and motivate others through running, she established the Kabayan Runners in Doha (KRID), which is a local running club created for her fellow Filipinos in Qatar. The club is open to anyone–young, old, newbie, veteran, slow, or fast–and with any fitness goal.
Recently, Rossyle launched a fundraising drive dedicated to her high school alma mater, The Sisters of Mary School. The goal is to raise funds for a “Sponsor A Child Program” by participating in the Qatar East to West Ultramarathon Race.
Despite her numerous commitments and achievements in running, Rossyle still finds time to pursue her dream of obtaining a master’s degree. She believed that now is the perfect time to realize her dream, so she enrolled in UPOU’s MDC graduate program last semester. “I believe that going back to academia and taking my degree to a higher level particularly in this course would strengthen my professional competence and would bring me to a broader understanding on how Development Communication can enrich my knowledge on building relationships, creating networks, developing collaborative mechanism, facilitating and nurturing exchange of information,negotiation roles and responsibilities and most importantly learning to build mutual trust effectively,” she explained.
One might wonder how Rossyle was able to fulfill all her commitments with her busy schedule. She shared that she wakes up as early as 4am, goes out for an hour run, prepares for work, and allocates study time in the evening after work from 7pm-10pm. She also makes sure that she gets an adequate amount of sleep. She also credits UPOU’s open and distance mode of education, which allows her to run, work, and study at her own convenience. “It’s just perfect timing during this pandemic to enroll in my course online through the UPOU. I don’t have to worry about going to school physically for my studies,” she declared. In fact, enrolling at UPOU has helped her achieve her goals since it taught her to discipline herself and practise her management skills.
Despite the hardships and trials in life, Rosslyn has surpassed them all, emerged triumphant, and gave hope to her fellow OFWs. She believed that “we can be ambassadors of hope” and that “we are the official envoys representing and carrying with us the message of hope.” She finds fulfillment and reason to push through with all her aspirations in life knowing that there are people who can relate to her story, advocacies, and endeavors, even though she is not an influential or public figure. Indeed, Rossyle is a motivation and inspiration to all. Padayon!
Written by Jaime O Guimbao
Edited by Anna Cañas-Llamas
Photo shared by Rossyle Ayuro
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