by Jo Pavey
Gav and I continued with our usual physio routine, which fitted well into our lifestyle. When possible I always had my physio treatment at the end of the day so I could go straight to bed. I’ve never liked running a second session after treatment and this routine worked particularly well for me. This is one of the benefits of Gav learning to be my physio. Because I am a trained physio, he has been able to learn along the way. His ability to treat me also avoided the need to attend appointments at a clinic, which would interfere with training and encroach on time with Jacob. We had made sweeping changes with one thing in mind: to make running as uncomplicated as possible with the hope that this would eventually have a positive impact on my racing.
We were thrilled that things went well at the European Championships in Helsinki at the start of July, after missing the last two championships. The event was only a week after the British trials, and with the London Olympics just weeks away, our plans to taper my training didn’t include it. But the chance to compete in another championships was an opportunity not to be missed. Throughout the race I wasn’t finding the pace as comfortable as I should have, but I just kept plugging away. When the bell sounded for the lap, I was in third position, behind the Ukrainian athlete Olha Skrypak. But I managed to find something and move into second behind Ana Dulce Félix of Portugal. I came away with a silver medal. After all the problems with the stress fractures in my foot in 2010 and 2011, coming away with a championship medal could not have been sweeter. Getting older – I would be thirty-nine a month after the Games – didn’t appear to be slowing me down.
The Olympic holding camp where most of the athletics team would make their final preparations was in Portugal. So the irony of the home Games was that it involved a roundabout trip for British athletes to get to the Olympic Stadium in east London. First of all, I travelled from Devon to Leicestershire to pass through Loughborough University for the ‘Team GB Experience’. This involved the official kitting-out process (sixty-five items of kit, not including my race kit) and signing up to the five ‘One Team GB’ core values of Performance, Respect, Unity, Responsibility and Pride. I then flew from East Midlands Airport to Portugal for the holding camp on the Algarve. Each athlete would then travel directly from Portugal to the Olympic village – the travel arrangements therefore making it feel most unlike a ‘home’ Games!
The reason it is compulsory for all selected athletes to go to an official preparation camp is to protect athletes from distractions and have access to the physio and medical staff in case of last-minute injury niggles; and it is nice to build camaraderie with your teammates. We all went out to Portugal, which was great as it would minimise my time away from Jacob. However, it wouldn’t be appropriate to bring children to the training facility so I would never consider it. Imagine if a toddler wandered off and tripped up a sprinter! But with Gav being my coach and also heavily involved in pacing me, I couldn’t contemplate him not being able to be there for my final crucial sessions. In order for Gav to be able to go to the track, we’d need someone to look after Jacob during this time and Gav’s parents offered to help out. They were fantastic, coming out to Portugal so that Gav could switch into coach mode when necessary. In some ways the Portugal experience seemed a bit crazy when I could have stayed at home, trained and driven up to London to compete, but we understood the benefits. We arrived late in the evening to check in at the Robinson Club Quinta da Ria, a posh golf resort, and I ran around the course late at night, determined to fit in my final preparations, however irrational it was when I could have sprained my ankle in the dark. Funnily enough, the resort was frequented by German holidaymakers. Many of the staff were German too, so the needs of the British Olympic track and field athletes were being looked after beautifully by a rival nation.
Going to the holding camp proved to be the right thing to do. My training moved up a notch. I was so relieved that I could see Jacob every day and I was able to rest and recover more than I would have with the normal chaos at home. At the training track it was very special to see the best sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers in the country doing their stuff. It was also a warm, supportive atmosphere to be in, with people who all had the same nerves that our final workouts would go well. And there was still a bit of time for banter before and after the sessions. The sprinters thought the distance runners were mad as we set off on our many long repetitions. They joked that they felt sick at the thought of our training while we were seriously blown away by their speed. It reminded me of my first Olympic experience at Sydney when I’d watched Jason Gardener and his coach practise starts for about two hours, they were laughing that he’d probably ‘run’ 45 seconds in the entirety of that session.
My training went well, though I still found it amusing when one of the sprint coaches said they were impressed by my style when running my sprint session. I never imagined I’d receive a compliment from the sprint team!
CHAPTER 22
A Home Olympics
Whenever I talk about London 2012, whether to friends or people I meet at events or in the playground, I realise how those Olympic Games were a magical fortnight for so many people. There were grumbles for years beforehand about how much everything would cost. The suggestions that it would be a giant waste of money and a flop were voiced right up to a day or two before the start, when suddenly the atmosphere changed. And on the night of that Opening Ceremony, directed by Danny Boyle, it totally flipped. London’s Olympic Games was the most important item on the news, dominating the TV and newspaper coverage. All the traditional British cynicism evaporated overnight.
The Games were special to me, too. As a competitor, I had been to three other Olympics but I knew one on home soil would be something else. In career terms, I wondered whether this might be my last major event. Qualifying for the Games, getting to the holding camp without injury, being led out to race in the Olympic Stadium in London – these step-by-step goals had motivated me to carry on after Jacob was born. They had kept me training at a high level and pushing myself. When it was over, maybe that would be it. I didn’t plan to announce my retirement the next day or anything, but Gav and I wanted another child. So I knew this could be my last year.
The only downside of being a track and field athlete is that you never get to go the Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies. As our events are scheduled to open the second week, we are still at the holding camp carrying out our final important sessions, so we always watch it together as a squad on a big screen. In Portugal, we gathered to see it in the hotel auditorium and a lot of effort went into making it a special occasion. It was nice to mark the evening with teammates like Mara Yamauchi and Lisa Dobriskey. We were all still required to dress up in the full opening-ceremony gear, which gave us a laugh. With all the metallic gold on bright white, we looked like astronauts. Charles van Commenee, the UK Athletics head coach at the time, is known for his trademark black-framed glasses and we’d all been secretly handed a mock pair to put on simultaneously to surprise him. It was a good laugh. When we left the hotel for London, the staff wished us well with banners and cheers – and off we went on the start of an incredible journey.
It was bizarre to board an international flight in order to compete in a home Games, but on arrival we were in no doubt that we’d landed in the middle of the biggest show on Earth. Security was tight. At the entrance to the Athletes’ Village, soldiers boarded our coach to check it over and look at our passports. Scanning devices were run under the coach before we entered the park. These measures were reassuring, but it was also thoroughly unnerving to think that they were necessary. As we stepped off the coach, I heard a film crew earnestly giving a commentary on us ‘getting off the bus’. We were back under the intense media spotlight that we’d been protected from on the holding camp.
The village itself had a busy, sociable vibe. It was more compact than others I’d stayed in owing to the high-rise accommodation blocks, which meant there was less walking involved to get to the various facilities. The dining room had seating for
up to 5,000 people, which is staggering, especially when you stop to try to take in the energy of the scene: competitors of different shapes and sizes – strong wrestlers, tiny gymnasts, giant basketball players – all milling around in their national colours; food from all over the world labelled by region; loud, excited chitter-chatter. You’d have seen people on telly, providing the day’s action, and there they were eating their dinner.
The volunteers, or Games Makers, really enhanced the atmosphere too. They were there for the love of helping others. They made the Games and did our country proud. It always amazed me that the enthusiastic young lads at the dining-room bag-drop area were still smiling ten hours later.
Gav stayed at our house in Teddington with his parents and Jacob. Once again, having his parents on hand enabled him to be in the warm-up area as my coach. We’d delayed putting our Teddington house on the market after our move to Devon. It was sitting there empty for a few months, but I just didn’t want any distractions, disruptions or stress to jeopardise my attempts to qualify for the Olympics, and subsequently my performance in them. And we also knew that it would be useful as a base for Gav and Jacob and our extended family for the duration of the Games while I was in the Athletes’ Village. As a mum, I knew the staying in the village part would be tougher now. I had been very lucky to see Jacob every day in Portugal at the holding camp, but it would be unfair on him to travel right across London every day, just to see me for a short time, during my ten-day stay in the village. I know many parents have to accept temporary separations from their children because of career commitments, but I hadn’t yet experienced that and I felt unsettled by the prospect. Fortunately, the British Olympic Association provided a team lodge near the Athletes’ Village where athletes could meet up with family members in a welcoming environment – with games provided for children, too – and so I met up with Gav and Jacob there on a few occasions.
My first race, the 10,000m final, was scheduled for 9.25 p.m. on the opening night of the athletics programme. It was the first track final and the crowd were up for it. I knew I was privileged to be able to run in a home Olympic Games and the atmosphere was so much more amazing than I could ever have imagined. I was intent on soaking up every sight, every decibel, every emotion. I went through the usual pre-race rituals of being sent to the call room, making sure my numbers were on correctly, tying my shoelaces, and re-tying them until I was sure they were just right.
Recalling the moment when it was time to file out of the call room and step into the full glare of the stadium still sends tingles down my spine. I wanted to press a pause button and let time stand still so I could take it all in. Minutes before we were led out, Jessica Ennis had run an amazing 200m to end the first day of her heptathlon far ahead of her rivals, so the stadium was buzzing. Standing on the start line, I again took a moment to look up at the flame, just as I had at other Games. I heard the announcer call out my name, saw my face flash up on the big screens. The roar for every single British athlete was off the scale: deafening, unbelievable, just so surreal. Did it inspire me? Of course it did! As I ran each lap, the cheers physically spurred me on, following me around each lap, pushing me to dig as deep as I could. And what made it extra special was knowing that my little boy was there.
When I qualified for the Olympics, Gav and I had decided that Jacob had to be there too. I knew that at two and a half he was unlikely to remember the experience itself, but him sitting with his dad while his mum ran in a historic Games – that was something I wanted him to treasure, even if we had to back the memory up with pictures and videos. His attendance posed a tricky issue, however, and not one most elite athletes have to worry about on the day of their final: potty training. Jacob had successfully been toilet trained a long way back, but he was still at the stage when he didn’t give us much warning when he needed the loo. We’d get two minutes, if we were lucky, or else disaster struck. Gav realised that once they were inside the stadium, installed in the seats the family had been allocated, he wouldn’t be able to dash with Jacob and make the loo on time. There needed to be a plan to try to avoid issues arising during my actual race. As a precautionary measure, we decided it would be best to put a nappy back on Jacob for the evening. Jacob himself didn’t mind in the slightest as he sat with Gav next to the parents of my teammate and fellow 10,000m runner Julia Bleasdale. He wasn’t fazed by the big, loud, party atmosphere and he certainly didn’t have much of a sense of occasion. Guess what he did during most of the 10,000m final? Yes, he filled that precautionary nappy. It was pretty obvious what he was doing – holding the seat in front, straining – leaving Gav and the other families around them cracking up with laughter. There’s nothing like a toddler for creating comedy during a nervy occasion.
Of course, I didn’t know about any of this until after the race. I’d lined up – as I had for well over a decade now – intent on running as well as I could. I was thrilled to finish in 30 minutes and 53 seconds – a big personal best. Amusingly, my time stands as the official world record for a woman over the age of thirty-five – a milestone I’d passed several years before.
I finished seventh, behind three Ethiopians, two Kenyans and one former Ethiopian running for Bahrain. The East Africans have long been dominant in distance running, so I was particularly pleased to be the top-placed non-African runner.
Just behind me, in eighth, was Julia Bleasdale, who ran absolutely brilliantly to set a PB too. It was lovely to have a teammate to celebrate with. Egged on by the crowd, we did a final lap together for a bit of fun for the home fans. After the race I found Gav and Jacob, and really wanted to go home to Teddington with them, but I had to stay in the Athletes’ Village until I had finished racing. That was tough – an extra thing to deal with – but it was also an honour to be a member of Team GB in the village. And I had the 5,000m heats to prepare for.
I quickly received physio at the warm-down track, then went back to the village to eat and have an ice bath to help with my recovery. My calves were extremely sore immediately after the race, but they were even more painful the next day. I am well used to getting sore calves – that’s why I wear my knee-high compression socks when I race, regardless of what they look like. I get a lot of problems, not because my calves are weak, more due to my tendency to overuse them (because my hamstrings don’t do enough work), and sure enough, I could scarcely walk. I didn’t even attempt any recovery running the day after the race as it was impossible. I wasn’t upset; it was almost comical. I had always known that ending up in this state was a likely outcome. The Olympic track is much harder than a traditional Tartan track because it’s designed for sprinters like Usain Bolt and it feels like rock when you’re pounding on it over twenty-five laps in spikes. In addition, in training I’d never do 10,000m work in spikes; I’d do some of it in racing flats. So I rested, had physio with Neil Black and regular ice baths, doing all I could, but I had only three days until my 5,000m heat, and that wasn’t enough time for me to run pain-free. On one day I went to the team lodge to spend a bit of time with Jacob – and also to get down on the floor and have an extra emergency calf massage from Gav! But the 5,000m was another opportunity to run in a home Games in that incredible atmosphere, just a few days after Super Saturday when Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford won gold for our country, and there was no way I was going to withdraw through fear of injuring myself.
The problem with the heats is that they are very tactical, as qualification for the final is the goal and a field of thirty-six narrows to fifteen. That means plenty of bursts of speed and unexpected moves to cover, but my calf problems made it virtually impossible to manoeuvre quickly. I qualified but not as comfortably as I’d have liked. It then took me an unbelievably long time to walk from the stadium back to the warm-up track. I didn’t even attempt to do a warm-down. I just couldn’t run another stride. The warm-down was more of a social session. I was perfectly cheerful, remembering my mantra as a mum – I can only do what I can do.
I didn’t kn
ow realistically how competitive I could be in the final. I was so desperate to run as pain-free as possible in order to do myself justice, I experimented wearing two layers of my long socks. My spikes didn’t feel comfortable with two pairs on, so I cut off the foot sections and wore two layers on my calves. In the warm-up, I didn’t do my strides. I couldn’t. I just jogged. But, again, the atmosphere was electric. Once more, the crowd gave me extra motivation, a crazy wall of sound almost pushing me around the track. I don’t think I’ve ever been more aware of a crowd willing me on. It was phenomenal and it was so rewarding to find I could run smoothly and take the pace. Again, I finished seventh in 15 minutes, 12.72 seconds, and the winner was Meseret Defar. Again, Julia was one place behind me in eighth. And again, the athletes who finished in the top six all hailed from Kenya and Ethiopia.
After the final, there was no way I was going back to the village. I’d packed an overnight bag so I could head back to Teddington, straight from the warm-down track, but in my excitement I completely forgot to collect it. Jacob had been to see my 10,000m final, but we’d decided once was enough for the experience. He’d seen me run in the Olympics and, being so young, we didn’t want him to endure all the crowds and travel again. We’d ticked that box, so he’d stayed with Gav’s dad who had kindly volunteered to babysit so Gav’s mum could experience the Olympics (he had been to see the heats). I was so desperate to see Jacob I jumped straight on the train from Stratford, still in my Olympic kit. While we were on the train Gav phoned to arrange a takeaway curry before our favourite Indian in Teddington, the Bilas Tandoori, closed for the night. There I was on the Docklands Light Railway, ordering a chicken Balti with onion bhajis, naan bread and lots of poppadums on a train full of people, a great number of whom had just watched my race. And I was hardly inconspicuous in my Olympic kit! When we arrived back at the house, we discovered that Gav had forgotten to give his dad a key, so he and Jacob and been stuck in the house all day. We checked on them – snoring away together on the double bed – and then Gav, his mum Sheila and I tucked into our curry. It was surreal – sitting in my own dining room, eating my favourite curry, still in my kit, having just run an Olympic final.
