by Jo Pavey
Our approach isn’t merely about the sessions. It’s about how the whole training mix fits together to suit me. The training itself involves a mixture of long runs, tempo runs, interval sessions, recovery runs and some strength and conditioning work. And I ensure I take a rest day. The interval sessions are based around a system using a range of different paces. My ability to run a certain speed at shorter distances impacts on my ability over longer distances. Gav writes a progression chart with times we aim to achieve in training for certain distances, depending on the type of session and the recovery times. We gradually work towards these training targets as the trials and championships draw nearer. Throughout the year we don’t follow the traditional ‘periodisation approach’ which, in brief, is when you concentrate on volume in the winter, transition in the spring and then increase the speed work in the summer. My work is still high volume in the winter, but with faster work too, so there is a more subtle change of emphasis. We find this not only helps with preventing injury, but also avoids the panic of playing catch-up if you’ve lost too much pace throughout the winter months. However, something simpler lies at the heart of our training methods. It’s our flexible approach, our ability to respond and adapt to situations as they arise. It’s all based on what I can actually do on a given day and not blindly doing what I think I should be doing. It’s about keeping everything in real time and not sticking to stuff written on a piece of paper. This has helped me go from missing many years in my early career to becoming consistent. Consistency is the key to reaching your potential, or at least to getting close to it. I believe our flexible approach enables me to achieve repeatable units of training, helping to make it more sustainable. The training can then become progressive over time as I gradually become more conditioned and adapt to what I am doing.
I used to be the sort of athlete who wants to push on and Gav is there to control the whole process. Gav motivates me, but he doesn’t have to push me. It is more likely that he will have to hold me back. He is good at long-term planning whilst at the same time adapting and responding to outcomes. We aim in our training for being able to sustain a pace for a distance but also to be able to race. This requires a delicate balance between endurance and speed work.
I have spent many years going to championships and it’s flattering to be asked for advice on how to start running later in life and make fitness a priority. People often say they find it a daunting prospect to take those first steps but, as long as you don’t have a medical concern, your age, shape and ability are irrelevant and should never deter anyone. Running is such an inclusive sport and you only have to watch a big road race to see this. I have heard such inspirational stories about people who’ve used the Couch to 5k running app that you can get free from the NHS website. For example, people who at first could only manage a couple of minutes of jogging and walking but a few months down the line have entered their first race. In addition to the health and fitness gains, running boosts your sense of well-being, confidence and self-esteem. Aim to make running part of your daily routine, but listen to your body and be flexible with your schedule. If you’re completely new to running, don’t feel you need to keep running continuously to begin with. Start by trying to run for a few minutes, then walking for a few minutes and then running again for a few more minutes and build up gradually. Don’t run every day to begin with, and even when you’re more accomplished, always take your rest days. Set yourself a goal, like running your first ever 10k – this will sharpen your motivation, giving you a reason to get out of the door. Have mini goals along the way, too, to keep you going. Your local Parkrun would be a fantastic event to try: Parkruns are open to everyone and taking part is a great experience. You could also join a running group to enjoy the social side of running. Having that camaraderie will give you a boost as you motivate each other. When possible take the time to run in beautiful surroundings and vary your running routes. I find running enriches my life in so many ways. The enjoyment and experiences it has given me have always made me want to continue, whatever level I’m running at as I get even older!
I consider it one of the great privileges of my career to be involved in a sport that has a strong mass-participation culture. There are plenty of sports that are amazing to watch, inspirational, fun, exciting, even moving, but many other sports have an ‘elite’ level that you watch and an amateur level that you can take part in – but not at the same time. You can cycle a stage of the Tour de France in advance, but you can’t line up with the peloton for a stage. The great thing about distance running is that so-called ‘elite’ runners line up in fields of thousands for a marathon or road race, and I’m so pleased to have seen that part of the sport flourish. The atmosphere is totally different from when I first started. I love taking my own family to these events when I am racing because they feel, now, like proper days out. Everyone who is running seems to have a family member shouting for them, and it’s magical to see the homemade banners being held up by little children who look so proud when their mums goes past. What great role models. Perhaps it will inspire the children to join a club like I did. Maybe those children will grow up to be competitive athletes. Maybe they’ll run for fun and a sense of well-being. These parents running, putting themselves out there, are teaching children great life lessons too: that it’s good to try something, to practise, to improve and to achieve a goal, and that being active and healthy is fun.
Emily was born in September 2013, the same month I turned forty, such a happy, special time. During those early weeks of managing a newborn’s sleep pattern – or lack of a pattern, I should say, as there wasn’t anything regular about her sleep/wake cycle – I felt like I was permanently jet-lagged. But you know as time goes by it will get easier. For the first few days after a C-section, things are also tough as it’s hard to bend in the middle. And, you can’t use your hands to push yourself up from a chair when you’re holding a baby, so things can be a bit tricky. Jacob turned four ten days after Emily was born. He was enjoying going to the local pre-school two days a week and was so proud to tell everyone about his baby sister. We arranged a birthday party for the whole of his pre-school class and plenty of others at our house. Friends thought I was crazy, but it was fun. I wanted to make sure Jacob enjoyed his birthday, especially with so much attention being showered on his new sister. I do remember feeling particularly sore as we shopped for the food and goody bags. Luckily Gav’s mum is well known for her amazing cakes, so that was sorted in advance.
Training was low on my list of priorities in the initial stages. I was breastfeeding Emily on demand through the day and night and enjoying quality time with Jacob. Given that I had gone through nine months of pregnancy and given birth again by C-section, I needed time to rest and recover. If only!
Gav and I had decided that I would try to make a come back. London 2012 had shown us that I could still run well on the track and now, in 2014, at the age of forty, I wouldn’t be that much older . . . I didn’t want to retire from athletics without giving it one more go and, in 2014, there was the lure of both the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the European Championships in Zurich to tempt me. Women who have had children will recognise the longing to ‘get your body back’ after giving birth and I, too, had a sense of urgency about regaining my pre-pregnancy fitness. Surely this would be my last major championships? How much longer could I realistically keep going? I had nothing to lose by giving it a go, did I?
Old habits die hard, and I was soon running – again, at first, trying to shuffle along on an inclined treadmill. Our treadmill was now housed in a tiny box room just inside the back door, surrounded by hanging coats and shoes. I have to clear the way around the moving belt before I start to ensure no loose shoes get caught in it. Friends have often remarked that I must be very motivated to train in what is, in effect, a cupboard! But it allows me to clock up my mileage indoors at home, which was crucial at that time because it meant I could hop off at any minute to feed Emily again. Gav and I obviously prefer to be
outside, but the treadmill is definitely a useful adjunct to training.
My first run outside after Emily’s birth was in the forest. We chose a straight stretch so that I could go up and down rather than going out of sight. Gav pushed Emily to and fro in the pram, whilst Jacob played around on his bike. I ran back and forth, knowing I could stop and go to the car if Emily needed a feed. One strategy I tried in the very early build-up was to directly relate my training to my levels of sleep. If I had a reasonable night’s kip, I would aim to run a bit harder or longer the next day. If it was one of those nights where Emily wouldn’t settle, or Jacob was poorly or had a nightmare – or a combination of both – then I wouldn’t do more than a very light jog. With two small children, I was always going to have the odd terrible night and, even with a healthy quotient of sleep, I could never rest as much as I might like to. But I felt mentally relaxed, knowing I could only do what I could do, and what would be would be. Up until Christmas I didn’t even keep a training diary, I just reacted sensibly to the circumstances each day. Gav and I had learnt a lot from my first come back when I had worked back to a good level only to end up with a stress fracture. We had slightly underestimated the effect that pregnancy could have on ligaments and bones and we vowed to do everything to ensure this didn’t happen again. So many times in my career we have been able to learn from our experiences.
They say that having two kids is more than twice the work of one – and I agree! It creates even more juggling and multi-tasking. But at least we were fortunate that with Emily everything had been straightforward, and this time there had been no health issues with either of us.
I knew I’d have to come in the top two at the 10,000m National Championships to qualify for the European Championships, and I was also hoping to do enough in the early part of the season to be selected for the English team for the Commonwealth Games. I needed to get into much better shape. And fast. While I had doubts about my physical condition, one thing had not changed. I was as keen as ever to wear an England and GB vest, and to represent my country again.
Medals were a long way from my mind. They weren’t on our radar at all. I was still breastfeeding. And unlike Jacob, who had taken a bottle fairly early on when he needed extra feeds, Emily absolutely refused. She was a chilled-out, happy little baby in every way but the one thing she absolutely would not do was take a bottle. That was just not, ever, going to happen as far as she was concerned. That combination of stubbornness about one thing and a relaxed attitude to everything else was a trait I confess I recognise fully! While I was breastfeeding, I couldn’t ever stray too far from her.
Before Emily was born, I had accepted the honour of acting as starter for the Great South Run in Portsmouth in late October. It’s an event I love and, not being able to run it myself, I jumped at the opportunity to be involved. I anticipated Emily being nine weeks old by then and assumed Gav could give her a bottle of expressed milk, tucked away in the comfort of a hotel room with Jacob, while I did my official duties on the rostrum. As the date approached, however, I started to panic because Emily was just not going to have anything to do with a bottle, and I knew I’d be up on the rostrum for more than an hour, marking the start for the staggered time slots of 30,000 runners. To make matters worse, a nasty storm was predicted to strike the south coast and Gav didn’t want to be wielding a baby, a very active four-year-old and a pram along a seafront in squally conditions. But there was no other solution: Gav would have to bring both kids to the start on Clarence Esplanade in Southsea and position himself so I could be close to Emily.
On the day, everything went better than expected: Emily fell asleep. ‘All is calm,’ I thought. ‘I can enjoy the great honour of starting the race for all these runners.’ But, literally thirty seconds before the start, Jacob scrambled up a rock and was blown off by a gust of wind. He cut his head and had to go to the first-aid tents. It just showed us, no matter how much you plan with children, you have to expect the unexpected! Throughout the event, the wind intensified and we had a scary struggle afterwards walking back along Old Portsmouth seafront with the pram about to take off!
As a spectating official, I found the Great South Run so inspiring. I couldn’t wait to get back out there at an event. As I made my way back to fitness, Emily’s feeding remained something that had to be worked around. I could run from the door and take my phone, ensuring I didn’t go too far, just repeating a very small loop. But because the other training venues involved a drive, we continued to go as a family, with Gav, Jacob and Emily following in my wake on wheels of some sort. It was fun, fitting in my training in wonderful scenery with my family enjoying it too. Otherwise I had my trusty treadmill.
At first I simply ran. I gave no thought to pace or target times; I was trying to recapture the feeling that this is what my body does, this is what it’s designed to do. Running in beautiful surroundings as I often do in Devon was a boost. I would be running under trees with the sunlight filtering through, past fields with grazing cows or sheep, next to hedgerows full of birdsong. Appreciation of the scenery lifted my mind from thinking about how unfit I felt and allowed me to work towards recapturing that perfect state of ‘flow’ that all runners aim for, be they Olympians or fun runners. It’s a state where running feels effortless and your body and mind are instinctively in tune. But if I was going to qualify for, and compete at, a major championships then I needed to get ‘track fit’ again, too.
In early 2014 we were unexpectedly presented with a huge challenge. We heard news that our local athletics track in Exeter would be closed from March to September for resurfacing! The whole season! I feared this was one barrier too many. The nearest alternative running track was in Yeovil, a good hour’s drive away. It was going to make it tougher than we’d first imagined, but I had to accept it. It was simply another obstacle to overcome.
The people who run the track in Yeovil were wonderful. They trusted me with my own key so that we could come and go as we pleased. That helped enormously, as all my training sessions had to be timed around the children, particularly Emily’s feeds. So the whole family came along. The journey there often wasn’t the greatest, winding along the A30 and the notorious A303 through the Blackdown Hills. The A303 is the main route to London and the south-east, despite much of it being single lane. Often in the summer it can be very busy, so our one-hour drive to Yeovil sometimes turned into a ninety-minute crawl, as we sat in slow-moving traffic or were stuck behind a tractor. On any car journey with kids you have their antics to deal with. I sat in the back to entertain them, often feeling quite travel sick on the winding roads. We would time the drive so that Emily would need a nap, so she would hardly notice.
On arrival in Yeovil, we’d get the kids out of their car seats and wander down to the track. At this stage Jacob was not yet old enough to jog the warm-up laps with me, but part of my warm-up routine before I do my main running is to do drills. He could join in with these. They can look pretty funny, even to adults, with their big over-exaggerated steps and stretches. Jacob would find warm-up exercises like a walking lunge or high-knee steps hilarious, and try to copy them – which regularly had us in tears of laughter. Once the main session started, Jacob would be sprinting up and down the runway of the long jump while Gav was coaching me, a sleeping Emily strapped to his front in the baby carrier with a stopwatch in his hand calling out my splits. As she got older and the weather grew warmer, Emily would sometimes sit playing with toys on a rug by the finish line.
Although they were relaxed family affairs, feeling far removed from your typical elite athlete set-up, those track sessions were also some of the hardest sessions I’ve ever done. There were days when I was trying to hit certain times, for 1,000m reps, say, where it just felt impossible, like I was moving through treacle. I was so much slower than I had been in 2012, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. At the start I was something like 20 seconds slower over 800m. It might not sound too bad, but believe me, it was galling, a huge margin to try to make up. How
could I ever think I’d be able to qualify for the European Championships and Commonwealth Games? Gav would remind me that however slow I still felt, I was gradually getting my fitness back, I really was, and that things would start to feel easier soon. I was also encouraged along by Jacob shouting, ‘Go on, Jo!’ which used to make me feel like laughing as I was running round. Normally he would always call me Mummy, but he was copying his dad. One weight off my mind was that the children enjoyed our family training outings. After the session, if the weather was nice we’d sit on the grassy area next to the track and eat our picnic. There was a lovely play park there too which we’d use before getting back in the car. Instead of going for a rest after training I’d now find myself crawling through the pirate ship. Emily was so little she was content anywhere, while Jacob loved running around making up games and sprinting up and down. I stopped worrying and began to enjoy our novel training set-up. I could train and have fun with my children at the same time. It was fairly tiring, however, as by the time we arrived home, it was almost time for my second run of the day. But slowly things started to come together.
In late spring, my fitness suddenly ‘clicked’. Sessions no longer felt quite so tough. I was still working hard but my body responded well. My running felt natural, fluid. It is no coincidence that the first week of April was when Emily was weaned. I felt happy that I’d managed to breastfeed Emily. It had been my main priority, whilst trying at the same time to regain my fitness. I also felt fortunate to be able to breastfeed, as I know for some mothers this doesn’t work out. Emily was seven months old and was progressing with solid foods. That left me a month or so to get ‘race fit’. My body needed to be back in tip-top shape for the European trials on Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath on 10 May. The revelation for me was that, despite the comically short timeframe – an urgent deadline if ever there was one – I didn’t stress about it. Before I became a mother, I would have been uptight and anxious about reaching my training targets, measuring my progress, worrying a session could have gone better; but I didn’t have the time to dwell on it. I was so busy keeping up with Jacob and Emily’s schedules, I didn’t have the headspace even to count the sessions I could get in before the big race. If I made it, if I got the time, won that race – fine. If I didn’t? Well, I had other things to occupy my life now, other concerns.
