by Jo Pavey
Until I had children, any stress I felt almost always came from running. What else did I have to fret about? Each session at the track, each planned tempo run, would be the focus of my day. I’d think about it from the moment I got up in the morning even if the session wasn’t until the evening. The intensity of the pressure I put myself under meant that even one second off pace, or a fraction under my planned target time, would be such a disappointment, ridiculous though that now seems to me. After the arrival of Jacob and Emily, I had a far better appreciation of what truly matters, a far healthier perspective. Running is something I work hard at but my family is the centre of my universe.
CHAPTER 24
Full Circle
That windy evening on Parliament Hill was the beginning of a summer that will define my career for the rest of my life. My first track race since the Olympic final in August 2012, my first race of any kind since the Great South Run in October 2012, my first race since my lengthy lay-off for pregnancy and birth, and it was not a low-key one to ease me back in gently, it was the European trial and National Championships. What on earth was I thinking? When I crossed the line, I was elated to become National Champion and to qualify for the European Championships on the wrong side of forty. It was also comical to be wearing my old Exeter Harriers vest from my teenage years – thanks to Gav’s laundry skills. Winning that race had felt mad. At the time I would have been pleased with that result as a high point of my year.
Exactly a week later I ran in the British Milers Club 5,000m in Watford. It seemed crazy to be doing a race again so soon after a 10,000m but I wanted to get a qualifying time for the 5,000m for the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. It was actually my only chance to get a qualifying time for the Commonwealths before the deadline. I declined the kind offer of a pacemaker and stuck rigidly to my lap times. I came home having achieved the qualifying time and, quite amusingly, a new over-forty world record of 15.11. My next race was the Rome Diamond League; it proved a tough race and I was a bit disappointed with my time of 15.04 as I was hoping to run better in a top-class event. Nevertheless, it was solid and I’d broken my own over-forty world record. I must confess I would have had no idea of the fact that I’d got these records unless I’d been told in Watford. It added a sense of fun to the situation and helped to start off my geriatric status!
A few weeks later was the European 5,000m trial in which I came second behind Emelia Gorecka, a very promising youngster who, at twenty, was half my age.
So now I had two cracks at a major event separated by only ten days. The logistics involved for Team Pavey – athlete, coach and kids – suddenly struck us as somewhat hectic. We would all travel up to Glasgow from Devon, and then make the journey to Switzerland with all the kids’ kit and caboodle. What was I expecting to come away with? Athletes want to win medals, but I was forty and taking it as it comes. I would give it my best. I was not thinking about my medal prospects. I could only expect the unexpected.
With three weeks until the Commonwealth Games, I had one more race to get out of the way first. And it was an important one. As I lined up at the start of my final race before the championships, I felt incredibly relaxed. No nerves at all. It was a beautiful sunny day and all the spectators were friends and little children from the village wearing pumps, shorts and sun hats. I looked around and saw Jacob sitting with his friend. Gav was standing with Emily, who had fallen asleep in the pushchair, and chatting to another dad. It was the mums’ race in the pre-school sports day.
Funnily enough, I’m not that competitive a person, though as a professional athlete it’s something that most people expect of me. I couldn’t care less about who wins a board game, or a game of snap. But I did win the race and we all had a good laugh about it showing I was in good shape for the Commonwealth Games.
Jacob won his race too. As parents of a four-year-old, we were more surprised that he did what he was supposed to do and ran from A to B. He had a burst of that amazing energy that only little children seem to have. I wish you could bottle it. He started slowly and then just hurled himself forward, arms flailing, legs kicking furiously. He didn’t even look around him. It was a fun day, with the kids trying everything, and it was lovely to see them enjoying themselves.
Having my family around me and living a normal life as a mum makes me relaxed and happy. In planning logistics for the Commonwealth Games, we tried to find the right balance between family time and training, always making sure the kids would have an enjoyable time. I would have to stay in the Athletes’ Village but if they were staying close by, I could nip out to see them.
Researching accommodation options close to Glasgow, we found a holiday village up on the Ayrshire coast, south-west of the city and the Commonwealth Games venues. In contrast to a cramped hotel room, with fewer facilities, toys and home comforts, a proper family holiday village with a beach, swimming pools and playgrounds seemed the perfect solution. Gav’s mum and dad joined Gav in their static caravan, which was a great help. It’s really important to me that the kids hold these times as precious childhood memories. I want them to remember the fun they had. I don’t care if they are only half interested in my race as long as they enjoyed the waterslides and the ice cream at the beach nearby. The reality of event traffic and road closures meant my planned daily meet-up wasn’t going to be as easy as we had anticipated. It wasn’t going to be a good idea for Gav to drive over each day with Jacob and Emily, but they did manage it a few times and on other days I travelled by train to where they were staying. It was a beautiful area and it did me a lot of good to relax, unwind and feel happy; but I must admit it felt rather odd being on the beach one day, building sandcastles with Jacob and walking down to the sea, with such a big race pending. All in all, though, I was pleased it fitted well with training. I only had a short afternoon run to do, which I did on the most amazing grassy area behind the beach – saving my legs from the tarmac by the Athletes’ Village. Nevertheless, I decided to keep my beach trip quiet back at the village . . . I was used to having Gav at my training session to pace me, encourage me and shout out my times, but with Emily being so young and the travel to the facilities being so tricky, I’d adapted to being more self-contained and was so much more chilled out knowing that the rest of my family were having fun. I even sneaked back the odd bundle of dirty baby clothes to stick in the mesh laundry bag I’d been given to hand in at the athletes’ laundry facilities, to save Gav that chore.
On race day itself, Helen Clitheroe, Emelia Gorecka and I walked to the transport area together to get on the coach to the stadium for the 5,000m Commonwealth Games final. It’s great to have teammates to chat with at these nerve-racking times. My life as an athlete and a mum had reduced the worry of achieving training targets, but it’s pretty hard to lessen those fairly daunting feelings when it comes to the crunch of actually going to a championship race. Years of racing had at least helped me learn how to channel my nerves in the right direction. I also knew my new priorities in life would make me happy with the result whatever it was. Still, I was pretty nervous when we arrived at the warm-up track. The weather was awful, with monsoon-like rain. We headed to a Portakabin to take shelter until it was time to warm-up. Many athletes who were to be competing that night had the same idea so it was ridiculously crowded. Some people were chatting; others had headphones on and were in their own little worlds, listening to calming music or pumping themselves up, zoning out the chatter. Helen and I sat together on a bit of floor that we were lucky to find. We’d been friends and teammates for so long, having been at many of the same races and championships over the years, and several training camps in Potchefstroom. It was extremely special to be sharing the experience with someone I’d known for so much of my career. We joked about being the oldies of the field and agreed it doesn’t get easier as you get older. We instinctively knew how each other was feeling too, that indescribable moment when you’re at the championship venue and the clock is ticking down to the race. After all those mon
ths of preparation, we’d soon be on that start line. ‘What are we doing?’ we were saying. ‘Why aren’t we retired? Why are we still putting ourselves through this torment?’ We were, of course, thrilled to be there. It is why we both toil at training year after year to make it to the championships of the sport that we love, but having a light-hearted moan sometimes helps as a coping strategy.
Going out to warm up, the rain remained torrential. It wasn’t the ideal scenario for our final preparations for a championship race. I tried to avoid running through puddles of deep water, but to no avail. My long socks were soaked and I felt foolish that I hadn’t taken them off for the warm-up. I did have a spare pair, but I figured I’d just get wet again anyway, and I wasn’t keen to change them as I’d stuck nice England flag tape on the front of the ones I was wearing. It was almost a relief when it was time to gather in the call room forty minutes before the race and wait to be shepherded out to the track. We were all gathering ourselves, getting focused on the race ahead, when an official came up to us and solemnly said, ‘Just to inform you, the race is still going to go ahead.’ That cracked us up. Like we ever, for a second, thought that a bit of Scottish rain would stop the race! It’s totally understandable when technical events like the pole vault have to be cancelled but very rarely a 5,000m, but it was also the timing of his announcement that was amusing – to tell us we weren’t going to race at that late stage would have been slightly crazy.
By the time we walked out, the rain had stopped and the organisers had done a great job of sweeping the water off the track. I was pleasantly surprised by what a good state the track was in, considering how bad the weather had been.
I have run in a lot of major championships, but as I’d learnt at the London Olympics, nothing can beat the roar you get at a home games – even as an English athlete competing in Scotland. At this Games, it was affectionately known as the Hampden Roar. The crowd was fantastic, very supportive. Gav and his dad had Jacob with them in the stands. As a precaution, they had brought an iPad ready to play Ice Age as a last resort. We had decided to leave Emily, now ten months old, at the holiday park with Gav’s mum because the noise might have been too much for her. Besides, I was presuming this to be my swansong year, and so we planned to take her to the Europeans ten days later. As the TV cameras came around, zooming in on one athlete at a time, and the stadium announcer called my name, the roar of sound brought back memories of the reception that greeted us at the London 2012 Olympic Stadium. I waited, and waited, feeling that sense of calm I finally feel when all there is left to do is race. The pistol went bang.
We were off. Most of the crowd assumed that this was surely going to be another Kenyan 1–2–3. Their dominance in endurance events gives them an aura of invincibility. But what did I have to lose? When I’d discussed the race with Gav beforehand, I had said that I was just going to run as though I was trying to get a medal, regardless of whether it ended up with me blowing up and finishing the race at the back. If I ran cautiously – just making sure to finish in a reasonable position, not risking anything – then no one is going to think, ‘She might be one to watch for the future.’ This was it. This, quite probably, was my last season of competing in major championships. I could travel back to the memory of the girl who first fell in love with running and race like young Jo Davis, racing freely, going for it with no fear, and seeing what happened.
A 5,000m race covers twelve and a half laps of the track. The race went off at a modest pace, and I focused on staying in a good position, knowing that someone could put in a sudden surge, and I wanted to make it possible to try to cover it. Sure enough, with nine laps to go, the Kenyan Mercy Cherono surged, stringing out the field. It was such an abrupt injection of pace, I was mindful not to cover the move too quickly, otherwise lactic acid can rapidly accumulate. The rest of the field caught back up, but the Kenyan contingent continued to stretch the pace. With six laps to go, a group of five of us had broken away – the three Kenyans Mercy Cherono, Janet Kisa and Margaret Muriuki, and Eloise Wellings, my friend from Australia, and me. Four laps to go and still it was our group of five, with only three medals available. With three laps to go, it was now or never. I hit the front. I could hear the response in the crowd: you can’t imagine how it could get any louder, and then it does. The decibels carry an energy that wills you on. I tried to push on, knowing that the Kenyan athletes would be fast finishers, and the fresher they were, the quicker they’d be. My legs felt better than I thought they would, and I was actually enjoying the challenge of racing like it was a kind of game. I tried to up the pace, but I knew they were still there on my shoulder, just poised. With two laps to go I was still in the lead, trying to push harder, trying to muster all my determination, the Kenyans and Eloise still right behind me. I ran down the back straight, but with 600m to go, the four of them filed past me. I gave chase, I wasn’t going to give up the fight, I wasn’t finished yet.
That night of 2 August 2014, I don’t know whether I consciously summoned-up an eyeballs-out effort or whether it was instinctive and my legs just did the thinking for me. I was ‘in the zone’. No! This is not how it goes. I’m not done, you aren’t taking this medal chance from me now. I pushed again down the home straight. At the bell, I was back in front. They’re fast finishers: there was no point being behind them at the bell. I then had the thrill of being chased down again. And again I experienced the Hampden Roar. Adrenalin flowing, I tried with everything I had to keep in front of them, but yet again they responded and yet again they surged past me. Half a lap later, with only 200m to go, I was back in fourth again. I’d already battled back so many times when they’d come past me, I didn’t want that to be it, to finish out of the medals. There was no way I wanted it to end that way. We went into the final bend, I tried to make up the gap that had formed. It looked and felt like the medals had gone. I was going to have to accept the expected result of a Kenyan 1–2–3. In my head I was screaming, ‘Come on.’ I knew I just had to give it everything so I would have no regrets.
So one last time I dug deep, pushing as hard as I could, a renewed roar from the crowd helping to fuel my efforts. Passing one of the Kenyans, Margaret Muriuki. Closing in on Janet Kisa as the line approached. I was six-hundredths of a second from reaching her. And then – I crossed the line.
I was so caught up in the scenario of nearly having caught up with her, I couldn’t be sure what had happened. It was surreal. Surely the Kenyan trio had the medals? That’s what everyone had been expecting. I looked at the scoreboard: Jo Pavey, ENG, third.
Bronze. I’d won a medal! A medal in a race against Kenyan runners? It was crazy. I hadn’t been in a championship race for so long. I wrapped myself in the flag that someone in the crowd kindly handed me, then followed the other two around the stadium on the victory lap. I saw my mum first. She was in floods of tears, tears of joy and disbelief. Then I saw Gav with his dad and Jacob, and ran over to them. I was forty with two children – one of them a ten-month old baby: I had had no idea how realistic it was to think I could run well. I was overwhelmed by the stadium atmosphere, the result, seeing the look on Gav’s face . . . The rest of the night is a blur.
I knew the next ten days were going to be madness. There would be no time to relax and try to absorb this magical experience. I had to recover and prepare for a longer race to come – the 10,000m at the European Championships in Zurich. I had so many requests for interviews and media appearances, which was flattering, but I also had to be careful to keep my mind focused on the task ahead. I needed to try both to recover and to get in some training. I needed to think about 10,000m race tactics and get ready for another championship race. It was time to get the family back to Devon, then turn around and head for Zurich. The best was still to come.
CHAPTER 25
Gold
From the unexpected – but wonderful – experience of standing on the podium in Hampden Park, enjoying the weight of a Commonwealth Games bronze medal hanging around my neck, life was quickly b
ack to the realities of small children. First we had to get home, unpack, re-group, pack up again and move us all plus kids’ paraphernalia to Zurich for the European Championships. The flight home was entertaining enough.
Transporting two children for a stay of any length requires a large amount of kit. While I had been booked onto a flight from Exeter, Gav had driven Jacob and Emily up in the car with a boot full of stuff because we wanted them to have their favourite toys, their bikes, the running buggy and so on, and we needed quite a lot of baby equipment for the holiday park in Scotland. Also, we would need a car up there to make things work. Poor Gav. A long drive with two small children can be a fraught affair and he drove the 450-odd miles from Devon to Glasgow alone with an overnight stop. We had a different plan in place for the return journey. On the way up it would not have been possible for me to take a ten-month-old baby on my lap on the flight. I was being whisked straight to the Athletes’ Village where no children are allowed and Gav would not be able to pick her up until the following day when he arrived in Scotland by car. On the way back, however, it was fine for me to take Emily on the plane with me. I had team transport to the airport so Gav and I arranged that he’d drive her to the airport and I’d take her from there. I was standing around outside the terminal chatting to teammates as we loaded our bags onto trolleys, all of us laughing in relaxed post-competition mood, when I received a text from Gav saying he’d be there in a couple of minutes. I had to excuse myself: ‘I’ve just got to go and pick up my baby from the drop-off point.’ I think people thought they’d misheard. ‘Pick up a bag’ possibly? As I waited in the rendezvous spot, a car came to a sudden halt just ahead of me and Brendan Foster leapt out to give me a congratulatory hug, which was really nice. I collected Emily, gave Gav and Jacob a goodbye kiss and said I’d see them in Devon. Jacob was excited that he was to be allowed an iPad movie marathon all the way home.
