Every detail counts when you are an elite athlete. Paula Radcliffe controls her diet, her altitude, her rest, her shoes. Her pregnancy is, therefore, causing a few hiccups, both personally and publicly. “My centre of gravity has changed,” Britain’s leading athlete says. “I’ve got a big bump out in front.”
It’s the bump that has caused public gasps. Radcliffe is six months gone and back in the limelight, thanks to her decision to continue running. The nation’s golden girl has got us worried once again. We voted her Sports Personality of the Year in 2002 and then gaped in horror when she not only failed to win a widely anticipated gold at the Athens Olympics two years later but did not even finish the course. She fell from “Nation’s Darling” to “ Quitter”. But she bounced back to win the New York Marathon and last year the London Marathon.
Now Radcliffe, 32, is continuing to train at a stage of her pregnancy when most women would consider taking it easy. “Why doesn’t she quit,” commentators wonder. But she says she hopes to start competing next spring, when her baby will be only four months, and I believe her.
Any mother who dreams of squeezing a gym visit between babycare and work might think Radcliffe naive when she says that she will emerge an even better athlete. But she is adamant: “I will have fulfilled one of my life goals, so I will return to action a more mature person.” And she knows that it is possible. Her close friend Ingrid Kristianson, the Norwegian long-distance runner, returned to marathons after having children. And you have to remember that Radcliffe wins because she is determined to do so.
She may look sweet — she is certainly prettier in the flesh than on TV — and she may speak softly and politely but if you listen closely she is very sure of herself. When she was challenged on the radio about her 5km (3-mile) charity run in Hyde Park, London, last month, the interviewer asserted that the news she was running while pregnant had caused a stir. “Has it?” she said, in a voice both sweet and condescending. The interviewer was the one who became ruffled. People may tut-tut that Radcliffe is out running when pregnant, but by her own standards she is taking it easy.
She guesses that she has two to three weeks of running left in her before she gives birth and says she will use her exercise bike to keep fit instead. Last weekend she competed in her last public run before motherhood, covering 10km in about 43 minutes. “My ligaments (groin) are becoming sore but I feel great working in water or on a bike.” She has taken medical advice from her doctors in Monaco, the place she now calls home, about training in pregnancy and would not, she stresses, do anything that might be harmful to the baby.
As you might expect of the woman who set a championship marathon record of 2hr 20min 57sec at the World Championships last year, far from being reckless, Radcliffe is in tune with her body and, therefore, more in tune with her pregnancy than most. “I lie down after runs, I listen to my body. I feel the baby kick a lot. I can tell which way up the baby is sitting.”
She was aware that she might have difficulty in conceiving, as many female athletes have irregular periods thanks to intense exercise, little body fat and possible irregular eating patterns, which can all affect the levels of the hormones oestrogen and progesterone. However, she had no trouble and hit lucky again by not suffering morning sickness.
Has her supremely athletic body affected her shape? “I’m not showing a nice round bump because of my stomach muscles.” Instead she has more of a long curve. Her latest scan shows the baby is predicted to be of average weight, although she hasn’t been tempted to find out its sex. Does she want a natural birth? Of course she does. “I’m not scared to go through pain. If you want something I think you should put up with the pain to get it.” She has decided to give birth in Monaco, where she and her husband and trainer, Gary Lough, moved two years ago, at the hospital that has scanned her so far. She is about to start her ante-natal classes there.
Radcliffe was raised believing natural is best. Her mother Pat would put homegrown vegetables on the table. “We had an orchard and we knew that if it was out of the garden it was better for us.” She eats organic food, mainly chicken, salmon and vegetables and fruit.
When it comes to alternative treatments, she is open-minded. She responds well to acupuncture, which she has used to treat various ailments. And three years ago Dr Müller Wohlfahrt, a consultant to the stars of sport, based in Munich, introduced her to titanium tape. “He put some on my tight back muscles and four or five days later I felt it had helped.” After seeing her wearing its titanium products at the World Championships in Helsinki last year, Phiten, which manufactures titanium products, approached her to be the face of its titanium range, which includes bracelets and necklaces. She wears the necklace when competing because of her curious running style with that trademark bob of the head. The theory is that the necklace keeps her neck muscles relaxed.
Radcliffe says that balancing the body’s needs is important. “You have to give it fuel at the right time and not overstrain it.” That philosophy failed in Athens during the Olympic Games when she pulled up at the 36km mark in the marathon event because she ran out of gas. What Radcliffe subsequently discovered after various tests was that she had had an adverse reaction to anti-inflammatory drugs she was taking, so although she was eating and drinking the right type of fluids, her body wasn’t absorbing them and, in effect, she was running on empty. In retrospect, it was remarkable that she ran as far as she did.
“I was doing the right things but nothing was being absorbed. It made me realise that you have to be aware of what your body is doing as well as being aware about what you are putting in it.” Athens was the low point in Radcliffe’s career. Shortly afterwards she became intolerant to wheat, gluten and dairy products. She could not even eat chicken or tomatoes for a while. And this for a woman who loves her food and would “eat anything”. She boosts her calcium intake with tablets. She also has to cope with asthma, a condition she has had since she was 14. At the start of her pregnancy she instinctively stopped using her inhaler but felt unwell and has been advised that she should still use it, but not as often and so has cut down to a third of the dose of her preventer inhaler.
Her asthma has also reinforced her belief that she should try to breast-feed. This view is backed by medical research, as a study published this year in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood found that breast-feeding reduces the risk of asthma in childhood. “It is the way nature intended babies to be fed,” she says.
While she suffers from occasional self-doubt about whether she will be a good mother, she has no doubts that Gary will be a fantastic father. He says he will be a hands-on father who will change nappies, but they acknowledge that they will need childcare.
They are as excited as any couple expecting their first child. But Radcliffe, while prepared to accept that she might have to be pragmatic about her birth plan and how soon she trains after giving birth, will not countenance any suggestion that she might stop competing. She is adamant that she will be running in London in 2012, by which time she will be 38 and maybe have two children.
“It’s exciting to be pregnant. It’s interesting to see how your body develops. It will change my focus but I’ll have two loves, running and the baby.” And if for some unlikely reason she is not needed to represent her country, she will still be running somewhere. “Running,” she says, gently but firmly, “will always be part of my life.”
Fit for motherhood
The Royal College of Obstreticians and Gynaecologists gives the following advice for gym-bunny mums-to-be.
For more information, speak to your GP, or visit www.rcog.org.uk
