Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 55: Helen Glover

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Helen Glover is a two-time gold medal winning rower and a mum to three under threes. She is also the first mother to have qualified for the GB Olympic rowing team. We talked about how lockdown hit when her twins were 6 weeks old and how Helen found herself training at home and then qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.She explained how she found her body was actually stronger after giving birth - a discovery which she has since shared with Olympic coaches so that more women might be channeled into Olympic training post-children. She also talked about her love of being outdoors, which she ofcourse shares with her husband Steve Backshall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Unusual moment alert. I'm home, alone.

I know, pretty crazy. I'm probably on borrowed time. The kids are about to get home from school but I'm just enjoying it I could happily have another couple of hours if I'm honest this is something very luxurious about being in a quiet house and thinking of all the things I could do and actually the thing I have been doing is going through my to-do list I've decided I needed to write a list I normally don't write anything down. And last week and the week before,

I did, I think, maybe five or six podcast interviews. And when I do them, I don't write down any questions and I don't make any notes. So basically, I have a little part of my brain at the front. I always feel like it's at the front. It might not be. In my head, it's in the front. And I shove in there the information that I need, and then I retain it for that while I'm doing the

interview. And then I sort of try and get rid of it to make room for more things. But sometimes I can't get rid of it, so it just has to squish up and make room. So the five people I interviewed over the last two weeks, I still still remember a lot of details but it meant that I didn't have any information about anything else for a while so I was being really forgetful I was being really behind on stuff I was being really washy and it wasn't very nice feeling to be honest so I've sat down for the last couple of days just trying to go through my to-do list I'm just looking at my goldfish and he kind of looks dead he's not dead does your if you have a goldfish does yours do that just sometimes just sort of stay very very still and I think oh

it's funny because our goldfish got really distracted now haven't I our goldfish is actually I think he's coming up for four years of having him and I thought that was amazing and actually is quite amazing because he was the result of a magician that came around for my son Kit's birthday nearly four years ago. And the magician made this goldfish appear in a wine glass of water. So every year I've been messaging the magician going, he's another year older, this goldfish, it's amazing. And the magician, Maximilian, will write back saying, that's amazing. And I thought I'd done really well until I googled the lifespan of a goldfish and it turns out they normally live sort of 10 to 15 years so now I'm not feeling

quite as smug I think it's just the ones that I won at funfairs when I was a kid just didn't really last that long so actually our goldfish is just doing all right he's hoping to last another decade thanks so much um what else is going on just sort of tour stuff getting my head ready for that planning the set list go on tour in march and i'm planning on changing the set every night which my band were obviously thrilled about great they've got to learn loads of music i've got to learn loads of lyrics but basically i want every night to have a slightly different feel because i want to have a sort of wheel of fortune a magic wheel that we spin and on it are about 26 different songs maybe more that are a mixture of my singles and covers that I did

during the kitchen discos and wherever it lands you just got to do it and we're going to do that a couple of times during the gig so yeah gotta have all that under my belt my virtual belt and i've been going i went to the tailors last week to get started on the costumes for the tours that's fun and i've got a birthday in the house next week my second one down is gonna be 13 so planning his birthday it's really sweet he wants to go to a water park an indoor water park go down the tunnel slides which i think is really adorable because i'm pretty sure although you know i might be proven wrong pretty sure he won't be doing that when he's older maybe he will maybe he's going to go swimming with his mates every birthday

through till his 30th who knows um this week's uh guest thinking of water nice link it's a rower yes a very impressive woman helen glover so helen will tell you her incredible tale it's pretty awesome i feel i should put a caveat at this point that having your baby and then re-qualifying for the Team 2 row for Great Britain is highly unusual. What she did there is extraordinary. Please do not feel useless if you have your first baby or, like Helen, three within two years and don't manage to get yourself Olympic fit within a year after that because I know that I didn't manage to do anything like that after my first baby or my second baby. It just, well, even now, I don't know why I'm

dating it. Like I'm only an Olympian now. It's still something that hasn't happened for me. But what I'm trying to say is it's an exceptional thing, born out of exceptional circumstances, which was lockdown. But what I loved about her, and this comes from all the best people out there, is that what happened to her is just something that she wants to use as an example to empower people and to push them and to make them feel good. She knows what she did is extraordinary, but she wants everybody to know that, you know, there's possibility if you have the desire and the passion to make something happen for yourself. Don't listen to the naysayers, folks. So that's Helen, who very sweetly agreed to do my podcast after I essentially gave her no choice not to. I saw her giving a talk

and I said, you have to come on my podcast. What you're talking about here is perfect and very exciting and she said yes so thank you Helen thanks to you and I will see you on the other side so where are you in the lineup you were part of a family of five yeah and we're at your second one down joint second oldest I've got a older brother I've got a twin brother myself and then two younger sisters yeah big family so when you then because you were telling me just before I started recording that your elder sibling one up is the same gap as your eldest to your twins as well yeah so he's he was about 17 months old when me and my brother were born and logan our eldest was 17 months when we had our twins so yeah i honestly have been on my phone phone to my mom every five minutes going well when you take them swimming how do you do that and where do you put

the twins when you take logan here and because you know she's actually been there and done it so it's actually really a great resource for me. Can she remember? She can. Wow. That's impressive in itself. I think some of it through seeing the twins and Logan, my three, it sparks back those, oh, this is what I did with you and your brother. This is how I did it then. And I think she remembers through, it brings it all back to her.

That's funny because also I think the age your little ones are now, so three and two it's a really visceral age so actually you know for your mum when she sort of feels the weight of the twins and that kind of thing it's like oh yes and you know that I feel like this age is very like it's a very tactile stage of raising kids oh totally especially definitely in our house I think we're quite a huggy household and so yeah there's lots of like and especially the boys started a love of wrestling especially so there's wrestling and hugging and yeah like you say you pick them up and you feel the weight of them and my parents live down in Cornwall so there are two time slots that go by

till they see them and the first thing you do is they run up and you pick them up and you go you've grown you can really feel them growing every time and Cornwall is that where you grew up as well it is yeah yeah and I always kind of thought that maybe by now I'd be back there, but I think life kind of keeps you different places and, yes, we're in Berkshire now. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it, the bits of childhood you think you carry on and then, as you say, other stuff happens.

But maybe you've sort of mimicked some bigger themes from your childhood that are that are there yeah definitely and we things like I thought I want to be in Cornwall to grow up by the by the sea and actually we're not in Cornwall but we're by a river and so things like that I always thought I want to be by water and I want a big family and I've got three children by a river and so you know I do think there are things that I thought I wanted um which have happened in different ways I guess yeah exactly and going back to when you first had your first baby what was going on in your life then so when I had Logan we I had it was very much kind of this is this is the

plan I had just competed in the Rio Olympics three weeks later got married um wow and then decided that you know now we're going to start trying for our family I left rowing retired and didn't know what I wanted to do career-wise but knew that family was going to be this is back in 2016 so 2016 I retired and then by 2018 we had had Logan um it definitely took my body quite a long time to normalize after finishing being a full-time athlete um kind of even things like your period coming back which I shouldn't have lost it in the first place but with the amount of training I wasn't having periods and I was kind of my body was just equalizing for about a year and then we had Logan in 2018 and I was sort of being full-time mum at the same time trying to get as much kind of

to supplement my kind of work because I had lost my rowing at that point I was um doing speaking arrangements and things like that to to feel like I had that part of my life as well but I I loved being a mum and it surprised me because I guess I had been really focused on one thing and really selfish in the pursuit of rowing excellence for so long. Becoming a mum is almost the antithesis of that. It's you're second to everything. You are now planning everything, the structure, your life and your body and your health is coming second to something else and so it was a real shift in the dynamics but it was a really refreshing shift for me I realized oh actually and didn't sit that comfortably with me being

so intent and so selfish for so long and it was time to do something a little bit more selfless well it's interesting because I would imagine that you know for every um female athlete that does that same shift they have their own very personal relationship with that change and emphasis and being so focused because you talked about the change in your body taking a year but there's also all the mental stuff as well. When did your sort of training and all that, when did that start in your life? How old were you when that was taking such dominance? So I was always sporty when I was younger. And I was like things like on the running team, tennis, swimming, and really quite good naturally.

It never went any further in terms of kind of of I ran for England when I was a junior and I was a very good hockey player but I think partly because I grew up in Cornwall I was really far from centre of excellences I was away from the bright lights in big cities and being an Olympian being an international athlete is something that belonged to other people I didn't even consider that it would be part of my world just no way it was so far removed from from me as a kid and so i went to uni studied sports science and actually became a pe teacher and it wasn't until i was 21 that i even started rowing and that was because London had been given the games and it was four years before London that they were looking there was a big talent id drive looking for people to go into different sports and I applied I got tested and I applied based on the fact that I was tall they

were looking for tall people I was tested and I was told you could be a good rower. And I was 21, picked up a new sport in order to go to the Olympics or try to get to the Olympics. Wow, I didn't actually realise that. That's an extraordinary start. So it was much later. So I think most people expect you to start when you're 10. And a lot of people do. A lot of people start when they're at school.

But it was really exciting, actually, to think I could start. I didn't think it would be possible to start something later in life and still make it to that pinnacle. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I was part of the people that thought that actually if you're on that trajectory, it has to kind of come in pretty much from hitting double figures, and it's really intense from that time on. But I wonder as well what that means when you've had a life outside of it for that time before I actually think that's a big part of

why I had success is because I you can look around you in the changing rooms and go this has been the people I'm rowing with has been their life for 10 years um and I do feel like there's a sense of the life experience that I had helped me the feeling that I held no resentment towards rowing and what it took away from me it was only adding it was only giving me something a potential opportunity yeah um so I was really lucky to have kind of lived a lot of life through my teenage years and and had enjoyable times that I wouldn't have had if I was if I was just training and just competing yeah um but at the same time being a young athlete being exposed to lots of different training and exercise meant I was I wasn't going even though it seemed it looked to the outside like I was going from zero I was actually going

from a really full tank of experience just not in rowing so um it definitely was the first shift in my mindset that I've had because it was the first time where I'd gone this is it this is the first shift in my mindset that I've had because it was the first time where I'd gone this is it this is the first time I've ever applied myself to be honest to anything fully and wholeheartedly and I really enjoyed having having something that was an obvious target. And was rowing something you you actually really loved from the get-go? No to begin with it was my vehicle to get to the Olympics um the Olympics for me had always just seemed just incredible um and to get there was the thing and I would say for a long time I would if you'd ask me if I loved rowing I would say no it took me a good few years to start to love it it was fitting it in with work I was teaching at the time when I first started rowing

so it was just I never asked my question am I enjoying this and it's it's really strange now because if anybody says to me what's the key to being a good athlete my first thing I say is love what you do but the reality is you don't always love it and to begin with I learned to love it you know and to begin with it was just just hard but a vehicle to get me where I wanted to go. Well, I guess as well it comes down to how you interpret where the passion is coming from. Because if the rowing in its actual self is not the thing, but the challenge, the drive, the discipline, the goals,

gives you all of that, then that's the bit where you're getting the 100 even if I wasn't loving every stroke of a session yeah I love getting up in the morning and thinking I could go to an Olympic Games and that bit I loved yeah yeah and do you do you think you love rowing now in a different way yeah yeah I do and I love I love where it's taken me but I also loved the period okay so it was also my most successful period. But the period when I was on the team was I found one of my best friends in my rowing partner, Heather. I found one of the most inspirational men I've ever met in my coach, Robin.

And I got to spend my days with two of the most amazing people rowing in a boat to dream of winning an Olympic Games. I mean, by that time, I was the luckiest person in the world and I loved it, yeah. I suppose as well, having that team in that way, not everybody gets to, not every Olympic sport, Olympic athlete has that, that's quite bespoke to rowing, isn't it? It is, it's a really unique bond because it's not a team of 13 people but it's not a solo sport it's me and one other

person and so the bond has to be there the respect has to be there and you are living you're training in a boat together and then on training camps you go and sleep a meter and a half away from each other in a hotel room you know everything is shared and I think that was a big strength for me and Heather's because when we raced and it started to hurt I actually I can honestly say I wanted to win more for her than I did for myself you know she seeing her what she put in every day and and not not mucking up for her sake was was so important for me when we were racing yeah that's really significant actually um and when when it came to is when you're doing something like that is there always

the subtext of conversations that at some point the rowing will stop and other things will happen is it something that's spoken about I think something is changing and shifting in that world because for me um I didn't think I thought it was a strength of mine that I didn't think past rowing um I stayed so present and so intent on what I was doing I never considered life outside of the sport um and I thought that made me stronger and then you leave the sport and you realize no no I should have thought about this a long time ago and actually when I finished after Rio I did a little um radio mini series called life after gold where I interviewed some ex Olympians and Olympic champions and they all said the same thing when I left sport

I suffered a loss of identity and it was it there's a there's a really big issue with sports people finishing yeah you know retiring in your 30s and then having a life to live where you've potentially gone and done the most amazing exciting thing you're ever going to do yeah and having to work out a whole new identity without coaches telling you where to be what time without waking up and thinking this is so exciting i've got yes to train for um so yeah sense of identity um that kind of loss of a goal you're almost mourning for that that day-to-day thing that got really exciting now there's much more of a conscious effort within sport to help athletes think about what's next prepare careers prepare emotional uh you know support um which i think is really important because not only are a really small amount of people actually

going to achieve what they want to in sport but there's a lot of people who are going to go through sport get spat out the other end and then think what now and yeah it's it's a really hard one to answer yeah I'm actually completely fascinated by all of that because um my brother's girlfriend is a ex-olympic snowboarder for Russia and she's spoken a lot about that and how what happens afterwards and I imagine that when you're in the midst of something that intense having those conversations almost feels a little bit like you're letting something in you're not even supposed to be thinking about right now. That is exactly right.

If anybody tried to talk to me about that, I would feel like that energy and space that I can deal with later, right now. I felt like I was giving myself the best chance by dedicating everything to the here and now to make sure I achieved the goal. And you also have this totally, I now see it as unrealistic but I had this firm belief that all I need to do is win the Olympics and then everything will fall everything will fall into place I'll never be sad again I literally thought I'll never be sad again I just need that thing and so so you dedicate yourself to that thing and then you realize you

can win the Olympics and and be sad you can win the Olympics and have bad can you can win the olympics and and be sad you can win the olympics and have bad days you can win the olympics and and have nothing in the calendar and work out what you're doing with your life you know there is there is never as simple as you you believe it to be at the time but yeah i i definitely felt like um dealing with any questions about what's next was not in my not in my interest right there which yeah it's tricky. Because I could, even knowing what I know now, I could go back to a young rower and say, you really need to start thinking about what's next. But I can totally see why they wouldn't want to as well. So it's hard.

Yeah, I suppose some of it is just about being given permission to have a little bit in your head that's for you and the other in another way. So on that sort of that you know in your just the way you've been handling life for so long when you um find yourself deciding that and that's time to start a family were there conversations you were having with other athletes about about that or was it much more like outside of that whole world by then yeah it was definitely outside of that world by then I think because I had I'd finished the sport

and I'd walked away so there was no there was no conversational question about me ever coming back or anything um so it was something that was privately done when I um you know had Logan it was just it one one interesting thing that I realized was that up until the point of having Logan if I was ever doing an interview the question would always be raised oh are you gonna are you gonna come back are you gonna go to Tokyo and the the day I had Logan was the last time I was asked that question so it was almost like it's just an unwritten rule is that okay as a female rower in the UK you you either come back or you have a or you go and you have a family or um or or a career and so but I didn't think anything of that. I thought, well, now I've had a baby,

that's my line in the sand of career done. So yeah, there wasn't much communication with the rowing world about it other than congratulations and Helen's now started a family. And yeah, so that was it really. And how did you find the relationship with yourself physically with pregnancy and everything

after you've been training it that way, was it? I actually quite enjoyed it because I think after Rio, I did feel a bit of pressure to be the athlete I was, but without training six hours a day. And it's really hard. And I almost realised now that I was turning up, if I had a speaking arrangement, I would turn up and almost be I'd be self-conscious thinking oh they're expecting a finely tuned athlete and I wonder if I look the way they expect me to look and I wonder if I've put on a bit of

weight and I didn't mind in myself if I had but I just wondered if I was who they expected me to be and I found that hard um and I found not doing the training hard and I almost I still felt guilty for not doing three sessions a day because it was just such a routine for me but then when I got pregnant I just gave my permission myself permission for all those things my body had permission to change because it was creating new life and I permission not to train and and actually I was handed this this this kind of allowing myself and you know I wouldn't expect anybody to think anybody anything negative of me because you know she's pregnant and she's her body's changing and celebrate I celebrated it and actually I felt almost like I've been let off the hook a little bit with the kind of just allowing change to happen.

So by the time Logan is not even one and a half, there are suddenly three babies in the house. How was that shift having the twins? It was, I mean, yeah, the dynamic was really different because having Logan, I very much fitted him in very easily. He kind of came with me everywhere. If I did a talk, I would just bring along a friend. They would look after Logan in the background

and then we'd carry on and, you know, do our day, take him out for lunch and things like that. And then when the twins came along, I think the first thing I experienced was massive mum guilt of thinking, always thinking, where do I spend my time? Who do I spend my time who do I spend my time with um you know just always worrying that Logan wasn't you know going from my only child with all my time was now going to have shed and presumably that that's something as well that happens particularly

when of mothers of multiples because you suddenly it it's not like oh that's my newborn so yeah you've actually got to then think about newborns as well. He's suddenly totally outnumbered by babies in the house. But actually, I think because he was so young when we had them, he kind of didn't, it's almost like he didn't notice massively because he's still a baby himself, really. Yeah. So it kind of washed over him.

My husband was around much more because he travels away for work quite a lot and he had planned a paternity period to be home so actually logan just got more time with daddy so he really enjoyed that so he almost didn't really react to the babies very much and i think we kind of had that at home newborn stage um where we just kind of were we're just in our in our bubble just doing our thing and then at the moment of them being about six or seven weeks old at the moment where you're kind of ready to start stepping out doing things trying trying to get back into a routine trying to take them places try and take them out we went into lockdown so I actually never experienced really a newborn phase

of having tiny tiny twins and Logan and having to go anywhere having to do anything because just as we were ready we were told stay indoors and this is lockdown now and so I feel like my experience with the twins is really different to what it would have been. Yeah, and ditto probably for anyone who's had babies in that time, really. Because, yeah, as you say, you're in your own little bubble and then, oh no, we're in an actual bubble. So when did you first start thinking about getting serious about sport again then? It happened quite slowly, quite organically. I remember when I had...

You feel very slow from where I'm standing. I know, I know. Twins have just turned two. It actually was super quick when you think about it in real terms. But what I mean is there wasn't really a light bulb moment. For me, exercise has always just been quite a good way of getting my mental health at the best pace it possibly can be so with both Logan and the twins the moment I felt like I could get back into any sort of exercise I did I just started moving moving my

body and trying to do a little bit of exercise here and there where are you finding that time just in terms of mainly when the twins were napping so so for me nap time became just try to do a bit of exercise um in itself is actually quite impressive by the way I think because sometimes that's just to kind of sit down and splodge and I don't know go on Instagram or something which I which I did do as well but yeah generally I would try to just do something then um and then at the moment lockdown hit, when the twins were about six or seven weeks old, that's when I first started thinking,

okay, I'll just put a bit more structure into when they are sleeping, I'll get on the rowing machine, I'll do some more proactive exercise. It probably took a couple of months of doing that, twinned with the realisation that this was not a three-week lockdown this is going to be a long-term thing um it's kind of difficult to explain because even looking back on it now I think what I do think what was I thinking like it seems ridiculous and like trying to almost explain

it and justify it does seem crazy but at the time, the world was crazy and it felt like... But also I think sometimes with the hormones that are in your system, they can make you feel kind of slightly supercharged. Yeah, I was totally supercharged. And I was running on no sleep and it almost made me even more hyperactive, if that makes sense. I actually can identify with aspects of that. Yeah, so I was breastfeeding the twins through the night,

getting sleepless nights, getting Logan up in the morning, doing a training session. Normally Steve would play with the little ones and then in the afternoon they would have another sleep and I was actually up getting two training sessions done. And at the same time they changed the Olympic Games, so they moved the Tokyo Games, it was supposed to be that summer,

and they moved them for a year, so I had a year to train. So I'm trying to remember when they made that announcement. It would have been kind of spring, it was quite early on, wasn't it? It was one of the first big things that shifted. And for me, that was just like a red rag to a bull. Like, I just thought, this is so exciting, and it was the first it was so different to when I

first started rowing and it was like exciting because I could win the Olympics it was exciting because I could have this big goal um I had done that and I had walked away from that but now I had these three children and it started to actually annoy me that since having the kids no one had even thought for a second I could get back into sport no one had even asked me yeah and that just grated me and then my youngest is a little girl and I thought you when you're older I never want you to even have a moment of doubt of what's possible and and all these things started building up and every time I got onto the rowing machine I would imagine myself getting back onto the team and I would imagine my kids watching me and being part of the training and um I kind of said to

my husband that if I did this what would you think and I think I think he saw it coming I think he had seen like she started training she's the olympics has been moved um he did think it was a little bit out there it was a very big decision to make but I kind of came up with three rules and I said I have to the children always have to come first I have to keep on getting better. And it has to work for us in terms of I have to still be enjoying it. I've done this. I've walked away. I've won the Olympics twice.

I don't need to do this again. So I have to be enjoying it. And then I thought, okay, I'll check in every week. If all these three things are true, I will just keep going. And I'm not going to think about the Olympics yet. I'm just going to, if all these three things are true. And just keep going and I'm not going to think about the Olympics yet I'm just gonna if all these three things are true and all those three things kept being true and I was genuinely surprised when it got to Christmas six months into my training six months before the games I was shocked that I got there and that was a big moment for me because that was when I was going to start trialing to get back onto the team is when I was going to make the announcement about coming back and I truly didn't think I would

I thought within the last six months one of those things would have dropped and they didn't and at this point you don't have to make you didn't have to make a coach or your rowing partner aware of any of this stuff I just did it from a living room I just did it from a living room and Steve watched my sessions and cheered me on when I needed and um took the kids out for a walk if I needed to do a bit of a longer training session and I'd stop halfway through and breastfeed the twins and then do my last half hour it it was just whatever made it work and I think if it hadn't been lockdown opened up the opportunity because if it wasn't for actually being locked down at home, there's no way I wouldn't have left the babies,

I wouldn't have wanted to go into training. It was just possible. Also, there'd be just other things you could be doing. Yeah, exactly. A different style of life, really. This is like, this is just sort of, your life becomes a sum of much fewer parts under these circumstances. Yeah.

So it just became a really tantalizing opportunity to be the first woman on the british team to have come made a comeback into the olympics after having children to think about and at the time i thought i probably won't be able to do this but i was excited about the fact that any mistakes i would learn would get the next woman that little bit closer um because you know there's some you know Anna Watkins tried to do it before me she won a gold in London had her two boys and attempted to come back for Rio and she didn't quite make it onto the team but you know in doing so you learn that little bit more um and one of the biggest things she learned was that

juggling um and having to be working in a team environment on somebody else's schedule was really hard with the family and here I was in lockdown on somebody else's schedule was really hard for the family. And here I was in lockdown with nobody else's schedule, nobody else to turn up for except for myself. And so it was definitely just made a little bit more possible. And the big question I was saying is,

why am I doing this? Because you need your why. And it started out being for my kids and to kind of just show them something and then when I made the announcement about coming back it made me realize that it was much bigger than that the I've never really experienced the kind of parent community I've never really been in with the parent community and it was the first time that I felt its full force and I was like whoa this is cool like and

I think you hear a lot of negative things about parents the way they can be about other parents and the way they can kind of be negative or um judgmental and I just experienced this wave of positivity and I was blown away and suddenly the whole thing came about I'm representing other parents and um one of the most amazing things that happened was we went to uh took the three of them on a little like day out to a little farm trip and it must have been in the space between two lockdowns and I've met a couple that who said oh I just want to just want to say I was at your Olympic final in London years ago and it was amazing and I what and we had a little chat and I walked away and they called me back and they said oh we just want to say thank you for what you're doing and I was like thank you

and they they pointed to their little girl who must have been about two in the buggy and they said that's what we want her to see and it just hit me in the heart and I was it's just another reason to want to be doing that and I got so many nice messages um a woman who had um received a cancer diagnosis after after having her second child and who who just kind of think I'm never going to get back to full fitness I don't know how I can do it and and she said oh you just made me want to get back into that first step to fitness and I didn't think that me doing this one thing could influence somebody else's life like that and it it just meant so much more than the rowing did that it that it kind of even the attempt at making a comeback was going to

affect anybody else was really amazing yeah it's a lot broader than just about rowing it's about actually I think the the thing you said earlier about identity actually is a big part of it as well because it's one thing to go from you know know, when you're retiring from an Olympic level, you said about a lot of people experiencing loss of identity, but also that can happen to people sometimes when they become a parent as well. And they can feel like they don't really know who they are anymore. So having this goal and something that's so defining and so high achieving is really exciting it's like a very thing that I think I try to tread really carefully with with it was you you know on the outside there's potential to go oh she's just like had a few babies and gone back to an olympic games she's there saying oh everyone can do it and, never, never want it to kind of look like this is what you should be doing.

Or, oh, if I can do it, it's easy. Because it's not. It needs to be remembered that this was a massive part of my life before. Yeah. It's, for me, the equivalent of stepping back into work just a little earlier than I planned. I think it's incredibly empowering. My body was different but stronger than it ever was. It really was.

That's interesting. I was amazed at what my body was capable of after childbirth compared to before. Wow. And I just think it's partly because I've never been through so much pain, even as an Olympic athlete, I can say it was the most painful experience of my life.

And so, yeah, one thing I never wanted to do is almost alienate or make anyone feel worse about what they were or weren't doing after having children. I just think it's really important to kind of share the message that this is just something that I've decided to do and whatever you decide to do, you know, champion yourself, believe in yourself.

It doesn't have to be that you go to olympic games no but i think i don't think i understand why you'd feel like you want to say that because you don't want anyone to feel that you know there's that it has to be you know olympics or bus but i think actually when people hear it they don't you don't think of it like that you think of it as about having the thing that's for you and also just emerging the other side of you know with the little little babies and just going like it's almost like the sort of extreme caricature of that way you can feel on the inside sometimes you know like hands on your hips feeling strong you know feet planted strongly like I've got this strength I've got this drive I've got a goal in my

mind it's I can see it and and I'm bringing everybody along for the ride with me. Exactly. I'd love to bring as many people along for that ride as possible. And, you know, some days you emerge as a superhero, hands on your hips, like with, you know, fireworks splurging behind you. And some days you roll out of bed and you feel like crying for most of the day. And it's not like every day is that superhero day. So many days are that really tough one.

But those are the ones that actually are the truly admirable ones because everybody who's going through those days and everybody who has a baby does go through those days. Those are the ones that you get to the end of. And you may feel like you've done nothing or achieved nothing, but those are the most amazing ones in my opinion and when when just so there's a bit of context like for me what what would what does a day look like when you're doing that training so we know like some what what shape is that so when you're

on the the full team without kids or anything it'll be training every day we'd get a sunday off every three to six weeks um and apart from that it's seven days a week is it yeah um either two or three training sessions a day so a three session day would look like a row on the water 7 30 till 9 30 another row on the water or rowing machine 11 till 1 and then weights in the gym in the afternoon between that you've got things like video analysis physio sessions um catching up with the crewmates and things like that so it's a full full day and as soon as you um get onto the team you get a certain level of funding so you can train full-time and then as soon as you start meddling you get enough money to live

as an athlete full-time without any other work so I was teaching at the beginning of my career and then as soon as I won my first medal I was just full-time training wow and so when you're doing that when you get to that point so the last six months is that when it starts getting to that shape is that what so that's your that's your if you're training on the team that is your your four-year day in, day out. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's full on. It doesn't actually amp up too much before the games because there's nowhere else for it to go, really.

It's, yeah, it's kind of, you just need a massive endurance base as well as a power base. So it starts, you know, it starts four years out. But then with my training that I did at home I started kind of just once a day uh then twice a day when I could fit it in then probably it was about six months before um before Tokyo that I made it known to the team that I wanted to come back that I started doing the occasional session in with the in with the rest of the rowers so from six months on for me that's when it started to ramp up into the occasional three session day and things like that so is it quite unusual let's

imagine you haven't had the babies is it unusual in itself that you go from starting training to to qualify for the team in that short time anyway yes yes yeah I think four years out of the sport let alone three children is yeah yeah a big a big thing yeah wow I'm just taking a minute to take that on board that's pretty mega actually um and I think well just well done that's phenomenal does it help that your sport is sitting down I guess I think it actually does yeah I don't think I'd have considered it as a runner that is amazing though and what's the so obviously the other people you're involved with so you this is not this wasn't with Heather was it this is with a new rain partner and she also was doing her own thing that was pretty extraordinary as well yeah so Polly Swan she's an amazing amazing

woman she she rode um she raced in the rio olympics in the eight and then she didn't know whether to carry on or not she's a doctor and she decided to carry on to tokyo she carried on training and then when the pandemic hit rather than all the team kind of separated and went back to their homes their family homes to train and she instead of going back to her home to train she went and worked in a in a hospital through the pandemic so a year before um the olympics she's working in a hospital helping out through the pandemic and then a similar time to me about six months before the game she went back into her full-time training so um and then we kind of got paired together through circumstance really because she had had almost a kind of a

rocky start coming it back into the team and I had had this kind of interesting route back in so we were placed together to see if we were going to be good enough to make the team again we were asked to go into a pair to race the European Championships in it must have been May May time yeah so it wasn't it was wasn't quite a full year after since I'd started and we actually won the European Championships together um which was a big surprise to both of us I think I didn't think we thought we'd be standing on top of a podium that quickly um but we won the European Championships and from then it was decided okay you're we'll take you to Tokyo together so um yeah it was really exciting and to row with her was just especially because she had that story as well I think yeah I've got a lot of respect for what she's done yeah yeah that's

that's really cool and I imagine so by the time you get to Tokyo just the very fact that you're doing those things is must have felt did it feel kind of out of body or did you feel very like focused it did feel out of body and I think that's not just because of the way we got there it's the state of the world at the time everything was so up in the air we didn't know whether we'd be going to the Olympics every day we almost woke up surprised that it was still happening we didn't know what it's going to be like when we got there even when we got there it was surreal because rather than landing and shaking hands and having photos with people you land and you walk in your single file bubble as

not to have any contact and so everything felt very out of body I almost feel like it didn't happen because it was such a surreal experience but definitely for me when I when I got onto the plane the morning we left for Tokyo that was me having justified all the hours of training having achieved my goal having on that first moment where I realized this could be my next thing I thought yeah this is mission accomplished anything from now is a bonus and I'm really sort of proud of that yeah I bet and that must be a thing that sort of just stays with you forever now that's like always there that you did that and with with the sort of concentric circles around you so your your siblings and like your mum what was how was she feeling looking from the outside looking was she ever worried about you like oh you're pushing

yourself really hard and trying to make sure you felt okay if you didn't end up qualifying and yeah my mum was one of the main people who actually said said yes do it you don't want to regret this opportunity I think that we all saw this year as being you know what are we what are we going to do in this year as well and yeah it really was that feeling of might as well and I think she thought and rightly so you don't want to end up watching Rio and think I was watching Tokyo and thinking I should have just tried so she's always been championed me doing it um at the same time she had she definitely has worried that it's a lot to be putting in and then the potential of not making the team was always going to be high so that she was kind of worried about that but

I think she yeah always just saw that it was it was making me happier and then in turn definitely making the kids and home life happier and um so yeah she's always been a big supporter yeah and for your friends but do you think they were kind of like well that actually kind of makes sense for the way that you seem to be like classic Helen exactly yeah exactly even though it's a surprising thing to do no one was that surprised that I did it yeah yeah and so an annoying question but an obvious one, is what happens now? What's the next thing in your life? Is the training still happening regularly at the moment?

I actually thought when I came home from Tokyo, I thought, right, I'm going to just start training again, seeing how I feel about Paris. Because like I say, I was really surprised at what my body was capable of now. And then it just hasn't happened because i've actually come home and for the first time since having the twins who are now two we're in a we were in a world of normality a bit more normality and i could take them to their first

ever clubs and baby sensory and and these sort of things and i could take logan to start a nursery and things like that so my thought of getting as much training as possible has not happened and I'm definitely more back to normal life um but the whole thing has made me kind of look at what's important to me what matters to me the support from the parenting community when I first started was was huge and made a huge impact on me um so now I'm looking at things like i'm working on a project now with cotswold outdoor it's called the super mom series which is about ideas for getting parents out and about with their kids and i think that's something that lockdown has given everybody is this realization that getting outdoors is really vital really essential for parents mental health for the kids well-being

yeah but also it's actually it can be quite hard it can be hard to know what to do when you get out the door so I'm just doing a series of about six ideas of what to do things to make and do with your kids outside how to get them walking treasure hunts building a bug hotel um and yeah and I think it's just really I feel like it's a bit of something you can put out there which I really believe in and I hope other parents will just look at and think that's a that's a cool idea I'll can put out there, which I really believe in. And I hope other parents will just look at it and think, that's a cool idea, I'll do that with my kids today. Yeah, well, I wonder if maybe some... Because you mentioned before not really feeling like you're much part of the parent community. And sometimes when you find yourself a mum,

you sort of look from the outside looking and you think, I don't really know if I recognise myself here. And maybe that's something that's like a club I'll just never really quite be part of because the way I approach things and where my background is totally different and maybe by doing this it's been a way of sort of finding where you where you settle in all that I think so and I think also I quite like to feel like I know what I'm what I'm giving what I have to to give to that kind of community yeah and so for me that um almost the love of outdoors especially because my husband his whole job and work life is based in the outdoors and getting outside and i've learned

a lot from that as well and i've learned a lot from just having the children's a few a few tricks that i wish i had known earlier and a few things that i think actually just like when i said if you're going to be the first woman parent to go back and row on the team, you want the next person to come along to have a bit more of a shortcut to it. The same with getting your kids outside. Anybody, any new parent or parent who's just looking for ideas, here's a shortcut to some great idea to get your kids outside. And I feel like that's what I can, that's what I've got to give. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I mean without being trite I wonder as well is there an aspect of because obviously a pandemic is something that's it's so huge and aspects of it really quite traumatic and do you think some of the focus you gave to the the goal of qualifying

is it also helps cope with oh turning upside down and no doubt worrying about your folks in Cornwall yeah yeah yeah um that hour I had on the morning on the river was just me in a boat um forgetting there's anything else going on in the world it's actually the first time I had for clarity in my head and I wasn't quite the old athlete because the old athlete that I was five years before would have thought about every stroke would have judged every stroke looked at my heart rate I was rowing along thinking about what the twins are going to have for lunch and what nap time is and but it gave me that clarity outside of the house in the time when we were all stuck in a confined space and it i it gave me it

gave me back so much having that gold yeah it definitely gave me so much and for for someone like me who's never i've only ever been on a rowing machine what does it feel like when you're rowing like that outside and on the river um often when you're in the in the team environment you forget to notice those little things so when you're in the team environment it's all about times figures stroke length how fast the boat is going and taking myself away from that and training in my own time I was doing this for me I was really feeling my my new body my body was different and I was appreciating it in different ways and you're rowing along and you feel your heart pounding and you can hear the blood gushing past your ears every time it beats and you can you know sometimes

you'll end the session feeling like you're gonna be sick you've pushed yourself so hard but I think I was much more in touch with how I was feeling and how the water was feeling and whether the river was quiet or busy that day and just a bit more in tune because I because I could be that sounds really nice and I like the idea of having that time to think as well. I think that's endlessly a benefit when life is busy, particularly with little children, just being able to have a moment. Actually, the idea of all the encouraging families outside as well is a big thing. What sort of tips have you been sharing? Because I would be keen to hear some.

So there's things like from how to build a den, how to build a bug house, taking them on a treasure hunt that you set up. The treasure hunt has been a favourite of ours because it's the only way we get our three-year-old to meet. He's really kind of interested in small details. So you go out for a walk and you will not go within a five-metre radius. And then so we set up this little treasure hunt and kind of it gets him walking or going to the next point.

And so that's been a good one for us but um what else fire making um lots of things that i think some parents think are maybe um just a bit risky with little ones or you know you have to be nothing you have to be a survival expert to be able to do basically it's keeping it simple and not perfect you know the den logan and i built fell down within five minutes but you know it's about making it fun enjoyable just something a bit different yeah yeah yeah and actually um i think we've sort of we've got quite a lot more of those um like nursery uh forest schools and that kind of thing i think children make a lot of sense outdoors don't they they just suddenly then they take away a lot of the boundaries of walls and doors and things and just put them in big open spaces where they can roam

and use their imagination definitely and i think sometimes at this time of year it can feel so i feel drained sometimes thinking about getting them out the door like you've got to get them dressed and you've got to get layers and then you've got to work out where you're going to go and bring stuff so they don't get cold but then every time you do it yeah once you're out yeah yeah i know similar story around here actually we're talking about going out with your children um so am i right in thinking you're making your house a fully eco house that's the plan yeah so we we built it ourselves we lived on a houseboat because we're by the river we lived in the houseboat and built in the garden the house that we're in now it's a wooden house and yeah the plan is to be kind of totally off grid eco house we just need to kind of get the few finishing touches for that was that something

that you'd spoken about for a while and just really like the idea of it is yeah and didn't realize how stressful it was all gonna be anybody who builds a house says the same thing it takes longer it's more expensive but um yeah it's been stressful but worth it we kind of have um our family home now and kind of feel like it's as responsible as we can be with it as well which is nice um definitely something that my husband kind of is very passionate about as well so um yeah it's been it's been stressful but we are learning curve yes learning curve is it a bit like a grand designs experience we used to then the hard hats going oh i think the kitchen's going to be here one day yeah exactly

yeah we we um never anticipated um the kids being born and having still having the houseboat but logan was he was almost a year i think when we actually moved into the house which is actually cool because having one and being on a houseboat was not one non-moving child as well that's quite key yeah um so it was actually a really lovely way for to start the first year but I'm glad we moved out of that houseboat when we did yeah when I'm picturing a houseboat I'm picturing like something quite narrow and low ceilings is it like that so it was a wide beam one so actually it was really it was really spacious and I would have if it was just me and steve i would live there for the rest of my life yeah oh that's a different how was the water pressure is the thing i understand can be an issue with houseboat yeah i shower at the gym okay sorry a very practical question there but

i guess that's what i've heard people talk about but yeah lovely and peaceful and i like that i love the way you're so connected to the seasons changing. Yeah. Yeah, and you literally get geese turning up at your door for their breakfast and things like that. It was really, yeah, you're connected to the seasons and connected to nature really, yeah, by being down there. That's lovely. And I suppose it's funny because you must have gone from Rio to, right, I'm retiring, get married,

and then find yourself not that long later on this houseboat right everything's very tranquil very peaceful um what was the biggest challenge with that that shift do you think it was definitely my sense of what's next and that's then compounded by everyone asking you what's next did you have any idea I mean obviously what's ended up happening doesn't sound like it's not no I mean I'm in the planning yeah if I had if anybody had said after Rio that I was going to go to another Olympic Games I would have just not even seen a possible route for that to happen you know even in the year of the next Games 2020 when the new year came in I was about to have twins like there was no conceivable way I was going to ever go to another Olympic Games.

So, yeah, after having, I was just really lucky to have this career where London happened and I'd only been in the sport for four years. And Heather and I won the first Team GB gold of the Games, home games. I mean, I was just so lucky to have that in my lifetime. Really, really fortunate. And then we carried that on and to back that up in Rio, I just felt like I had almost this perfect career that I was leaving behind.

And then you retire and you're 30 and I was just going, well, what's next? And I just had this true belief it'll come to me. It'll come to me.'ll come to me the next thing will will will come and it career-wise it didn't but family-wise it did and having Logan um I can really see why there's this kind of um difference in lifestyle between athlete and mum but it gave me just a real sense of completion and I thought a sense of completion comes through winning an Olympic Games I really believed that um but I had Logan and it was like I could cross the finish line a hundred times but it's nothing compared to

being a mum and I just did I wasn't really prepared for that sense of, my life isn't about winning an Olympic Games, it's about this tiny little thing that now is totally dependent on me. Yeah, and in a way it all starts over again, because then they're there, your new person is there, and everything that was before was the before. You're like, what can I achieve now that they're here? What can I do that's part of this chapter? which is which is again why the tokyo comeback

was really nice because it's the only time that they would actually be involved in my rowing career you know i'm sure they'll get older and they'll see and they'll learn about the fact that i had won these olympic games but it was pre them so kind of why did it matter yeah old news yeah so to kind of think that they weren't just there for it, but they were my inspiration for it. I think hopefully we'll give them something. No, that's really magical.

But also I'm thinking it's, it's really, you know, you were a big crossroad there because if you say that, you know, physically it took a year to kind of, whatever you call it, de-athlete or whatever.

Yeah, to de-train. Yeah, to de- d train and you're you know you're not even you know periods are taking a while so you're not when we're talking about wanting to have a baby you're not you didn't it's not like you could say well i'll keep training and also be doing that and see what see what comes along first for me it felt like it had to be one or the other yeah because i had i had to kind of normalize my body a bit personally i mean for many other athletes yeah they'll be in different situations but for me it felt like it had to be one or the other yeah because I had I had to kind of normalize my body a bit personally I mean for many other athletes yeah they'll be in different situations

but for me it felt like it was one or the other and because it wasn't a normal thing to do in rowing you just wouldn't consider trying to be pregnant or having a baby at that point um so yeah stepping away and having to kind of think about something so different yeah I was left in a limbo for a long time and I actually I think I probably did apply that athlete mentality to wanting to start a family because I was thinking right this is it this is it and you can't just will it you know and I was there kind of with that right come on I'm impatient I am an impatient person and for me if I'm ever impatient I have to just you know work harder do this do that make it happen and I was actually just having to relax and and take my time and

work out who I was in a world outside of rowing all at the same time and I probably I think my husband's probably very patient through that time and I think I probably didn't realize yeah that I wasn't quite myself through that first year um I think there are probably elements of of me and the way I was that was probably quite difficult and quite unfamiliar um to those around me but I think that's probably a process that I imagine every athlete has to work through when they leave and kind of thrust into a world of uncertainty. Yeah, I do definitely think that's a fascinating conversation, that whole thing. And, you know, obviously you've got sport people going after goals,

but also, you know, people like gamers. If you're a gamer at the top of your field, then by the time you're, I don't know, 22, your reaction time is over. What happens then? It's crazy, isn't it's crazy isn't all that stuff oh I think about as well about people who train as a I don't know if you're a concert pianist and that has been your it's like that's you're in a different uh you're in a different

path if you're very focused on something yeah it's very reliant on that and then there's an after I was actually contacted after doing this radio series with ex-athletes. I was contacted by quite a few people who had retired, who said it really resonated with them. Ex-police officers, doctors, surgeons, people who were really defined by their careers. You know, what do you do? Who are you? And you can, to have an answer readily available when someone says, what do you do? Or who are you yeah i'm a police and you can to have an answer readily available when someone says what do you do or who you are you it i just think that it's quite empowering and it's a very it's a

very nice thing to be able to answer in one sentence in one word this is me and then the day you retire that's taken away from you yeah um and it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't matter what your job is you're trying you know retired school teachers I spoke to who said, what do I say I do now? Yeah. So, yeah, I think that answer will come to people in different timescales and different ways. Yeah.

But I think it's important to give yourself that freedom and that flexibility to let it come and to not feel under the pressure to have the answer waiting for you no it's very true actually and I think that parenthood is often a big watershed of that thing as well of like well who am I now am I going back to the that version of me what what of my life before is relevant what do I carry over where do I want to completely start again I think it's made me think differently as well about how I answer the question right now about what I do. Because I think, I now say with total pride,

oh, I'm a mum. And I think when I had Logan and I wasn't rowing at all, I probably would have gone, oh, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I've got Logan. And I almost tried to justify what I was doing at the time. And now I just feel really happy saying I'm doing this I'm doing that and I've got Logan and I almost tried to justify what I was doing at the time and now I just feel really happy saying I'm a mum and I think because I have the confidence behind me of having experienced being a mum and going back to rowing being a mum and doing some

speaking just doing different things and I know I now have confidence that the most important thing I'm doing is no matter what else I'm doing is being a mum yeah no it's an interesting thing that we all have to think about I think and and it's a so just to clarify so you were the first mother to qualify to to row for Great Britain the Olympics right and across the sport how does that how does that stay what's what kind of happens to most olympic um female athletes who then have become mothers and can they has there in other nations i'm really stumbling over how to ask this question you know i'm getting yeah in other nations there's actually there's lots of people who have done it and that i think that's down to the fact that the system is just it's all about what the system is set up to

do and if a system is set up to assist women in coming back then it's then it's there for the taking and outside of rowing as well this is it's something yeah and i think rowing as a sport does tend to lead itself to being quite tricky it's time consuming you are physically away you're out on the water whereas if there's a sport that is um less time consuming you can be nearer your children you could be you know in the same vicinity even if it's a sport that is um less time consuming you can be nearer your children you could be you know in the same vicinity even if it's something practical like breastfeeding those things are quite tricky to juggle when you're rowing and with the hours that you need to train for um but i definitely um made more challenging by the fact that we have one training base it's very

traditional in the fact that you go in every day and then you're out of there by evening it with a family the two just don't correlate really very well and i think that i hope and i think i have from from the conversation i've had with the coaches already i've shown what's physically possible i've shown that people could come back stronger i've made actually hopefully more appealing to get these people back into sport and therefore you're you are asking the question if we want these people back how do we make it work for them so I do think in future there's going to be a flexible system for mums coming back there's going to be conversations about how to make it work for everybody and that's just really exciting for me yeah that is exciting and just to ask you as well with the

the sort of training and your athletic mindset how does that lend itself to raising three under three I don't know if they're not all under three but yeah three under four I mean there are some things which I think okay rowing this rowing's prepared me for this you know um trying to physically go on when you're tired you know nothing nothing kind of prepares you for that fatigue of parenthood so trying to keep going when you're tired I think and and just pushing on I think rowing definitely prepared me for that there's also something I definitely believe in self-talk so the self-talk you need to do when you're training is all you're kind to yourself you tell yourself the best things when you have your best results you tell yourself you can do this I

know it hurts but push on and self-talk is a really important tool for an athlete and I think as a parent you can get in that spiral of negative thinking or thinking you're not doing a good enough job or comparisons. But if you shift that on your head and turn an athlete's kind of mentality onto that, you think to yourself, the good things, or my kid thinks I'm the best at reading this story or I've done a great job today

or even I've remembered the lunchboxes today, you know, things that I'm really bad at doing. And I think the positive self-talk that I learned from rowing is something that I do try to take into my parenting um but other than that I think that nothing can compare you and I do I honestly think that your your the lack of preparation for me was down to the fact that I didn't we know many people who had had children and when they had talked about being tired or I don't think you actually really listen or really you can nothing can prepare you for the reality um so yeah I think it's just for me it was just learning as I went yeah yeah

I think that's basically what happens isn't it it's not you go plus you get your whoever your kids are is like they've got their own thing that's them and then you have you have learning all about that so you can't really know till they're here anyway exactly yeah but i love that idea of the self-taught talk actually i think that's really really true i'm gonna keep an eye on that with me actually i think you have that internal voice in your head and it's it's good to make sure that she's saying nice things yeah and it's definitely i think it's one of the biggest difference between you can get two athletes who are physically the same, and probably the one with the better self-talk will be the one that wins.

And the better self-talk is usually really quite uplifting to themselves rather than dragging themselves down. Yeah, that's a good way to think about things just generally. That's good for, I can't really see how that would fail really to be a better way of approaching each day. I think, actually, funnily enough, one of the really early podcast chats I did was a woman called Yvonne Telford

and we ended up talking about how I sometimes would go, oh, I'm such an idiot. I've done this, that and the other. And she said, why are you calling yourself that? You know, if you say that, that's how you're going to see yourself and that's what other people are going to hear you saying about yourself. I was thinking, God, you've got to really keep an eye on those things. It's actually, they can be quite insidious, actually, how you refer

back. And it doesn't really help you in the long run. So that's a good thing. And good for your kids to hear that as well. I think so. Yeah. And I think trying to verbalise, especially now Logan's a little bit older, I'm a bit more aware of when I do go, oh, mummy's an idiot or silly mummy and all these things. And actually, I think verbalising the positives and the positive things is more like, you know, they absorb so much. Yeah, little sponges.

That, yeah, if you're talking kindly about yourself, they'll probably learn those traits for their own kind of self-talk. That's true. And also, happy birthday to Kit and Bo, isn't it? Yeah. They just turned two.

They just turned two. Sweet. It's a really fun age. It is. They're hilarious. Yeah, completely bonkers, I find. Yeah. But really good fun.

I have a Kit as well. It's a good name for a boy like Kit. Cool. Oh, thank you so much, Helen. Honestly, what an inspiration. I know that's a word that gets bandied around a boy, I like it. Cool. Oh, thank you so much, Helen. Honestly, what an inspiration. I know that's a word that gets bandied around a lot, but I really mean it.

I think it's, I really love the idea of that kind of, feel it in your veins sort of a drive that you can get from new motherhood that I don't think gets talked about as much, but it's actually something you can really tap into. It doesn't mean you have to be going for this, like such a high achieving goal but just things for yourself just feeling energized and focused and feeling good about

yourself and feeling back into that thing of identity and where you're at and having something that's that's yours but also that you're kind of almost like the kids on your back and off we go yes yeah definitely definitely that's a good thing thank you very much so much see pretty impressive stuff to be honest with you talking to helen was one of those things where i sort of spoke to her and she's quite um well she does understand that what she's done is extraordinary but at the same time you know she's been an olympic athlete and an athlete in general for a long time now so you know within the remit of her usual world training her body and doing those things is something that she's used to so it was one of those conversations where i sort of forgot quite how extraordinary it was and then

it was really only after I'd you know was thinking back over our conversation later I thought no hang on a minute that really is amazing to be able to have your small babies and then get yourself to that level of fitness and that mental focus really impressive and I did think it was really lovely to hear someone say that they felt stronger after having a baby because I don't know about you but to hear someone say that they felt stronger after having a baby because I don't know about you but I don't hear that too often so that was really nice to hear as well that's actually pretty inspiring I think we are very used to the fact now that most people talk about how all the bits of motherhood that are tricky and hard and of course that's

important and good but it's nice to actually talk about the positive things that can happen out of it too so that's all good um yeah so that was all really lovely and thank you to Helen for talking to me about it I found it really fascinating um and also it's made me think a lot about athletes and about that culture that they have where within the time that you're training and focused you're not really allowed to think about your life outside of it you can't enter into the fact of what you might do later because that'll feel like you're allowing in a thought that's not you know not helpful to your purpose at that time but actually it does mean that when you finish being at that level of training and fitness and

competition you know what do you do then there's a whole world out there anyway sort of rambling really I'm still alone in my house walking around my kitchen my cat Rizzo is looking at me I think she wants to be fed do you want some some food, Riz? Okay. And what time is it? I think it might have another cup of tea. Do you have a cut off for what time you stop drinking tea? My mum takes a cup of tea to bed. I couldn't do that. That would make me wake up a bit too much. But I think tea any time before six is fine. I don't feel like it wakes me up that much. Maybe it does. I think I just really like it. And on that bombshell, as I'm about to feed a cat,

I will bid you adieu. I know. It's pretty scintillating stuff, this podcast. You know, insights into cat food and time for drinking tea. It's just revelation after revelation. Oh, yuck. Golly. Because I was holding the phone in one hand i decided to open the cat food with my teeth which meant that a little little bit of cat food

moisture went on my face which i don't recommend i probably should have stopped recording a little minute ago we're in it together now you've got that image in your head sorry right i'm gonna go and feed my little goldfish too and celebrate his fourth year of existence and talk to him about his plans for the next 11 and i'll see you next week love Thank you.