Paula Radcliffe on how running can help end childhood obesity – Runner’s World (UK)

Retirement certainly hasn’t slowed Paula Radcliffe down. The former marathon world record holder has a new goal: getting more kids into the sport we love. We sat down to chat with Paula –

You’ve been retired for four years now; what have you been up to?

PR: Enjoying spending more time with my family, doing commentary for the BBC and I have also been involved in the set-up of a new organisation called the Athletics Integrity Unit, which launched in 2017. It was set up by the IAAF [International Association of Athletic Federations] but sits independently from them. It has quite a wide monitoring remit, including bribery, manipulation of results, betting, age manipulation and others, but most of what it does is on anti-doping.

You were the subject of unfounded doping rumours in 2015-16. How hard was that to deal with?

PR: It was hard, but more so on my daughter, Isla, who was eight at the time. I saw psychologist Steve Peters a few times, as did Isla. She was really upset because, as Steve said, at that age you think that your mum and dad know the answers to everything. And it was clear we didn’t know the answer to this because it wasn’t a fair situation and I was getting a lot of flak.

I also realised I have to be careful about social media now she’s growing up. She has her own accounts on TikTok and Instagram, and I make sure they’re private and locked, but what I didn’t realise was that she follows me on mine, and she reads all the comments people leave underneath. Social media is just weird, isn’t it? People will say things on there they would never say to anyone’s face. And they probably wouldn’t even dare look at you. But they say vicious and really nasty things on there. It doesn’t really bother me, but I need to think about it with regard to my kids.

More recently, you’ve been working on getting kids moving and exercising more.

PR: I’ve always loved running and I feel that it’s given me so much more than just the career side of it. As in self-confidence, doing better at school, learning to work as part of a team, getting to travel, being more socially and globally aware because of the places that you travelled to, and the camaraderie that you experience in races. So I think all of that for kids to experience is really important.

What made you decide to focus on this now?

PR: I did a talk at the Houses of Parliament and then sat on a panel with the World Health Organization about ending childhood obesity. And it was shocking that you sit there and they’re discussing putting kids on diets, not putting snack bars in schools, saying all of this nutrition stuff, talking about breastfeeding recommendations and things like that. But nobody was actually saying, ‘They need to move’. But to me it seems the most logical thing is just to get kids moving. I never remember as a child even knowing how many calories were in stuff or what we should or shouldn’t be eating. It was just a case of: eat in-balance, run around a lot and don’t really worry about it. And It seemed to me really bad that they weren’t thinking about that next logical step. Kids naturally want to run around and want to have fun. It’s only when you get older that you start to say, ‘Oh, it’s raining outside, I can’t really be bothered to go out’ and all that. Kids actually don’t care!

So you’ve created Families On Track. Can you tell us about that?

PR: It’s a family-based relay event over 10K that can be inserted into festivals and any public event where families would go. It’s 10K in total and the course is basically three concentric loops, one inside the other: there’s a 250m one, a 500m one and a 1km one. The idea is that you take part as a family, decide whois going to run which size loop and how many laps, and then you complete the course together. We had the first one at Durham City Run Festival this summer, which is put on by Steve Cram and his partner, Allison Curbishley, and it was a great success. Despite torrential rain, 95 out of the 100 families registered turned up and everyone loved it, especially the kids, who just splashed through all the puddles!

Stu Forster

How do you see it progressing from here?

PR: It was great to see so many people walking away, just saying ‘Thank you, we really, really enjoyed that and seeing our kids running around.’ So hopefully it will then feed into schemes like Kids Run Free across the country, and there’ll be more demand for the event to appear around the UK. There are more running festivals nationwide we could put this into and it doesn’t have to be running ones, just anywhere where there are families.

You mentioned getting more self-confident as a kid through running. Do you think the same would work today?

PR: Yes, definitely. There’s evidence from analysis of child activity rates that physically active kids are more socially confident, they learn to work better as a team, they can recognise their own strengths and weaknesses better, they achieve more at school and even go on to earn more in later life. It doesn’t matter what sport, it doesn’t have to be running, they just have to be physically active.

The figures that are coming out now are scary. I saw recently that 86 percent of 11-18-year-olds don’t get the recommended amount of daily exercise – and it’s not even that much. It’s just 20-30 minutes of moderate activity, which is basically walking. If you walk to school and then from class to class you should hit it, so these kids aren’t even walking to school, and now in the playground they’re just sitting still on their phones, whereas we used to charge around out there as soon as the break bell went.

With parents like you and your husband Gary [Lough, coach to Sir Mo Farah] your children must be pretty active?

PR: Absolutely. Both of them [Isla, 12 and Raphael, 8] will sometimes do kilometre events in Monaco where we live. Isla recently ran 3:25 and Raph can do 3:43. We also recently dropped Raph into a one-mile race with bunch of men and he actually finished third in a time of 6:26! He absolutely loved it. I’m not sure that the men did, though…

Stephen Pond

Do you think they’ll end up being runners in later life?

PR: Who knows. I’m really conscious of the fact that I don’t want them to feel like they have to run, because it’s what their parents do. I just want them to be physically active and healthy. And I can see that they both have potential. But they have to want to do it themselves, and at the moment it’s that funny mix where Isla is really, really competitive but I don’t know if she actually loves running, or if she just likes it for the meantime. Whereas Raph absolutely loves it. And I see on his face that he’s more like me in terms of he just likes the feeling of running. But then he’s not really competitive.

Do they do other sports?

PR: Yes. I think it’s important, if you can, that you give your kids access to trying as many different things as possible so they can see what they take to. We’re lucky that their schools have excellent facilities, so they alternate between swimming, tennis, basketball, handball, athletics and badminton. Wednesday afternoons are sports afternoons and we’re pretty much just a taxi service for them working out how to drop them off and pick them up in the right order.

And do you exercise as a family?

PR: Now that they’re a bit older we do run together. But I have to stagger it. I have a pre-teen who’s basically already a teenager and doesn’t do mornings. So I usually do my run in the morning and then come back and get Raph and he comes and does about 3km with me. There’s a 1500m running loop in my local park that has exercise stations on it, so we do two laps of that stopping at each station along the way. After that, I’ll go back for Isla and get her to come out and do the same, or if she’s feeling up to it we’ll do one lap of the bigger 5K loop.

Would you say that not competing anymore, but still being really active has given you greater insight into amateur running?

PR: Yes, and it’s really nice. I’ve been retired four years and I have not found it that hard. It’s not like being a hurdler or a long jumper where, when you retire, that’s it. I’m a runner so I’ve just carried on but without the structure or intensity. I still go for a run most days, it’s just now I don’t have to get a session done at this pace, or do this distance, or do such and such reps. If it’s 3km with the kids that’s fine. If it’s an hour and a half and it’s just me pootling along on my own with time to think, that’s also good. And if it’s meeting friends and doing something with them, then that’s really nice as well.

Do you still race?

PR: Yes, but I don’t think of it like I’m racing any more. When I take part in events now, it’s best if you’re in the middle, and you’re really experiencing what the atmosphere is like in those races in the mid-pack area and seeing other people get their personal bests. And maybe helping them to get through difficult patches in the race, I think that’s really special because I’m not going to be able to run PB’s ever again. But if you can help someone else run one, and share the atmosphere in the race, then that is really nice.

Michael SteeleGetty Images

Retirement was forced on you by injury. Do you regret not being able togo out on your own terms?

PR: No, because I actually did go out on my own terms. I had foot injuries for years and should have retired in 2012. I had a period of nine months where I wasn’t able to do anything at all and anyone who has had along-term injury will know how awful that is. So I battled to be able to get back and at least finish my career at a race. At first I was able to do three sets of one minute jog, five minutes walk– and it went from there. And when
I eventually came back and ran the London Marathon in 2015 [Paula’s final race; she finished in 2:36:55], I did so with the biggest smile on my face because I was able to do what I loved again.

Your dad, Peter – no mean runner himself – must be proud of your career.

PR: He is, and seeing what he did for me is what makes me want to do the same for my kids and give other families the chance to have the same for themselves. He’s the one who got me into athletics and would be driving me all over the country. Dad would fill the car up at five in the morning then we’d drive from Bedford to somewhere like Durham to do the cross-country races. And then we’d drive back down again the same day. It would be teams of under 11s, under 13s, under 15s. In January, mum and dad came out to France to watch Isla take part in her regional cross-country championships and they were there with their little tins of Cup-a-Soup, out on the course watching it just like old times and saying ‘This is brilliant, because it’s just what it was like when you were a kid,’ which makes me happy.

And you trained together during your early years?

PR: Yes, until I was maybe 16. We lived on the outskirts of Bedford, so my dad would show me the routes to go running over the fields if I needed to do something that wasn’t at my club. I was too quick for him by then, but I would do a kind of fartlek, where I would run on and jog back to him, and he would just keep running steadily to keep an eye on the route until I learned better about my bearings safety-wise. We eventually switched to him just driving me to somewhere and waiting while I did my reps. But he was still strong on the longer distances. When I was 15 he did the Windsor Half Marathon and I couldn’t do it because you had to be 16, so I started just after the start, ran with him, then finished just before the finish. We did that a few times. And because it was longer than I was used to then, I had to run at his pace if I wanted to make it round.

More people are running than ever but we have fewer world-class athletes coming through in the UK. What do you think the problem is?

PR: There’s definitely a problem, I agree, but I think it’s a question of competitiveness. I don’t think you can teach it, or create it or train someone into it. I think it has to be there in the child or in the person to want to push themselves like that. But what you can do is identify those that have it and give them a pathway, which we need to be better at. I think the fact that, say, average marathon times are getting slower, is probably more because of more people now think they can do it and are taking part, which is great. Whereas before it was all ‘we can only do it if we’re decent.’

Alex LiveseyGetty Images

So how do we ensure we find the next Paula Radcliffe?

PR: There’s a balance to be struck. Fewer people are joining running clubs. So many kids now just go along with their parents to parkrun and don’t go to their local athletics club, and so don’t find competition or a competitive outlet. For a while we had that disaster of no competitive sport in schools, which was horrific because you can’t tell kids not to be competitive, they naturally are. And so to say, ‘Oh, well, we’re not going to compete, we’re just going to give prizes to everyone’ doesn’t work, because life’s competitive. And kids have to get used to giving their best and then be rewarded, not just, ‘Give me your best and we’ll give you the same as the ones who didn’t try.’ That concept doesn’t work. So I think we need a lot more support for clubs, a lot more direction into clubs, which doesn’t mean that parkrun is going to be replaced, because there are some kids that won’t want to do that competitive side and are quite happy. But we should make sure that the kids who are competitive aren’t just out there racing on Saturday morning in the parkrun, and that we’re getting them into the actual competitive sports system.

How do we achieve that?

PR: It’s hard. It’s the whole social science thing. And it’s a vicious circle, because the fewer numbers you’ve got going to clubs, the less incentive there is for the kids keep going back because there’s no social life there. My social life was at my club with 25-30 girls going down the track most nights. When my daughter goes now she’s the only girl her age, and there’s only about five or six in the whole of the under 13 and 15 group. So it’s not the same pull. I used to run home from school and do my homework very quickly so I could get down to the track and see my friends. And if that’s not there, then even the ones who are competitive and want to do it will start to lose interest a little bit.

Apart from improving the health of the nation’s youth, what else lies ahead for you?

PR: No idea! But one thing I am thinking about doing is the Tokyo Marathon in March next year. I was talking to [former Olympic marathon champion] Joan Benoit Samuelson about it. It’s the only one of the six Majors she hasn’t done, while I haven’t done either Tokyo or Boston, so we thought it’d be a good idea to go and tick it off. I’m really excited about it because I regard her as one of the first ladies of running, along with Ingrid Kristiansen and Grete Waitz, so to get to run with her will be really special. I hope I can keep up!

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