JO Pavey has learned to love her visits to Glasgow and the appreciation is clearly mutual. This 42-year-old mother of two from Devon is enthusiastically racing schoolkids round Glasgow Green in preparation for her participation in Sunday's Great Scottish Run half marathon, as she marks her maiden return to the city which in 2014 saw her twice make surprise visits to the podium. Battling a posse of Kenyan distance runners to celebrate a hugely popular bronze medal in the Commonwealth 5,000m at Hampden Park was one thing, but being invited on stage to take third place behind Lewis Hamilton and Rory McIlroy at the BBC's glitzy Sports Personality of the Year awards do at the Hydro was another entirely. Throw in the first track gold medal of her career, in the European Championships 10,000m in Zurich, and 2014 was quite a year.
"It does feel surreal to look back at 2014," said Pavey. "I tried to get a gold medal for so many years and never achieved it so I thought my chances of achieving that were over. Especially with the circumstances with me being over 40, being a busy mum and just coming back from having a baby. It showed me a lot about the importance of getting that balance in my life, being happy mentally, and not stressing about running.
"I have such fond memories of competing in Glasgow from the Commonwealth Games and amazing memories of being here for Sports Personality of the Year," she added. "I was honoured just to be one of the ten, never in my wildest dreams think I would be going up again, to finish third. It all happened so suddenly, with all the ticker tape and everything. When I saw the photo afterwards it was as if I was superimposed onto it."
Pavey opted out of the World Championships in Beijing to get some family time but any notion she is winding down should be resisted straightaway. There is an idyllic quality to the Paveys training set up, racing alongside her five-year-old son Jacob on the bike, while her coach and husband Gary carts their younger daughter Emily along, but her quest to reach her fifth Olympics in Rio next summer remains a serious business. Her competition today in her first half marathon for close on three years includes Edna Kiplagat, last year's winner and course record holder, who is twice world champion in the marathon.
"I thought I would be retired by now so it is a real bonus to still be thinking about competing," said Pavey. "Rio is such a massive target for me, to try to make a fifth Olympics. I just felt this summer having two young children and with last year being such a busy championship year it was the right decision to miss the worlds. Now it is really nice to focus on these autumn road races, but it is a bit nerve wracking. Normally I am really sharp from the track but this time it feels like I have to do it from the start."
Only occasionally, does her practice pacemaker get a bit ahead of himself. "We were on holiday in Cornwall at the start of the summer holidays and we went to the camel trail and I didn't think to brief Jacob not to go off ahead of me because normally he doesn't," said Pavey. "But because we were somewhere new and he was so excited he went away off ahead and I lost him. In the end another family helped me find him. It was totally safe, there were no roads around, but it was still scary. He is only five so stuff like that happens. But all parents are busy juggling everything, I admire all parents who do that, with the busy lives people have these days."
Perhaps part of the reason why Pavey appears so keen to keep on running resides in the knowledge she might have had a medal or two more on her mantlepiece right now. The Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD/WDR recently claimed that more than a third of Olympic and World Championship medals - including 55 golds - were won by athletes with suspicious doping test results, plus seven of 12 London marathon winners. Pavey, previously a fourth place finisher in the European Championship 5,000m, behind proven doper Liliya Shobukhova, and World Championship 10,000m, admits the uncertainty is a frustration. While she steers clear of the furore surrounding Paula Radcliffe, she made her own blood data available and would love to see the authorities eventually write such an expectation of transparency into an athlete's code of conduct. She is hugely critical of the recent WADA decision to resist calls to see thyroid medication placed on the banned list of substances.
"It is always horrible to talk about the sport in that way but it is definitely frustrating when you hear the sheer scale of suspicious blood results that are out there and you think what medals should you have had that you didn't get," she said. "You just have to think 'I tried my best, enjoyed my sport and all the experiences I have had, the places I have been to and the people I have met', but it is obviously a frustration. I was disappointed by that [thyroid] decision because I feel it is unethical to take medication you don't require for a medical need. When I was asked to release my blood data I was willing immediately."
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