Jessica Ennis Hill: On being the poster girl at a home Olympic Games
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JE:           I started athletics when I was about 9 or 10 years old so it was literally my parents took me to a summer camp, me and my sister, and it was really just an opportunity for us to be active, to burn off some energy and also for a way of just keeping us entertained for two weeks and out of the house.  And from that point on, I just, I loved running, I loved trying all the different events, I loved the competitive element. I loved trying to do the best I could be,  trying to win prizes and stand on the podium and yeah, I was kind of hooked from that point onwards.

SA:         And do you remember the first time you competed?  You talk about the podium then, what was your first event?  Can you remember that?

JE:           My first competition, gosh, that is so hard.  I think it was probably an event for the school. So I remember doing the English schools, they were our Olympics at that stage. It was the biggest thing you could take part in and I remember doing the Yorkshire Championships and the South Yorkshire Championships, so I have lots of memories of doing lots of competitions but not very many moments where I actually stood on the podium at that stage.  It was always just doing the events, trying my hardest and hoping to be on the podium but not actually getting on the podium until I was a lot older.

SA:         And sadly lots of girls don’t really connect with sport. Did your school friends understand your love of athletics and sport at the time?

JE:           Not especially. I think it’s quite hard at that stage, I think, like you say, you’re going through so many changes.  You’re at school and you’re trying to make friends with everyone and you’re trying to be like everyone.  You’re trying to fit in in every way and at school I was obviously different from the start because I didn’t do everything else my friends were doing because I was training after school and I was competing at the weekend.  

So there was an element of missing out on things and also my friends saying, Oh, why don’t you come out this weekend?  Why don’t you do this?  Why don’t you join in?  And I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to and I wanted to do what all my friends were doing but I also wanted to do athletics and I wanted to train, I wanted to get better.  So I think it took a few years for my friends to kind of understand my commitment to athletics and also what it meant to me but also what it could potentially become.

SA:         Absolutely.  And you started work with a coach at just 13. And what kind of ambitions and goals were you setting so young at that stage?

JE:           I think my coach probably had lots of goals and hopes for me at that stage.  He was a very organised and structured coach so he would plan years ahead.  He was all about short-term plans and short-term  goals but also having  very much a long-term plan as to how he could get me through various stages of competitions, through from junior to senior and on to the world stage.  So he very much did have a plan at that stage. 

For me, it was just enjoyment, it was a hobby, it was something I loved doing so he was very, very clever in the way that he made it enjoyable for me at that stage and he taught me all the events within the heptathlon.  And then little by little he would introduce a new level of athletics to me so a new style of competition, a new ambition, a new goal that we could both focus on so it was very much a gradual process.

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SA:         That’s interesting isn’t it?  Because I think it’s such a long journey to achieve what you wanted to achieve and many young people now want things so instantly almost.  How did you maintain your patience over that time?  But as you say he kept introducing new elements to you.

JE:           Yeah, I think no that’s absolutely right and I would say before I had kids I was a very impatient person.  I think most sports people are.  They see something and they have a feeling, a desire, an aspiration of what they want to achieve and they almost want it instantly, like everyone in this world now, you order something on-line, it’s there later on that day.  You kind of want everything to happen straight away and it is a massive learning curve as an athlete that it is a journey and it’s how you get from A to B in the best way possible.  

It’s almost recognising and accepting that you don’t want to be at your absolute best when you’re a junior.  You don’t want to be peaking when you’re 15, you want to be at your best in your mid-20s or whenever that stage is right for you to peak within your sport.  And I think my coach is very good at explaining that to me.  He always made me understand that this was a long term process and however frustrating it might be, and there will be successes and failures along the way, it was a long-term journey and when we reached that end point, it would be so much sweeter than rushing for a process and not quite achieving our goals together.

SA:         That’s amazing that he had such foresight isn’t it to plan ahead?  Obviously, you stayed with him for your whole career which is very different to someone like Denise Lewis who felt it was important to change her coaches as her needs changed as an athlete. Why do you think that worked so well for you, staying with the same coach the whole time?

JE:           Yeah, I think it is very, very rare and you do have many athletes that go through different coaches because you get to certain points within your career where you feel that you’ve kind of had all you can have from your coach and learn from your coach and you need a new direction because you’re constantly changing.  I think, for me, I was so lucky that we, me and Tony grew as a team together. So at the beginning of my career, he would admit that he didn’t know everything about the heptathlon.  He had a long way to go and a lot to learn and we kind of went on that journey together. 

So whenever it felt that we had got to a stage where I might be really frustrated and think, Gosh does he actually know what he’s talking about with the long-jump? I’m not improving, what are we going to do?  He would look to the next level.  So he took me to the next level so he would speak to various different coaches.  He would go on a course, he would just constantly be trying to gain insight and further his himself as a coach, personally.

And in turn, that allowed me to keep growing and keep performing the way I needed to.  So it was very much a journey together where we both grew as an athlete and as a coach and it’s very, very rare, but he supported me from like a 13-year-old girl that no idea about the heptathlon and actually didn’t really enjoy it, to a 30-year-old woman that had won Olympic gold medal, world championship gold medals and everything else.  So it’s a fantastic journey that we’ve both been on.

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SA:         And you weren’t the typical build for a heptathlete, a young age.  So why do you think he had that vision I guess to know that you had that potential to succeed?

JE:           I’m not sure, to be honest.  I think when I started athletics I just ran around, I had no idea that I had any talent at all, I just enjoyed doing it and I think he said that he saw me run a few times and I think, as a coach, you just have that eye for an athlete and you know he was very impressed how springy I was, like my running style, which was very raw and I’d not learned any techniques or had any coaching before. So I think he saw something that was very raw and very natural and he knew that he could coach me in a way that could enhance that and improve my performance very much so over the next few years.

SA:         Reading your book, it’s clear that things weren’t always completely plain sailing with Chiell? Tony and a little bit of conflict there.  Do you think that’s a good thing to have that relationship with a coach in that way?

JE:           Yeah, I think so.  I don’t think I’ve ever met an athlete and coach relationship where it’s completely smooth all the time. You know it’s a stressful environment that you are both in you know? You’re trying to perform the best you can, you’re having setbacks, you’re having disappointments, you’re having to deal with injuries.  You’re having to learn how to communicate really well in really high pressured and intense situations and you’re also, for me and Tony, we were two very, very different  personalities and characters.

So I had to learn how he ticked, how his brain worked and what drives him and what frustrates him and how he feels he should communicate with me and vice versa.  He had to learn how I responded well in pressure situations, how I dealt with setbacks and the best way to communicate to me when I was turning up to training and not that motivated that day. It’s all these small dynamics that are so, so important between an athlete and a coach and it does take a long time to understand each other fully.  I’m not sure we still do after all these years! But it works so well and you know we manage to find a way to get the best out of both of us. 

SA:         I’ve always thought it must be so tough to master 7 events.  There’s always something that needs improving.  How did you personally cope with that challenge of trying to excel across all things?

JE:           It was definitely varied and it kind of keeps you on your toes. So, like you say, the hurdles might be going really well and you’re feeling really positive about that but the javelin is terrible and the long-jump is not right, so there’s always something that you have to focus on.  You’re never really in a state where everything’s gone well and you’re completely happy.  So there’s that element of variety, you are never bored, it’s not like doing an individual event where you go down to the track and it’s the same thing constantly.  It’s always different and I think that’s what I enjoyed the most about the heptathlon. 

SA:         Excellent.  And you studied psychology at university.  So you were training as an athlete, full time, and studying too.  So how did you manage to juggle – I’ve got 2 daughters going off to university at the moment – but how did you manage to juggle those things of training and studying too?

JE:           Yeah, it was difficult definitely.  It was hard in the respect that I think as the individual that I am I wanted to be the best I could be at both of them.  I wanted to put all my energy into my 

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studying in case athletics didn’t go the way I hoped but I also wanted to put all my energy into athletics and be the best I could be and start picking up medals.  So it was definitely a balancing act.  It was about being organised and structured in my days and making sure that I could fit everything in. But I was really glad that I went to Uni and I studied something away from sport.  It was nice to do psychology and it was something that really interested me at the time and still does. 

And it allowed me some separation to what I did on the track, so I could go there, I could focus solely on competing and training and then I could come home and almost switch off from that side of my life and direct my energy on to something completely different.  So, yeah, it was definitely a balancing act but something that I’m very proud that I did.  It’s something that was difficult at the time but definitely worth it.

SA:         And do you think what you learned on the course helped you as an athlete as well, in terms of what you studied?

JE:           Yeah, a lot of people do ask me that and I do think that there are elements that cross over. Psychology is human behaviour - it’s how we all react in our various day-to-day situations – so I do think it helped me. It helped me to understand the brain and how it works and how we react in certain situations and as years went by and I finished Uni and graduated and obviously carried on with my athletics. We use sport psychology as well to help us as a team, me and Tony to communicate and get the best out of our situations within competitions. But also just to understand how to perform at your best.  You can be physically incredible and the best athlete out there but mentally you have to have that component as well and it was understanding how that worked for me on the track as well.

SA:         I was going to ask actually in terms of your understanding and the sport psychology how that impacted you when you got injured ahead of Beijing, that must have been so devastating for you on that kind of pathway to success at the time. 

JE:           Yeah it was absolutely the biggest blow of my career at that stage and I’d kind of been blissfully floating through my career to that point where I was still very young and naïve to injury and just kind of improving every year and doing what I did and it was relatively easy at that stage. Until that moment when I picked up 3 stress factors in my right foot and everything just stopped you know.  I had the worry that I was going to miss maybe a week or two weeks off training and then I was told that it was months. I was going to miss the Olympics and it was a career threatening injury and there was hope that I would get back to my best, but it wasn’t guaranteed. 

So it was just an absolute blow to me and my whole team and I do think psychology and things that I learned during my degree and more than anything, the people around me, the support that I had from my family and my boyfriend, my team at the track, they all believed in me and they all had that passion to help me succeed and to bring me back to where I was. And without having those people around me I probably would have just, I don’t know, slumped into a bit of a depression really because you feel that everything has really kind of crumbled down around you and I hadn’t even really started my career and I was faced with the fact that it might end at that stage yeah. 

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It was hard and there was lots of moments of, Why has this happened to me? It’s not fair, and then moments of, Right, okay I’m getting myself back.  I’m going to train, I’m going to do all upper body work so that I’m really strong in my upper body and that will help my throws and then I’ll focus on my lower body when I can and when my injury is right.  So, yeah, it was a very, very challenging time.

SA:         Do you think you’d have had the success you’d had if you hadn’t had that injury in 2008?

JE:           No, I honestly don’t think so.  I think, at the time, I would say to myself, Okay, I will look back at this time in a few years and think, Right, this happened for a reason.  This was part of my journey, my long-term plan.  But obviously at the time when you’re injured and you can’t do anything it’s vey hard to see that reason why it might have happened.  But I honestly think that that was part of my journey and it kind of made me just stop and think, you know what?  I am going to pick up injuries.  I have to be sensible about the way I train.  Rest is a massive part of being an athlete and it also gave me perspective and made me understand, firstly what I’d achieved to that point, but also how important it was to me and how I wanted to keep improving and I hadn’t by any means reached my destination.  So it definitely fuelled me.  It just gave me that motivation to want to be even better and come back even stronger.

SA:         And you did! So moving on to 2012 and you were quite literally the poster girl for London 2012. So how did that feel at the time to be that high-profile around the Games?

JE:           Very bizarre, it was so strange because it was my first Olympics, so I’d had no previous experience of an Olympic environment.  I had done world championships and Europeans, but an Olympics is very, very different. And then it was a home Olympics and it wasn’t just attracting those sports fans from around the world, it was attracting everyone.  So friends and family who perhaps weren’t that into athletics or sport, everybody knew about it.  Everybody knew the Olympics was happening.

And then kind of out of nowhere, there was no kind of sit down, you’re going to be the face of the Olympics!  It was just a really strange process that just kind of evolved and I look back now and I think, gosh, what an opportunity.  What an amazing, unique position I was in. It was a lot of pressure and it was very stressful but an incredible opportunity and to be able to deliver the way I did and have those great memories.  I couldn’t have asked for more really.

SA:         I loved the story of you not being able to go into the fish and chips shop because of that massive ? poster!

JE:           I know, God! I’d forgotten all those memories!  It was so bizarre because there were huge posters like that all around my local area and massive ad campaigns just everywhere.  And it was the strangest feeling, but it was kind of like, I just had to remain normal and just very focused and just kind of laugh it off to the side.  Oh there I am again on another big poster and just keep really focused with my team and just go to the track and do the same training sessions and get ready in the same way that I’d prepared for any other competition and just keep really, really focused.  But it was hard, it was definitely hard.

SA:         Did you ever wish you could compete with less profile?  Just to be like Greg Rutherford, for instance, who wasn’t really on our radar until Super Saturday and winning gold there.  Was that ever a desire for you?

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JE:           I didn’t really envision what it was going to be like anyway and I’d never experienced an Olympics. I’d never been part of an Olympics and I’d never been the face of Olympics, so I had no idea, I was kind of naively going into it.  And actually I suppose I am the kind of athlete that I love performing in front of a massive stadium with all the crowd there.  Everybody is cheering your name. I love that adrenalin of competing and so for me I was quietly confident.  I was doing the sessions that I needed to.  I knew I was fit, I knew I was strong, I was injury free and of course a million things can go wrong within the heptathlon but I was just chipping away quietly and doing what I always did.

So yeah, it was strange but I suppose looking back now I’m just very grateful I had that opportunity because not many athletes get to experience a home Olympics for one, but a home Olympics the way I did.  So yeah, I don’t think I would change anything, definitely not.

SA:         Let’s talk about London and that incredible two days.  Can you remember what it felt like when you walked out onto the track on that Friday morning in London?

JE:           Yeah, I mean that sticks with me forever. I remember waking up early that morning because we had to have breakfast and get down to the track and start warming up really early and I just remember feeling so nervous, I just couldn’t really eat my breakfast and the team were there around me.  We all go down for breakfast together and everyone is just having really light conversations and joking around and trying to keep me happy and making me laugh.  But I was just so nervous because you’re at that stage where you’ve done all you can do, you’ve done all your training,  you’re not injury free, you’re ready to go, you just want to begin, you want to start the event. 

And I remember warming up on the track and just actually feeling really good.  Feeling nervous but feeling quite fast over the hurdles. I remember doing some drills and thinking, gosh these hurdles are coming up on me really quick, and it felt strange and I was like, Is this a good thing?  Is this a bad thing, I don’t know? And then obviously when I stepped out on to the track it was glorious sunshine and the crowd was all there.  There wasn’t an empty seat.  I’d never stepped out for the hurdles with a crowd that amazing.  And it was just that feeling.  I was in the best shape of my life, I had no injuries, I was just ready to go and having that crowd and that adrenalin just gave me that absolute boost that I needed just to run that time that I did.

SA:         It’s an incredible time, isn’t it? So the fastest time ever in a heptathlon, I think a British record you set that day as well.  When you had finished that race, did you then feel that you were on for gold? Do you get a point in the series when you actually think that you really were in a good position?

JE:           I try not to allow myself to go there and think too much about medals.  I just very much focus on a process.  It’s a process of getting through every event and ticking them off and having solid performances and gauging roughly where you are but not thinking about that gold medal or a medal.  But I knew when I crossed the line and I saw the time, I was literally in shock.  Those pictures of my hands in the air like, What’s just happened? It was insane! To run that time, the fastest time I’d ever run in my life and to run it there for the first event of the Olympics in the heptathlon, you know, I could not have asked for more.  So I knew I’d set myself up really well.  I just had to keep that momentum, keep that energy and that positivity and roll that into the next 6 events.

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SA:         Excellent, and you did have a fantastic first day.  So how did it feel overnight between those two days? Do you sleep?  Are you able to sleep when you go back between those two days? 

JE:           Oh it’s so hard because you, I think maybe the 200, is maybe 8 or 9 o’clock in the evening, so by the time you’ve warmed down, you’ve had your recovery strategy put in place, you’ve iced, you’ve eaten, you’re getting into bed round about midnight so it’s a late finish to the day and obviously you’re physically exhausted.  Mentally and leaving I  was just buzzing, I was just thinking, Gosh this is so exciting, I’ve done one day. What’s going to happen tomorrow?  And then also at the back of your mind you’re thinking, Gosh I need to sleep, I really need to get some sleep because it’s the biggest day of my life tomorrow. So yeah, I remember feeling very tired but very kind of - you’re wired - you’re twitching because you’re just full of adrenalin of what’s just happened on that first day.

SA:         And are there any events from London that you’re most proud of, of the seven, when you look back?

JE:           I’m extremely proud of my hurdles because the hurdles is an event that I love and I enjoy it so much and to be able to produce that time on that day really just blew me away. And I think the other event would be the long jump, because the long-jump had been an event that I kind of struggled with throughout the whole of my career.  I always had great spring for the high jump and great speed, but I was never able to get those two to get to work together in the long jump.  So to carry that speed into the take off and have a really long jump. And it was an event that was not going right for me in the lead up to the Olympics, it was just, I just couldn’t get it right and I remember going to the training camp we had in Portugal and I just couldn’t get on the board.  

I couldn’t take off properly, my runway was constantly changing.  I felt that it was kind of out of my control and I couldn’t get it right. And I remember having like a crisis, well my coach had a crisis team meeting about my long jump before we headed in to London, just thinking what’s going on,  what we going to do? And actually, thankfully, on that day I managed to get it right and I jumped 648 and I knew at that moment that that was what I needed.  The javelin was going well, the 800 was going well, I knew I could do those two events but the long jump was always an event that I was unsure about and when I jumped that jump it was like, Oh! I remember seeing pictures of me fist-pumping the air, like! The long jump was a really big event for me.

SA:         And then the moment when you won gold, you talk about pictures of you, but there’s that amazing image of you with your arms wide open as you finish the 800 metres. If you take yourself back there, can you remember what you were feeling at that time as you crossed the line?

JE:           Yeah it was pure relief.  It was relief, it was that kind of I almost felt that I was just holding my breath through the two days and I was just like really tense thinking, Okay, I’ve got to do this, this is going well but I’ve got the next event and I was so aware that things can go wrong just in an instant - three no jumps in the long jump or bad throw in the shot putt. So when I did that last event and I remember just overtaking the girls on the last bend.

I am not normally someone that celebrates and overtly shows my emotion, I normally hold it inside and then behind closed doors just go crazy! But in that moment I just felt I had no control over my body.  It was just relief so I just flung my arms up just in pure excitement and relief that I’d actually, I’d done it.  I’d crossed the line.  I’d finished those two days of competition and I’d come out on top.

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SA:         And did it take a while for it to sink in what you’d achieved after all those years?

JE:           Yeah, I just couldn’t believe it – I went through the mic zone and did all my interviews and I just remember an official came up to me and he just wanted to come up and say, Congratulations.  And I thought he was coming to tell me I’d been disqualified! I just could not believe that it actually happened!  You work for the whole of your career and I always had that dream that I would become an Olympian and that I could win an Olympic medal but never ever in that fashion in that way. 

And it’s just so surreal seeing your family there in the crowd and actually having that medal round your neck and knowing that it’s all real and it’s all happened and it does take a long time to sink in because you’ve never allowed – or I never allowed myself to think of that moment – to really imagine that moment of doing it and achieving it. So it was just bizarre, just really, really bizarre but incredible.

SA:         And what is the biggest way that fame has changed your life since then or from that moment?  How do you think that’s changed and impacted you?

JE:           Again I didn’t think about what was going to happen after. I didn’t think about the interviews and the things and the people would want me to do and the opportunities I would have.  I just didn’t allow myself to think about it because I felt that I would jinx myself.  So when those things started to happen and I had opportunities to work with different brands and do add campaigns and do all these incredible things and meet these incredible people, yeah, it was just so new and it felt so different. 

So I think, yeah, I suppose the biggest thing that changes that people, everybody knew who I was.  I’d been doing athletics my whole career and I’d won world titles before that point but I was still very much known within a sporting community and an athletic community.  So winning the Olympics kind of just took me out to a whole new audience of people to everybody and everyone would come up to me and wish me well and be whispering my name and saying, Hi. And yeah I think that was the biggest change.  Just going anywhere and everybody knowing who you are and what you’d achieved and wanting to share their Super Saturday moments with you!

SA:         I won’t do that! And did you always know you would carry on competing after London?  What drove you to keep doing that when actually you’d achieved the ultimate goal?

JE:           Yeah, I mean in that moment, I remember doing interviews after that 800-metre final and someone saying, Oh will you do Rio, Rio Olympics?  And I was like, Gosh, I can’t even think about preparing for another Olympics now, I need to enjoy this moment! So I was very much wanted to soak up that moment and enjoy what we’d achieved as a team. And yeah, I suppose I just never felt that my career was finished at that point.  I knew it would be hard getting back into training and finding a new sense of motivation, but I didn’t feel that I wanted to stop.  I wanted to carry on going just that little bit longer.

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SA:         And so you did start training and then you fell pregnant with Reggie.  Did you think about stopping then?  Was it tempting then to say, now is the time to stop?

JE:           No, when I fell pregnant with Reggie, I definitely didn’t have that feeling of, this is the end of my career.  I thought, this is amazing in the new sense of what was to happen, and I felt really like a new sense of motivation.  So I felt that, gosh my body’s going to change so much.  I’m going to come back as a slightly different athlete.  I’m going to have new challenges and I’m going to have my gorgeous baby boy to be part of this final journey of my career.

So there was never a moment that I felt, oh gosh, no, I don’t want to do this.  I wanted to keep going, I wanted to have two more years. So that whole lead up to when Reggie was born, I was very much focused on coming back and finishing those last two years going into a final Olympics.

SA:         And how different did it feel then coming back and competing as a mother? Did you feel there was less pressure to perform because you now had a baby?

JE:           So when I actually came back to training, I obviously was a mum for the first time and I had all these ideas before Reggie arrived. I was thinking, I’ll be into the track and it’ll be fine.  I’ll just have a few weeks off but then I’ll be back to where I was.  I’ll be sprinting the same.  I’ll be the same athlete. Actually that is not the case and I was very naïve to think that and I think most new mums are . You don’t know how your life is going to change physically and mentally and I remember coming down to the track and just being so tired. Feeding all through the night, not having any sleep.  And then coming down, trying to train, and trying to do hill sprints with the rest of the group at the back of the group.  And I just lost all my speed.

I had no kind of like next gear that I always had as an athlete before.  And I remember thinking in those moments, what am I doing?  I am Olympic gold medallist from London.  I’ve achieved so much. Why am I putting this unnecessary stress on me physically and mentally? Why am I doing it? And I think in those moments they were really important moments to me because it made me just stop and think.  Yeah, am I doing this for the right reason?  What am I wanting to achieve?  What are the sacrifices?

And for me, it was coming back to finish my career, to show Reggie what mummy can achieve and that he’s there, he’s a part of it, he’s watching me and that was a huge motivation for me.  And I wanted to do it right.  I wanted to make sure that those last few years of my career really went well and that I didn’t come away thinking, why didn’t I just give it a go? He gave me such a huge amount of motivation to carry on and to get back to where I wanted to be.  

SA:         And you did that didn’t you?  So you came back and you won that extraordinary gold at the Beijing World Championships.  It was so emotional to watch - we watched it again before talking to you now - so how did that win compare to winning in London?

JE:           They’re so very, very different and also I felt with London it was just me.  It was just selfish performances of making sure that I had everything I needed and that I was where I needed to be and it was a relatively smooth journey into the London Olympics.  You know, I was at the peak of my career, I was in the best shape possible, I was ready to go.

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                And then with the Beijing World Championships after having Reggie it was completely different you know.  I’d had my son, everything changed.  I felt like a completely different person and I started picking up injuries, everything was a kind of a bit of a battle.  It was such a journey to get to that point and I never imagined that I would be ready to do a World Championships the following year after having him and I never imagined that I would win it. 

So it just, standing on the podium in that moment meant so much to me because I had to firstly leave Reggie for just over two weeks to go to the other side of the world, and that absolutely broke my heart.  Like it was the hardest thing I ever did, and I had to keep telling myself I’m doing this to show him what his mummy can achieve and if I’m doing it, I’m doing it properly.  I’m not going there and coming fourth or fifth.  I want to do my absolute best and bring home a medal for him.

And so that championship was, it meant so much to me and also the fact that I missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the ? [0:32:28] and didn’t have that opportunity to perform there. Actually getting into that stadium and performing the way I did, it felt like I’d gone full circle and managed to kind of put those demons to bed and yeah, it was just one of my proudest moments definitely.

SA:         And then on to Rio.  So silver in Rio.  At what point did you know then it was time to stop?  Had you made that decision before you went into Rio?

JE:           Yeah, I think I had made it before and I know my coach is very keen.  He wanted me to keep going.  He wanted me to do another year ‘cos we had the London World Championships in London.  He was like, You can do it, you can do it!  And although I felt that physically I could probably carry on performing for another year after the Rio Olympics, I just didn’t have that drive and that motivation to want to do it. To go through all the training again and the sacrifices and I think in my mind I’d focused on the Rio Olympics.  I’d focused on a relatively short-term goal and yeah, I think for me at that point, it was about getting there, performing and I just felt exhausted after the Rio Olympics. 

I felt really mentally fatigued from the competition itself but just generally the highs and lows of that year and I wanted to just stop and just move to the next phase of my life enjoying my children and doing different things and it felt like the right time for me to do that.

SA:         My brother Tim actually was a decathlete and I’ve always been a bit jealous of that lovely camaraderie the multi-sport athletes have over these two days which you never had - I was a 400 hurdler – and you never got that in my event.  But did you miss that being part of a team when you stopped competing and all of your support team that were around you too?

JE:           Yeah, I think that’s the one thing I absolutely miss.  I miss the adrenalin of competing, that feeling of when you stand on the start line and you’re ready to go.  I miss that.  Those nerves and that adrenalin. But more than anything I miss my team.  I miss the people that I’ve spent the majority of my life with yeah, every day in a really intense environment.  My soft tissue therapist Derry, my physio Ali Rose and Tony Minichiello my coach and Bricey, I miss my mechanics and just having those people supporting you on that journey and sacrificing so much for you as well.  They were extremely passionate about helping me to achieve my dreams and not seeing them every day is really strange and that’s definitely a part that I miss a lot.

SA:         And was it wonderful to see at the end of your career Katarina Johnson-Thompson coming through and the beginning of her pathway.

JE:           Yeah, I think that’s been the most incredible thing about the event that I was part of. I always aspired to be like Denise Lewis and I saw her performing.  I was so excited by the way she performed and what she achieved and I wanted to emulate her and now I see Katarina coming through and Niamh Emerson and it just seems like there’s this constant tradition of not just average heptathletes, I mean, these are the most incredible heptathletes in the world that are from Great Britain.  Constantly performing and picking up medals and it’s just nice to know that that tradition is continuing and that it will go on for many, many years.  It’s really exciting to see.

SA:         And when you no longer have that rigorous schedule in terms of that  training every day, was there a sense of loss or did you actually embrace the freedom that it brought you of not being there to train?

JE:           Oh freedom yeah, definitely freedom! I think when you’ve trained like that for so many years and everything has been – I’m a very structured person anyway so I still take that structure to the rest of my life – but training every day, twice a day, not having weekends because you’re competing or you’re training.  Not having bank holidays and all the social elements that you miss out on. Actually it was just really nice to just stop and think, gosh, I don’t have any running sessions to have on Monday, I don’t have hills on Sunday morning, I can have a lie in.  Well not really with a toddler but I can have a lazy morning, not have to push myself physically.

So I definitely had a few, I think I had maybe two months where I didn’t run, I didn’t do any form of exercise, I didn’t see a track, I just didn’t want to do anything.  But then very slowly that habit, that routine creeps back into you and I started doing my circuits again. I ironically started running hill sessions again by myself. I’d go out on lots of runs and it’s within me, it’s who I am. I love exercising.  I love being active.  It’s just nice to do it in a kind of a non-pressured environment now.  I can exercise the way I want …

SA:         On your terms.

JE:           Yeah on my terms and enjoy it in a completely different way, so that’s really nice.

SA:         And you’ve now got two lovely young children and you’re an ambassador for lots of fantastic brands and you’ve got your fitness App and company Jennis, and you’ve work with lots of charities, so how do you fit all that in?  What does the week look like for you on a regular basis?

JE:           Crazy, absolutely crazy. Yeah weeks are different.  It’s nice because I have a balance of obviously my two amazing children who I get to spend loads of time with.  I get to do all the school runs, the nursery runs and swimming and tennis and the various things we do which I absolutely love and embrace. And then on the other side, I get to work with sone amazing people and amazing brands and charities like you say, to share my experience of being active in sport with as many people as possible and encourage as many people to be active and take the benefits of exercise and use it for a way that works well for them.  So yeah it’s nice to have a balance in life  but life is still very busy which is good.

SA:         I did realise that.  It took a long time to get a hold of you to do this interview, a very busy life! And how are things progressing with Jennis fitness and the App?

JE:           Yeah, it’s really exciting so we’ve had, obviously we’ve all been in a very strange situation where we’ve been confined to our homes a bit more so we’ve been able to do a lot within the App during lockdown just regenerating ideas and redeveloping part of the App which is exciting. And yeah, there’s lots to come in the next few months where we’re focusing on supporting as many women as we can to be active during all those phases in their lives. 

Whether it’s pregnancy, post-natal, right the way up to menopause and just helping as many women to understand their body so that they can train smarter and exercise in the right way and know when to push themselves but also know when to rest and to recover and yeah, hopefully provide some guidance and help to get women as active as they possibly can be.

SA:         Exciting things to look out for in the months ahead there too.  There’s a lovely story of Laviai Nielsen the young athlete that was a Games maker (?) that carried out your kit at London 2012 and went on then to win silver at the World Championships in the same stadium and the same sport.  What a lovely story of the power of role models and sport too, so what message would you give to a young athletes starting out on that pathway now in their careers in sport?

JE:           I would say that you are in an absolutely fantastic stage of your life and I think you’re right, I think role models are so important.  We’ve all had role models.  I have, Katarina has, various athletes, they all have someone that they look  up to that they either like the way they conduct themselves on the track or just are incredibly blown away by their performances.  

And I think having young women or men to look up to, to really feel inspired is such a big part of keeping that success line going through sport and Laviai, what an amazing story.  I was there in the thick of my career, very nervous, very excited and she was just starting her career.  So for her to have an opportunity to be in the stadium and experience that, and it just gives you that adrenalin and that buzz of what it could be.  You could be there standing there performing, ready to compete and yeah, I’m just blown away by her performances anyway.  She has done incredible and yeah, very proud of what she’s achieved. 

And I think as many role models that we can create to keep inspiring young people just to go out there and try a sport or put themselves in an environment that they’re not quite used to and you just don’t know what you’re going to achieve.  You don’t know where your talent lies, and you don’t know what the future holds for you. So yeah, I’d say to any young individuals that are starting out in their career, enjoy what you do, be passionate,  be committed and you really don’t know where it will take you, it could take you somewhere incredible.

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