From Cheering to Competing - Triple Jump, Breaking Records and Backing Yourself at 48 with Emily Murray

She Thought She'd Peaked at 16. Then She Broke a National Record at 48.

Most of us quietly accept that our best athletic years are behind us. Emily accepted it too for about thirty years. Then she didn't.

Emily came to triple jump the way nobody comes to triple jump as a 46-year-old with zero experience, a decades-old gymnastics background, and a competitive streak she'd been accidentally unleashing on the wrong areas of her life. Within two years she'd broken the Scottish national record and competed at European Championships.

But this conversation goes deeper than athletics.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why masters athletics might be the best kept secret in midlife fitness
• Why sprinting, not marathons could be the most powerful thing women over 40 can do for their bodies
• How to find a coach who knows the difference between pushing an older athlete and breaking one
• What really happens when you stop being the supporter of everyone else's ambitions and start pursuing your own
• Why the guilt of going after something for yourself is worth pushing through

We also get into what it does to a teenage boy when his mum walks out onto a world class stage and competes. And the question that sits underneath all of it, what are we actually capable of, and have we ever really tested it?

If you've ever suspected there's a version of yourself you haven't met yet, this episode is for you.

Connect with Emily: @pinkhouseliving 

Follow us on Instagram: @unshrinkablemidlifemoves 

The Grit and Grace Games — 12th September 2026, Crystal Palace, London. www.gritandgracegames.com

Transcript

0:00

Hi Emily, lovely to see you today. How are you? I'm really well. Lovely to see you too. So you are going to talk to us about your experience as a national record holder, triple jumper, and lots of other stuff around your movement journey. So before we get started today, tell us a bit about yourself. So I'm Emily, I'm 48 and I live in London. I've got two kids, got a husband, and I've been running my business, The Pink House, which is digital content creation, for 10 years now. I'm writing a novel, and I used to be a magazine journalist and editor, and used to work in advertising, and I used to live in Edinburgh, which is where I was born and where I grew up and went to school. And then, of course, there's all the sports stuff. So tell us about your movement journey up until now. What have you done historically? And tell us about how you got into long jump triple jumping. Triple jump and long jump. I was always a really active kid, climbing trees and jumping on walls and all that stuff. And my parents, especially my mum, has always been really supportive of anything that I've shown an interest in. And she could see how much I loved running and jumping and cartwheeling. So she signed me up for a gymnastics club and I loved it. From the age of five till I gave up competitive gymnastics when I was about 16, 17. I competed at a national level. I was in the Scottish squad because that's where I was living at the time. So gymnastics was huge. I was training nearly every day throughout most of my childhood. Um weekends were Scottish squad training, British zone squad. I would go there, age sort of 13 by myself on the train every month to train there and the competitions. The highlight was I was third in the Scottish junior championships, which was pretty cool. Once I'd given up gymnastics, I was age sort of 16 and I felt completely lost. So I felt like I was already too old. I I'd reached my sporting peak. Because I mean it was crazy. Gymnastics back then, particularly, you had to be really tiny. I got too tall, I'm five foot five, but I was much too tall in that day and age. So if you were over five foot, you were a serious disadvantage. And puberty had hit, and I was told that it would be a good idea for me to cut down on eating certain foods, and they would do the fat caliper stuff at squads. But I just remember thinking, my body's saying, no, this sport now, that's the end of it for you. And it's interesting because looking at it now from the perspective of having taken up athletics in late life, why? Because I'd always really loved running. As a gymnast, I was surprisingly fast. I remember at a squad training session, I think it was a trial, you had to sprint along the runway and into the foam pit, and they timed you. And I remember they made me do it again because they thought they'd got it rolled because I was so fast. So I always knew that I would have, and I raced the boys at school. I just loved to run. When I gave up gymnastics, it's funny. I think I thought my time had gone. I was too old for that sort of thing. Like I should have done it earlier. So I felt like I never got a chance to be an athlete. And so I did a lot of dance, I tried springboard diving, and then I went to university and I started rowing because it was Cambridge and it was like a social thing, but they had an amazing facility. The river was so beautiful, and I just wanted to be part of the thing that felt like the most fun. So I started to train a lot of cardio, I started to lift weights a bit and trained so that when I started at university and my college, that I was fit and ready. And so it took one term of being a novice, and then I made it into the first boat. And that was so cool because it was just such an amazing thing to be part of a team because I'd never done a team sport before. I did a little bit of football when I was at university as well, but I'm terrible at football. It's such a shame. Anyway, rowing was great. I rowed for most of my three years at university, and it gave so much to me. Our boat was the most successful women's boat in my college's history. We won these like blades that I've got up my wall because there was a thing called the bumps where you have to like try and bump, literally hit the boat in front of you when you're rowing. So that was just amazing. And I actually did gymnastics when I was at university as well for Cambridge because it was an easy win. You get blue and half blue colours, and you get to go and try and beat Oxford, and we did beacon Oxford, so that was cool. But yeah, sport was like a backdrop to my whole university. And then when I left university, you know, you go to the world of work and it's time pressured and you have to get up early and you know, all that stuff. We did military fitness, it was quite a popular thing in the parks around London, and I would cycle to work. I lived in Islington and I worked in Hammersmith. So I'm cycling from Islington to Hammersmith like up to an hour, 45 minutes, and then I'd cycle back and via the park where I'd do a military fitness session and back home again. And then I did quite a lot of running, like I would just go for runs a lot. And I did a marathon when I was in my early 20s. So I did some decent training, but on the day, if I was thinking about it now, I'm thinking that was the ignorance of youth. I had a bowl of cereal, literally. I think it was special pay. Well, I think it was 23. And the train broke down on the way to the marathon. We had to get a taxi. So when we arrived, I think I'd thought, oh, I'll eat something else when we get to it, because it was in Stratford upon Avon because I couldn't get a place in the London Marathon. And what I just did was like, oh, when's the nearest marathon to the London Marathon? It was like a week later. I didn't know it was a hilly course. I didn't know how to get there. I was just like, I'll just do that one. It was called the Shakespeare Marathon as well. And I studied English literature. So I was like, oh, that's that's fitting. But anyway, so we we got there. I think we had hardly any time before the marathon started. So I didn't eat anything else. I didn't put any gels. I was just standing there in my I'd done a lot of running beforehand. But anyway, off I ran. At the half marathon stage, I must have done it in, I think it was like an hour 40. I was feeling amazing. Like if I'd stopped then, I could have gone and done whatever. I was fine. I was flying along, I was feeling great. And then I'm going to check you my watch at about 18, 19 miles. And looking at how fast I'd done the previous mile. And I'm like, oh, my watch is broken. Something's gone wrong. Because it was like the previous mile had been the whole couple of minutes slower than the one before. And it was run out of fuel. My body had just run out of fuel. There was nothing left. And because this was like this funny little Shakespeare marathon, there were no people handing out energy trains or anything. There was no one cheering on the streets. It was just an empty road. And occasionally there would be someone with some water. But my body just ground to a halt. And by mile 20, 21, it was like treacle. And I had to walk around, walk hobble, because then my IT band started flaring up. But I finished it in three hours and 57 minutes, which is quite funny because, of course, it was a sub-four hour marathon. And I feel like for my own ego, if it had been more than four hours, I would have had to do another one. But as it was, even though I should have been running it in about three and a half hours, or 345 would have been a good time, I guess. I was just like, that was hideous. I'm done. I did my sub-four hour mouths. I've never I'm not doing it again. And then I just did a lot of running, Ed K's, 10Ks, stuff like that. And then I'm trying to think if there's anything else between. I did a bit of cross country. But I hate cross country. And then I had kids, that's right, and children. And that was kind of like I just tried to maintain some form of fitness. And I would do like mum's boot camp and stuff like that. But then once I feel like coming out of having had my second child, and now I is definitely not going to be any more kids. Watching my children enjoy sport, and especially my youngest, who's very, very competitive, watching him start to do athletics three years ago or so. And I was down in the track with him, watching him long jump. He's a hurdler mainly, that's what he loves most. But I was watching him doing the long jump. And I was so aware of how he could have done it better. I suppose it was partly because the dynamics of like a vault, like a gymnastics vault. You run up the runway and you take off how to convert forward momentum to upward momentum. And I just started to think like I shouldn't be telling my son what to do. That's not my job. It's not great for the dynamic between us. Because we've been there, done that with academy football. And it is best that I stay back because my competitive instinct is not required in that domain. And I feel very strongly actually on this that kids, all kids need from their parents, however lofty their sporting ambitions, all they need from their parents is them to be their biggest cheerleader and give them a snack and tell them they're great, not to criticize, not to try and coach. And I could feel that that was potentially where I was going to go with this. And I told myself, well, why, if you know how to do it, why do you better go? And the idea sort of percolated, and then high jump, I was watching, and I was like, I'd like to get a bounce high because I can still do a backflip now. And I'm like, Women in their mid-40s can still do a backflip. Someone had told me about master's athletics, and I think this was the switch that flicked it for me, was realizing that there was this thing where you weren't just trying to get a medal for participation, like in our marathon, you could try and win gold because you were competing in a five-year age category. And I'm like, wait a minute. So there is a world in which I can see how far I can jump. And I'm only going to be compared to other women aged between 45 and 49. And if I'm can jump the furthest, I win a gold medal. And I was just like, oh my God, show me how to do this. Like, give me the training. So I signed up to my local athletics club, Kent AC, which is the same club that my son is at. And I was pointed in the direction of a sprint coach called Juno, who is brilliant. He's been around forever. Everyone knows him. He knows everything about sprinting. And I just was like, right, I'm here because I want to win the British Masters Championships. I want to be the best long jumper, the best high jumper. That was what I thought, high jump, long jump. And then off I started. And that was like two, two and a half years ago. And it was my whole introduction to the world of what it is to train for a track of field. And it was so fascinating. Because even just like the drills, I'd be trying to point my toes and do it all pretty. And it took me quite a long time to realize that there was quite a lot. Although there were things in common with gymnastics where you're trying to, you know, create force and momentum and all this stuff. So much of it is to do with the flexion of the foot and the banging down. And it doesn't matter what it looks like. It matters what you produce. And that was at first a bit confusing and then increasingly liberating. My cast would be burning like I couldn't do all this stuff on your toes. I'd be like, oh my God, my butt. I felt like weirdly kind of weak, even though I'd done so much yoga. That was the thing that I'd be doing. It's a different kind of power, isn't it? And you say you think that it's transferable and it isn't. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I was like, oh but I'm a runner and I would do these sprint sessions. And although I had good salmon, they would be struggling a bit with the reps. They'd be like, and I would be more like, oh yeah, I can keep going because I just was used to that. I was learning like it didn't really matter. I was still going out for these like 5K runs a couple of times a week, whatever. And my coach was like, Why are you wasting your energy? And I'm like, Well, but it's not what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to go out and run. And slowly my mentality shifted to this sort of short, sharp, powerful, explosive. I still go to the gym properly, learning how to use free weights, probably standing there with it on your back. Like, I've never done that in my life before. So it's just changed the way that I feel about my body, about the power that I can generate, and what I'm capable of. And I feel so excited because I'm new to the sport, within Maths's Athletics, that's very rare for people who tend to be winning things because they'd done it when they were younger, or they've continued it on and off. Maybe they've had kids and stopped for a bit, but they generally know what they're doing. Whereas I'm completely new, but I'm watching myself improve at a rate like this. And my PB is a genuine PB. I have never jumped that far in my life before or jumped that high. And then about a year or so ago, I decided to try a triple jump. And that was the moment where I suddenly was like, I think this is the thing that I might be best at. Because it combined the gymnastic and rebound abilities in a way that the other jumps maybe didn't quite the same way. And I just really liked the feel of it, like being a skimming stone. And yeah, I just won my very first national, it was an inter-area competition. I was representing Southeast, I think it was, and in the 35 to 39 category. So I was like right at the top of the age category representing the region. And I beat everybody. So I was like, okay, I think I've found something that I'm really good at. And then since then I've done a couple of internationals. I went to the European Outdoor Championships in Madeira, that was in October. And I came fourth in the triple jump there. And that's when I broke the Scottish record. It was crazy. I was like, how I couldn't believe it. So I jumped 997, agonizingly close to 10 meters, but 997. And I remember when they read out, and my coach Joe was there as well. And we were all like, oh woman, let's see what it is. And they said 997. We're all like, no, I'm so excited. And for a short while I was actually third, and I was just like, this is insane. I've literally done probably about 20 triple jumps in my whole life. But it gave me such a hunger for it. And then I went to uh the indoor championships in Poland a month or so ago, a couple of months ago, but my training hadn't gone as well. And my Achilles had been a problem, so I hadn't had a proper training block. And I jumped nearly as far, 993. I came fourth again, which was really frustrating. But I did get a long job PB, so that felt good. And I felt like I'd done what I could with what I had available to me. And this is another thing is learning about how to compete again and being competitive at this age. And then coming in, doing something completely different, like you, I had excelled and done really well. I haven't told people, but as in karate, I have a black belt and I used to compete and was a national champion. And you just think as you get older, and I went into higher ups, I knew I wasn't going to necessarily win anything, but you just feel like it's going to be transferable and everything's going to work in a very similar way. But my competitive element had gone to sleep. My competitive side, the kids had never seen it. Your kids think. I don't think my competitive side had left in the sense that it was leaking. Like I was saying something to parts of my life that it shouldn't have been in. So I think I knew all too well how competitive I was, but it was in the role way. So for them to see me channel it, I think has been really great for all of us because I have been able to unleash it and for them to be able to see what you can do if you want something, but in a way that felt healthy, and that they can also see they've seen me try and fail. They've seen me try and succeed, and they've seen how I deal with each of those things. And it's meant that when I'm trying to help them with moments in their lives, sport or otherwise, where things haven't gone so well, when they've tried to achieve something, that it's more authentic when I say what I say because it is more authentic. I'm genuinely thinking about something that's happened to me in the last month in terms of trying and feeling. But also they know that I'm not just saying random stuff as a mum might say. It's something that they have seen me go through. I have two boys, two teenage boys and husbands. So I live in a family of males, and I think it's really important for them to see a woman being fiercely competitive, wanting to make things happen, getting strong. They watch me doing weights in the house. They watch me talk about the goals that I have, and they see me show up to training sessions over and over again. I've even raced my son on a couple of occasions, he just beats me. But my long jump PB is one centimetre better than his still. But yeah, it's great in so many ways. In fact, there's no downside to it in that sense. And I think, as you were just saying, in terms of them seeing what you're going through and you yourself, it's really important for our boy children, men, to see that. But it's interesting how to navigate it because your children are a bit younger. How are they finding it? I think that's a really interesting dynamic that actually you can compete and do exactly the same things as you are, but maintain a really interesting and constructive dynamic. That is a it's such an interesting one. And I'm often trying to work out whether or not well, you know, when the kids are little, you're like, oh, I'm not gonna beat them like snakes and ladders because they cry, right? And now I'm at a very interesting juncture, different with both of my boys. So with my 13-year-old, who is the athlete, the one who's really into athletics, or they're both very sporty, but specifically athletic. I don't want to be directly in competition with him, as in a sort of joke about my relative long-term PB to his. And I thought about this and I thought maybe I should stop even saying anything about that, ever making a comparison. But then I thought they both go to boys' schools as well. I thought it's important that they can see a 48-year-old woman who can jump further than they can, and for them to see that and to be used and to think, no, I can be beaten by a woman and it doesn't make me less of a man. And I thought, you know what, he's a lovely kid, like 13-year-old, and he can be sometimes quite anxious and quite hard on himself. But I thought the benefits of him going, yeah, yeah, my mum can jump further than me, and then going, you know what, that's so cool. I'm so proud of her, rather than the other way around. And I feel like similarly, I'd delight for him to jump further than me. I'd like him to because it shows he's progressing. But I think that it's more that we can motivate each other. And whereas like my 16-year-old, it's just fascinating to see what happens when puberty hits, testosterone hits a boy because within the last couple of years he's just become so strong and so fast. He does a lot of football and he does sport, but it's quite interesting for me. Like yesterday we were like, who can jump and touch the ceiling? And he's like that much taller than me, but even still, like he could easily do it, and I was not managing at all. And I think this whole thing about male sports and women's sports is to say, you know, the reality is yes, women are generally slower and not as strong as men. But look what's happened. It's like literally, you haven't done anything to that. I've been training harder than you, or at least similarly, but this is just what happens to guys. They get this puberty like superpower, and great, good for you, but don't go thinking that makes you a better person or whatever. It's just we're operating in different areas. Different context. Yeah. But I do think that, you know, for my boys, they're growing up in a world, certainly their world, where when they talk about football, sometimes they'll be talking about what's happened in some football match. And suddenly I'll realize they're talking about women's football, but they haven't diminished it. They haven't talked about it as women's football and football. They've talked about it as football. And then you find out that they're talking about women. And I just think we've come quite a long way. We've got so far to go still, but it feels like we have made some progress in that area. Definitely. And as you say, going back to your earlier point around your boys, any boy being able to actually take that difference and work with it in a positive way, not use it as a fuel to say, I can do better than mum because it's mum. But there is also that dynamic, it's mum and the roles that we play because we've been a protector, nurturer, but now we're stepping into our own spaces and doing our own things. It's powerful for them to see we can excel and there are no limits for us beyond what they know us as. And now that I am, it's like, okay, mum's identity has changed. I think when I went to the European indoors in Poland, I took with me my 16-year-old. And I think it was an incredible thing to watch him watching women and men, older, you know, 35 plus, and some much older than that, and me in that context, give it their all. And for him to watch me out on this incredible stage, this sort of world-class stage where the world indoor championships have just been held, and watch me compete and watch me be on the big screen and walk in and wave and see that I was doing so well and doing it on this stage and putting myself out there. And I could see in his face like the pride that he had for me and the esteem that he held me in and what I was doing. It was so cool. It's always been very important to me that I have an identity that's far beyond. It sounds I mean, being a mum is like the most incredible thing. And I think that sometimes the problem is that you can be hooked in this place as being just a mum. You know, this idea of being a stay-at-home mum, which is what I used to be, which can be seen as you've kind of lost, you you are subservient to your children, you are there to support them, they were there to support family. And I think being a supporter and a carer and that sort of role is one of the most incredible things that anyone can do. But it does mean that if that is the thing that you confine yourself to, that you never get to realize your true potential in whichever area that might be. And I've always felt very strongly that I want to see what I'm capable of, physically and otherwise, and that I know that I would resent my children, my husband, anybody who made me feel like I had not been able to do that because of them. Now, obviously, having kids means you do have to put yourself second quite a lot of the time. But it was my choice, and I knew that that was part of it. So that's always a difficult balance. But I feel like it's one that I'm proud of, that I give them what they need. But actually, part of what they need is for them to see women as being impressive in what they do in their own right, not just as carers and supporters. And that for me is part of bringing up a boy or man in this world who genuinely believes that men and women are truly equal. And that's a really interesting point because I looked at it and I've been aware of it more from an academic standpoint and capability in the workplace, in life, and not through movement. But now that I'm in the movement space, I understand the power of that and showing our children, our boy children especially, what we're capable of. It's complete. And it didn't occur to me before, which is what I find a little bit concerning for myself, but it just wasn't on the radar until now, because then you're not balanced. You're not giving them a balanced kind of perspective. Yeah. But we are, we've grown up in a patriarchy and we are ourselves products of that patriarchy, and we uphold the patriarchy even when we don't realise we're doing it a lot of the time. And it's very difficult to sort of break that aside and do things a different way. I mean, the criticism, because I've spent quite a lot of time putting my life on Instagram, for example, or blog posts, I've seen, I mean, it's less me doing this, but I've seen other women when they talk about going on holiday on their own or, you know, taking time for themselves, the hate that backlash from, well, the daily mailers out there, the people who think that women's place is effectively in the home looking after the kids, they can't cope. But so much of it is from women. And it's really easy to understand that these are women who are jealous because they feel like they have not fulfilled their potential. And they're like, well, if I can't, why should she get to? And women in this world, I feel, because we've been told by men that there's no room for women at the table. And if there is room for any women at the table, there's probably one space at the important table if we're discussing the important things. So women feel that they have to stand on each other and push each other aside to get that one space. Whereas what we should be doing is opening up the table and creating more seats there so that we all benefit. But it's very hard to do. And if you feel that your life has been one where you've had to subjugate yourself to men, to children, and then you see other women getting to swan off somewhere, of course you're gonna feel like hugged on by and you're gonna make that known if you have a certain type of personality and you're feeling particularly bitter and you're having a band day, and the menopauses smacked you over the head. So yeah, it's hard. Definitely, and then I think that's where again for me, movement is so powerful because where you realize and you explore what you're capable of and you keep pushing the boundaries, that empowers you in so many different areas of your life that you can potentially consider changing maybe that dynamic that you may not have felt empowered to change before. And you know, I've seen it, I've heard it, I've experienced it to an extent just around for myself, in terms of considering what else I could do that nobody told me. My husband never told me I couldn't do it, but it just was not a thing I thought of. And then suddenly, why don't I? I'm wanting to, and that it's a luxury to an extent for some people. Yeah, I think it feels like that. I mean, it shouldn't be, and I think that this is it, which stops like you're saying nothing is often stopping women from doing these things. Like in theory, they could go and join an athletics club or they could go and start doing this hobby or sport, whatever. But it's that sense, even I felt, and I feel like I'm doing pretty well at one end of the spectrum of being like, come on, you know, you just live your life, do your thing, you know, sort of trying to be a bit of a pioneer for that sort of thing. But even within that, I have hesitated and do hesitate sometimes when I think, oh, is it okay for me to go and compete? Take a week, my gosh, but I, you know, took a kid with me. But I feel a tiny bit guilty still. I do, and it's annoying that I'd feel like that because I shouldn't feel like that, but we're still at that place that I'd feel like, oh, but I'm neglecting my duties. But the more I do it, which obviously is a joke, but the more I kind of feel like I'm like, no, you know what, I am gonna go and spend a week in Madeira trying to jump further than other women in my age category, which I'm so completely like, what's the point of that? The more you lean into something that grabs you and makes you go, yeah, just keep chasing that thing. Leaning into that has so many benefits in so many areas that I hadn't even foreseen. And one of them is showing my boys that going after something that you want, whatever it is, but going for it, like giving it your best shot. Like we've got a piece of art in our home and it says, Who cares wins? It's like a cover of a book instead of who dares win, of course. And I for me, that is almost like my life's motto at the moment, at least. This idea that caring about something, it's the sort of thing that kids in school would be like, oh, it's so uncool to try, it's so uncool to study, it's so uncool to, you know, but caring about something and just giving it everything you've got. And and yet you might not quite manage it, but it says so much about a character, about a person who is willing to throw themselves into something wholeheartedly. And I think actually even the term wholeheartedly says a lot about someone having a whole heart, like giving giving it heart. And that kind of a person is the kind of person that I gravitate towards, and it's the kind of person that I want my kids to become. Like genuinely, I do not mind. I mean, give or take the odd thing, that long as it's not illegal and they're being nice to people. I don't mind what it is that they decide they want to do in this life as long as they absolutely give it everything they can. Because and I also think that that can be a bit of a triple-A because you kind of go, Oh, at some point giving 100% is actually you giving 60% because whatever's going on in your life. And so it's it's you also got to make sure your kids don't feel that unless they're completely like always driving and driving, that they are somehow a failure. So there's that to be looked at. But I do think that generally caring about things and trying to make things work in itself is just a brilliant way to live. Yeah, definitely. But as you say, it's finding a fine line because it can become all consuming, and that's what I am really aware of because there's a little bit of guilt and I'm working through that. But if we are doing what makes us happy, why not? Why not? Because for me, it's about how we feel, then is permeating throughout the household at the end of the day. It's energy. Yeah, if I'm happy, I'm gonna move and be happy and do different things in the house than if I'm not. Yeah, training gives me that, and I know at the moment I haven't trained for a while, and I'm a little bit low energy, and I can feel that. I'm just saying, like because I pulled my calf muscle last week, and I it's mending pretty quickly, but the last week or so I haven't been training, probably haven't been to the track, and it doesn't take long, and I have this slightly sort of antsy feeling. I mean, I've done you know a couple of gym sessions and did one this morning, but I feel like there's a slight sense of self that I'm lacking because I'm not at the track sprinting. Like that's so fascinating, and particularly sprinting, I feel like there's something magical about that, and it's something that actually I speak about with my girlfriends quite a lot because I feel like sprinting is a thing that women in their 40s and beyond, it's not something that happens very often, hardly ever. Women don't sprint, they run lots of miles, you know, increasingly. But I think there's some stats over like marathon running, and the biggest dynamographic to sign up is women in their 20s, whatever is just amazing. But I do think that there's been this almost like this huge marketing campaign around running a marathon, which is a very, very long way. And actually, for women in their 40s and above, I've seen quite a lot of research that suggests that it's actually not the best idea to be doing loads and loads of cardio. What we should be doing is well, the weights, which is a big thing, but sprinting, power, moving your body as fast as it will go, and it feels so liberating, but it takes quite a lot of preparation to get to that point because that's something I've also had to learn is like just standing up and sprinting. I mean, some of us have been there with the older school sports day, it's like deciding, like, yeah, I'm just gonna go win that race, and then before you know it, you've like pulled your hamstring. Oh, my mum was a cautionary tale on that one once. So from then on, she would always do like tissue stretching by the trip. The minutes before the race. Yes, you can't be seen doing it because you don't want to show that you like really care, but also you don't want to pull your hamstring, but also you really care. But I don't know, I just feel like sprinting has become a bit evangelical about it, you know. I'm not religious, but I feel like maybe sprinting is my new religion. You get some sort of euphoria from it. You can fly. Yeah. So I was just gonna ask, so does that mean that you may be shifting your attention to sprinting a bit more from jumping in the future? Oh, there's lots of things I want to do. I'm like a kid in a truck and feel candy store. I think had I done athletics when I was younger instead of gymnastics, I think I would have been a hept athlete. And I think that the multi-events is something that I have a very strong pull towards, partly because as a gymnast, you did four events. That's what you do. You do lots of different things, and I love that. So my coach Joe and I, we talk about me moving into multi-events, maybe as I turn 50, so 48 now. Uh because I love the sprinting and really want to do hurdles. So hurdles is something I've never done before. I've had a couple of goes when we've been training, and I just feel instinctively. I mean, my son's an amazing hurdleist, so maybe he gets it from me. It's like, well, he's great at Ben. Maybe I can be inherited it from my 13-year-old. And Brescia. I know. He's actually just texted me, he just made it through to a national final, so I'm super proud of it. But yeah, I just feel like hurdles is it's got enough danger and excitement in it. And the idea that there's a starting gun. But I'm quite scared of the whole starting gun situation. I've run one race, like proper sprint race in my whole life, and that was last year. I ran the hundred meters, I didn't know what I was doing, and I forgot everything that I'd been taught, and I just like stood up while I did it. But the thing that worries me about sprinting, it's not going to stop me because I think I will start to enter races. But the thing that concerns me is I am so competitive that I'm concerned that when that gun goes off, I'll just do anything to try and win. And that my body will be just, I don't think so. And because the odd times I have called things here and there, a couple of the times have been when I'd been sprinting flat out because people are watching me or trying to beat someone. And it's one of the reasons that I pulled back from my initial training of training in a group. Um and it's also one of the reasons that I stopped doing military fitness when I'd had kids, because you're all trying to race up a hill is part of it. And I just I can't not try and win these things. So I feel like I need to work with my own personality, and it's almost like as I get stronger and fitter and I learn my capabilities and I ease myself into sprinting, I do want to do it because I think the thrill of it, the buzz is amazing. And then the hurdling and I need to do some more shot putt. Not very good at shot putting. It'll come, it'll come. So you said you've moved away from training collectively in a group. How have you found it? Was it a little bit lonely having done group fitness before and then training on your own now? Because I'm I'm the reverse. I've been, well, yeah, I used to train on my own and now I train collectively. And that has given me such a lease of life, shall I say? It's it's really an interesting one. I think about it quite a lot. Because when I started out training with Juno, the coach at Ken AC, it was really good to be in a group with lots of really cool people and it was men and women, different ages. I mean, I was the oldest, I really by quite a long way. But I would keep up with some of the women. I felt good, they were such cool people. I enjoyed that. But it was funny because I'm also a massive control freak. Like I want to do things specifically in the way I want to do them, when I want to do them, to fit around my life and when the kids need me and all that stuff. I also felt that I'm more prone to injury than they were because mainly because I was older, but also because I was quite new to it all. So I'm still feeling the limitations of my body and working out what works and strengthening bits of me. And I felt like what I needed, and that's partly why I started working with Joe, because Joe, a pyre, MBE, cool man. You know him very well. But he uh he's a master's athlete, he's in his 50s, he's a world, multiple world record holder and hurdles and dumb jump. And so I just thought Joe understands what it is to train right now as an older athlete. And I felt like he also had an understanding that I'm he doesn't need to worry that I won't push myself. I need someone who was gonna almost hold me back. And he does it quite often. I'll be like, Oh, just do one more jump. And he's like, No, no, you're done. And that is said at most training sessions. He'll be like, No, you're not doing any more of that. And it's so useful to me to have that, and it's so useful to me to have the technical training with somebody who understands what they're doing. And then I actually like to do my own sprint training and my climate trics and my gym. I enjoy the ritual aspect of it. I know exactly when I'm gonna go. I don't have to wait for anybody to come, or if someone's late, I'm not dependent on that. There's enough variables already, I feel like, but I do miss having a group, and I know that Joe wants me to race people. Sometimes I do. There's a teenage girl that my son also trains with, and he trains with Joe as well. And sometimes I'm in the same, I like I'll train with her and I'll be racing her a little bit, and that's always really fun. So yeah, that's something that I think will have to evolve over time. And assuming I stick with this, I think I will want to move slowly into having a bit of a group for some things. But I think I'm feeling my way. I feel like I have so much to learn, and I need to take my time learning it my way. And the problem is you're in a group, suddenly you're doing it the way of the group. And I don't think that that's what I need right now. And I think what I've been doing, listening to myself, whenever I've really not listened to myself and I've done something that goes against my gut instinct, I've generally regretted it. And now I'm starting to listen to my instinct as to how to train and how to move things forward and who to listen to and what, yeah. It's a fascinating process, the building blocks of making your body strong enough to do these things. And the next thing that I'm going to be doing, I'm just starting to work with a nutritionist and to learn more about what I put into my body. Because I think that that is something that I hadn't really thought of before. I mean, I eat reasonably healthily, but I also eat quite a bit of crap. And I drink not a load, but more than would be optimal. So I'm thinking, right, maybe we need to take things slightly to the next level, especially since coming back from Poland, like being there with these amazing athletes and being like, yes, it's amazing that I'm competing with you and feeling great, but also looking at them and thinking, you're taking this slightly to the next level, some of them. And I'm like, do I want to go to that next level? And I'm thinking, yeah, I think maybe I do. And so if I do, I need to think about things more holistically, which is now the next stage of all of this, I think. And you talk about using and listening to your intuition. Is that something you think that have you? Is that something you think you've honed over the years as you've got older and as you've kind of stepped into midlife, or is that something you've done all your life? Only because I personally, through the exercise, have become more attuned to that and definitely reflecting on the benefits of being older, if it make if that makes sense, and how I make my decisions. I think by necessity I've had to become more in tune because when your body's older, it's you can't get away with as much. But that started back when having kids, coming back from having kids and doing these lum boot camps, I was constantly injuring myself because even if it's a long boot camp and we've got our buggy, I'm gonna try and beat everybody around those trees. And I will, but it will quite often come at the cost. And so I've been learning those lessons over the last 15 years, and but now because the stakes are raised, and because I'm demanding from my body quite a lot, I'm demanding that it operates at quite a high level and that it runs fast and jumps far and is very springy. I have to. Although sometimes Joe will be like, no, but you need to do that because you're gonna have to do that next week in the competition. So you have to do the hops over the hurdles, whatever, into whatever it is. But I think more important than intuition, or maybe equally important, is my physio and understanding the physiology and the science behind my body, which as a gymnast, as a child, even as a you know, into my twenties, I just didn't bother with. I just did think. I didn't really understand why I was doing this training or what it meant or how because I guess I've been quite lucky in that my body's always pretty much done what I've asked it to do. And yes, I gave up gymnastics because my shoulder wasn't playing ball, but it's fine, I could do pretty much anything else. So now I feel like I have this amazing physio called Paul, and he, it's like I'm learning. Every time I go, my kids and I have started to go, my husband goes, and I'm like, when you go see Paul, you have to be switched on and ready, notebook in hand, and you need to be listening because he's giving you a lesson how your body works and how to look after it. So I'm not like previously I might have thought you rock up to a casino and you're like, oh, you'll give me like a nice massage, and then you'll tell me to like do five like these exercises or whatever, and they'll send you away again and say come back in three weeks, or give you some acupuncture. I'll be gone and I'll be given a full lesson on the structure and the muscles and how this connects to this and why this means that this, and then if you do that, then this. And I feel like I'm really loving the education I'm receiving. I didn't even do biology at school. I just know so little about all of this because I never worked in sports, you know, other than doing high-level sport as a young child, and then I just went and worked in the media. A lot of people who've done such international level sport when they were younger, they maybe were coaching, they were being a physio, you know, whereas I just stopped. So it's like now I'm like, let's understand it more. And it also means that that knowledge can be applied to my kids and like the fact that I can help them understand how their bodies work, or like at least give them access to someone who can tell them, I think it's like for the rest of my life, now I'm perceiving it as being looking after my body so it can function until I'm the hundred odd, you know, so that I can live the best lie. And there's nothing better than watching the master's athletes, you know, in their 80s pole vaulting or sprinting or whatever, or in their 90s, you know, running, you know, cross-country or whatever, and going, now that's what I aspire to. And how cool that you could still try and win a medal at that age. So I feel like I have much better understanding of what the future holds in a positive way if I stick to this way of life, you know. So as we start wrapping up, thank you so much, Emily, for this. It's been amazing. But as we start wrapping up, can I ask you the question that I ask everybody? In a word or two, what does movement mean to you? Ooh, that is a good question. Oh, it's so hard, I'm not good at a word or two. A word that springs to mind is self. Because for me, it's such an integral part of my sense of self. But of course, your body is yourself, it's the only one you're ever gonna have. And as well as it being your sort of vehicle for moving through the world, the connection between your body and your brain and your happiness and everything like that, for me, it's always been such like I often think like if I was if I was badly injured and something happened and lost a limb, or I couldn't, I'm always drawn to those stories of people who have gone, right? Well, this is the body I'm in now. Let's see what I can do with it. And that resonates really strongly with me. It's like, this is the body that I have. It might not always look like this, it might not always behave like this, but whatever it is that I have, I'm gonna try and make it see what it's capable of and have fun in the process, you know, because what a cool thing we have that we get to live in. Like looking after it and making it springing and jump and somersault and whim, and you know, I just want to use it in as many ways as possible. Yeah, I love I love that explanation, and that makes sense and gives so much context and colour to the word. So I just want to say before we finish, there is also a thing that you do every year that I think you should share with everybody because that is really quite exciting, and I wish I could do the same. What do you do around your birthday every year that keeps you moving? Yeah, so every year I do a backflip, the yearly backflip. So I need to try and ensure that I can still do a backflip. And when I say a backflip, we used to call them jumping backwards onto your hands and then onto your feet again. It doesn't have to be without hands. When you grew up in the 1990s in the UK as a gymnast, backflipping, you put your hands down. But for me, it it's a connection to little Emily, who loved gymnastics so much. And I don't want to try and go back and be a gymnast again, and I don't intend to compete or do adult gymnastics classes. But there's something in this idea that I can, it's like a thread that connects me to her. And it also means that you've got it, it it's a part of the motivation. It's like keeping my shoulders strong and keeping my back flexible, all the things that you need to do. This is why gymnastics is like the best sport, still the best sport, because it's your whole body and it's making it seeing what it can do in all spheres in 360 degrees. So if I can continue to do that backflip every year, I mean, also because I I film it every year and then I put it on Instagram because obviously it's not on Instagram, it didn't happen, but it's kind of a way of documenting it. And it'll be interesting to one day, hopefully, to have like these backflips that'll be, you know, 10 years of backflip, 20 years. No, I mean, one of these days I'm gonna fall my head and we're gonna have to have like ambulances and stuff, but we'll be filming, so it'll be bit content. Thank you, Emily. So before we go, where can people find out more about you? So I tend to hang out on Instagram. My handle is at Pink House Living. It's probably the best place to go. There's a lot of stuff about my home renovation, but I also put things about my athletics journey and jumping and all that stuff as well. So come on over and say hello. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Emily. This has been a great delight. Oh, it's been lovely. Thanks so much for having me. Any time. Oh, that was brilliant. Thank you.