Helen Glover: ‘Having kids just made me realise sports is so much bigger than the moment you cross the line’

After announcing she was coming back to sports after having kids, double Olympic gold medal rower and fitness app Runna ambassador, Helen Glover OBE says it made her realise that “sports is so much bigger than the moment you cross the line on one race”.

Glover, who didn’t pick up rowing until the age of 21, says sports was always her passion growing up. “It was definitely my kind of identity of what I enjoyed and who I was, but I never imagined it becoming my career,” the 39-year-old mum-of-three admits.

After having her kids, Glover describes this stage as a ‘revolutionary part’ of her sporting career as when she went on to her next two Olympic games, her training changed. “When I was training in my 20s for my first two Olympics, I didn’t have time for even friends and family,” she says.

“My world revolved around results and revolved around that one day. I was committed to winning Olympic gold,” she admits.

“The way I see the world and sport now is this much bigger picture of where it fits into my life, family, and what’s important. It’s more about what you can represent to other people,” Glover says, as she reveals she has received a lot of support from other mums online.

When it comes to finding balance as a mum and being in training for the Olympics, Glover says she had certain non-negotiables. “I would always do school pick-up. I want to see their faces at the end of the day, to look them in the eyes and know how their day has been. I also coached their rugby training on Sunday mornings.  All of those things are important for me to be there and be present.”

When it comes to speaking to her children about health and fitness, Glover admits she always thinks about what her kids’ inner dialogue is going to be. “This is especially true in a world where there’s so much more going on and so much I can’t control, like social media, and other influences they might see,” Glover says. “As they are growing up, I try to really boost the idea that movement is great, not because they feel pressured to, but because it’s a great thing to have in your life. My little girl is going through a phase right now – she’s five – and when you ask her to describe herself, the first thing she always says is ‘I’m so strong.’

“Right now, I just want them to be happy and enjoy what they’re doing. I think if they’re happy they’ll find their way into it and it might not be sport. It might be art, music, literature. It could be anything but I do think fitness and sport plays a part in a lifelong health and mental health as well.”

Glover speaks about the idea of mum guilt, as says that ‘everyone feels it in certain ways’. “We give ourselves so many pressures as a society,” Glover says. “When you open your phone, you will see a mum doing something better than you. Whether it’s Elf on the Shelf or they’ve already done their Christmas shopping, you can’t get away from mums who you feel are doing better.

“Firstly, I had to remind myself that there are huge benefits from your children seeing you do these things,” Glover says. “Watching and living through those moments are huge for kids to be able to see, so they know they can go on to also break down barriers in the future.”

She says she also gave herself a couple of check-in points and rules. “I asked myself every week, am I improving in rowing, am I going fast enough and are the kids coming first? When I checked in on that, that was my way of alleviating the mum guilt,” Glover says. “I thought if those all remain to be true, then it’s a good reason to carry on and the day those stop being true, I know I have tipped the balance, and family life is kind of in the wrong direction.”

When it comes to her own current relationship with sports, Glover says it changes all the time. “When you’re training for Olympic Games you have this really solid, cemented value of who you are,” she says. “If you were to meet anyone in the street and they ask, ‘what are you doing right now?’, you say, ‘I’m training for the Olympics’, even if it’s in three or four years’ time – already it’s an automatic amazing feeling that you’re able to say that.

“I think then when you’re kind of in this limbo of not training, you feel like you can’t identify as an athlete anymore.” Glover says there is also post-Olympic blues that happen when you’re ‘so focused on that one moment and you don’t really think about what happens after you cross that finish line’.

Admitting that she is like everyone else and also at times finds it hard to motivate herself, Glover says: “People ask me how I get up and get to the gym after a sleepless night with kids. But those things still exist for me, even after having all the experts around me and all years of training, I’m still there wondering how do I motivate myself.

“However, for me over the past year, I think having smaller kind of fitness goals to complete has been really beneficial. I did the Oxford half-marathon about a month ago and I think having things like a program through the Runna app helps me stay consistent too.”

Although she acknowledges that her situation is different to others due to training being her job, Glover advises others to not overestimate what they need to do to see something as a training or exercise session.

“If you go for a walk with your kids, that’s exercise,” she says. “If you have five minutes where you do yoga, Pilates or stretch at home, that is exercise. Don’t think it needs to be an hour and you also don’t need to sweat. It’s really about being kind to yourself and re-evaluating what you see as exercise.”