Record-holding English runner Paula Radcliffe will be attempting to enter the 2012 Olympics, despite prior doubts she could juggle both motherhood and an athletic career.
“There have been times when I’ve said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ ” Radcliffe said Thursday over lunch in a hotel in Potsdamer Platz, the New York Times reports. “Two minutes later, you change your mind. There isn’t anything else I’d rather do at this point.”
Her friend and fellow runner Kara Goucher said Radcliffe was especially stressed upon the birth of her second child last September.
“She said, ‘I don’t really feel I can do this; maybe I can’t make it back,’ ” Goucher said, as reported by the New York Times. “She was only getting three hours of sleep, out training twice a day, nursing around the clock. Her body was just spent. You can do all the exercises you want, but you can’t rush those hormones through your body. I told her: ‘Take a deep breath, it’s going to come together. Your talent isn’t going to go away.’ ”
Radcliffe, 37, is scheduled to run the Berlin Marathon on Sunday, the New York Times reports. She needs a time of 2 hours 31 minutes to qualify automatically for the 2012 Summer Games in London.
