Paula Radcliffe and her husband Gary Lough (a 3:34.76 1500m runner) announced today that she is pregnant with baby number two. The baby is due in September and that will give Paula nearly two full years to get ready for likely her final shot at an Olympic medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.Paula's first child, daughter Isla was born in January 2007, and Paula came back less than 10 months later to win the 2007 ING New York City Marathon. During her first pregnancy, Paula ran twice a day through five months, and cross trained twice a day through 7 months.
However, after winning New York a foot injury kept her out of the London Marathon in 2008, caused her to shorten her preparations for the 2008 Olympics, and caused her to miss the 2009 London Marathon.
This time she plans to take things a bit easier. She told the British Press Association, "As always when nature is involved it's very hard to plan, but the idea was that we could get pregnant this year and have 2011 to comfortably come back to racing. I plan to run through as before but to come back a bit slower than last time when I was back a bit too quickly. 2012 is the big goal and we think this works out perfectly for that."
Baby Isla
Last fall Radcliffe had talked about having another child before the Olympics. She said, 'As a woman, I have to plan time out. It's about compromise and trying to fit in everything you want to do. I don't want to get to a point where I would resent running because it was putting off having children for longer. So that's the reason why I don't want to put off a second one until after 2012. I think now is the right time for Isla to have a sibling. I've always seen us with two children.'
Paula's was in labor for 27 hours the first time around so hopefully she will not try and set any endurance records this time around.
Paula is the greatest female marathoner of all-time but she has not been healthy to run a marathon on a fast-course since 2005 when she won London and the Helsinki World Champs. 2005 was also as a result the last-time she broke 2:20 in the marathon. She has won the New York City Marathon twice since then.
Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/2010/paula-pregnant0409.php#ixzz0kjL7qDCr
Buy your shoes from LetsRun and save 20% everday http://www.letsrun.com/save
ShareThis