Most of you will know me as Caroline, the shop woman or Connie’s mum but I’m also a Paralympic Sprinter. I am retired now but competed in Barcelona in 92, Atlanta in 96 and my last Games in Sydney in 2000. I won 4 gold medals and 1 silver and when I returned from Sydney, I was very honoured to be awarded an MBE.
With the Paralympics approaching and since the Paralympic flame was lit at Stoke Mandeville today, the starting place of the Paralympics, I thought it may be a good time to talk about some of my experiences.
A lot of people think that Paralympian’s don’t train as much as olympians, let me tell you nothing could be further from the truth! I trained twice sometimes 3 times a day – 7 days a week. I did a combination of track, circuits and weights . Luckily I didn’t get injured much but when I did , I would do pool sessions so I could still train but I didn’t aggravate my injury.
I practically lived at Caird Park in Dundee which was where the track was. I saw my coach more often than I saw my partner. My coach was a lovely man and never treated me any differently to his “able bodied “ athletes – if there was something I couldn’t do, he would find another way. His sessions were very varied and I could be running up the dunes at Lunan Bay till I was sick and running up to my knees in the sea or track sessions with a weighted jacket in the snow – I had about 3 layers on but was still freezing. If there was something he could dream up to concentrate on specifics then I did it. For the Atlanta games where it was going to be very hot and humid, I ran for hours on a treadmill inside a veg growing polytunnel at a local college. This turned out to be fantastic conditioning, and good for free tomatoes!
When it’s cold and wet outside ,it can be really hard to motivate yourself but I knew I wanted to win a medal in the Paralympics and I knew I had to be the fittest I could be and in order to get in that shape, hard work and putting in the hours were the only way I could do it – cutting corners wasn’t an option.
After Atlanta I was lucky enough to receive lottery funding which meant I could give up my job and concentrate 100% on my training which took a lot of stress out the equation and improved my focus.
I loved my weights sessions and was in the gym A LOT. The fitter and stronger I got, me and my coach noticed all these muscly men watching me and asking my coach “how does she lift that” I think they were genuinely shocked that a disabled woman could lift more than they could – they would literally stand and stare. I liked the look on their faces and it made me feel great. I’ve been retired now 24 years and I am still proud of the fact I still have some muscle.
The Paralympics have come a long way since I retired, I think there’s still a way to go in terms of the same recognition as the Olympics but it’s getting there and it’s great to see paralympians on the likes of Strictly .
I really hope the Paralympics gets the same crowds as the Olympics did as its hugely important for people to see people compete at the highest level, regardless of what disability they have. I believe it teaches people so much about working with each other to overcome barriers and it brings everyone together to achieve similar goals. Myself and John took our girls down to London 2012 and we were blown away by the whole experience, how the country got behind everybody and the crowd participation was fantastic! It was lovely for me to experience that, and very heartening how the Paralympic movement had moved on since I had participated.
I sometimes get asked “would I like to be able bodied ?” I can honestly say I’m quite happy being disabled, I wouldn’t have been to 3 Paralympics or travelled the world doing the sport I loved if I had been ”normal “ – whatever the hell that is. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when I think I would love to drink without a straw , cut my food myself or speak like everyone else but you know what, that’s what makes me me! And I’m fine with that.
For any kids reading this and are thinking they’ve been at school all day and really can’t be bothered training , just remember you have to ask yourself what you really want to achieve – it’s fine if you just want to keep fit but if you want to take it further, perhaps if you want a SNAGS time etc – time, hard work and determination are necessary and it’s a hard truth that there is no substitute for putting the hours in, pushing yourself and pushing through. It’s character building!
Best of luck to team GB in all the Paralympic disciplines competed for and best of luck to everyone from our wee club who may gain from watching, learning and paying attention to winning over adversity, whatever form that may come in. There’s no such thing as impossible, you just haven’t done it yet!
Lots of Love
Caroline 😁