Friday, October 10, 2014

Olympic Supermum Shares Success Secrets

Olympian, dual World Champion, mother of two. Bendigo-born Hannah Every-Hall is all of the above!

It was difficult to decide in which order to list those three epic achievements.

And I only started with 'Olympian' because it is less common to be an Olympian than it is to be a mother.

But now that I am a mother myself, I know too well which is the tougher job!

When I was an Australian representative rower, I committed up to 5 hours a day to training. No mean feat! But I wasn't a mother back then.

The fact that Hannah, now 37, competed at the 2012 Olympic Games (finishing fifth in the lightweight double scull) and won a silver medal at the recent World Championships, all while mothering two young boys (now 8 and 6), makes her a super mum!

So, how does she do it?

"Organisation and good support is the key," Hannah stated. "My life is so organised it's scary. But if it wasn't, things would go pear-shaped."

Hannah explained that being 'scarily' organised allowed her to stay present & give full focus to the task at hand.

"In the past I would try and play with my boys, but I would be so distracted thinking
about all the housework I should do, the dinner I should prepare, what training session I had next, etcetera," Hannah recalled. "And consequently I never did anything very well at all."

"So now I try and compartmentalise things, so I give the task at hand 100 per cent of my concentration."

Hannah - who is also a qualified sports dietician - first picked up an oar as a schoolgirl and found it to be a fun thing to do with friends. It wasn't until she was at university that she started to take the sport seriously.

But when she did commit, the results came quickly.

Hannah's two World Championships came in her pre-baby days. In 1999, she was a member of the winning under 23 lightweight double scull and in 2002, she stroked the open lightweight quad scull to gold.

Hannah trialled for the 2004 Olympic team, but fell short of the mark. It was then that she, and husband Michael, decided to start a family.

Harry was born in 2006, and Charlie came along in 2008.

Hannah's involvement in the sport re-commenced after her children were born, initially in the form of coaching. She was training a group of masters, and started filling in for them on occasion.

She then decided to race in the single scull at the Masters regatta in 2009, when Charlie was just seven months old.

"I won", Hannah recalled. "And I had so much fun."

"And then Michael said to me, 'why don't you have another shot, and see how you go.'"

"So in July 2009, I set the goal of racing at the 2010 Australian National Championships, just to see what I could do. And here I still am!"

The 2012 London Games was Hannah's first Olympic appearance, proving that persistence - and maturity - pays.

Hannah's goals for the future are pretty simple; she just wants to be the best at whatever it is she puts her mind too.

"I want to win gold in Rio, I want to be the best mother and role model possible, and I want to bring the best out in my husband because that is what he does for me."