After winning two gold medals at one Olympic Games, you wouldn’t think Dame Kelly Holmes could get any more competitive.
But at 54, she declares: “Certainly as I get older, I’m becoming more and more competitive, so I need to keep my body moving.”
Although the former middle-distance athlete, who won those golds for the 800m and 1,500m events at the 2004 Athens Games, no longer has a desire to run faster than everybody else, her motivation is simply to be the best at whatever she does.
“It’s a privilege to get older, because a lot of people aren’t here – but I don’t like ageing,” she says. “I don’t want to get to a point where I’m permanently aching and hobbling and feeling that I don’t have enthusiasm because I don’t have the energy to do things. I feel like if I push myself to be physically fit, it keeps my brain and my cognitive awareness really, really good.
“That’s me setting my own goals and saying at this age, I don’t want anyone to be better than me. It’s something for my mind as well as my body.”
Her drive these days isn’t just about athletic performance – even though she’s still very fit and does two or three runs (often a parkrun) and three weight training sessions each week.
“It’s also about quality of life,” she insists. “I want to keep my immune system as strong as I can, I want to reduce the tiredness and fatigue, I want to make sure I’m energised for my workouts, but equally, that I recover for everyday life.”
And for Holmes, this includes taking on challenges – the latest being a high-altitude trek to the 15th century Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru to raise money for her charity, the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.
The trek raised an impressive £75,000 to support young athletes and young disadvantaged people, as well as helping other charities. But in addition to fundraising, Holmes believes taking on such challenges and giving yourself something to strive for is hugely important in life – and particularly mid-life.
“I think it’s vital. I think when you set yourself a goal, there’s an inner fight that everybody has that they don’t want to let themselves down, they don’t want to feel like they can’t do it,” she says. “And so you have to focus on getting ready for that event, and by getting ready, you then change your mindset.”
She’s not suggesting, of course, that everyone sets off for Machu Picchu (although she admits the five-day trek through the Andes was an “incredible and overwhelming” experience). But taking part in events with other people can be great for us both mentally and physically.
“I think people doing something with people, or encouraging others to take part, really helps mentally,” she says.
“Yes, we did an extreme of Machu Picchu. But for some people, it might be doing a Race for Life for a cancer charity, and it’s the first time they’ve done a 5k where they’ve entered an event with lots of people. Entering something is very different – I just think it’s really liberating, and it gives you a new lease of life.”
Holmes has also just participated in a “brutal” Trifecta Spartan race, which involved a 21k half marathon with 30 obstacles, followed the next day by a 10k run with 25 obstacles in the morning and a 5k with 20 obstacles in the afternoon (even she admits it’s “madness!”).
Holmes finished first in her age group for the 10km and was the third woman overall in the 21km. She wrote on Instagram: “I know it’s not Olympic Gold, but I am SO proud of myself because this is the first year since retiring that I have felt empowered to prove to myself that I can still achieve whatever I want. IF I put my mind to it.”
Like many people in their 50s, Holmes gets aches and pains, and she’s started taking a creatine supplement. “It’s about keeping your muscles strong, keeping your body fit, healthy and energised. For anybody who wants to keep healthy, you’ve got to have that strong structure. For me, that’s what’s important,” she says.
These days, she also travels round the world as a motivational speaker.
“I need to keep my brain focused. This is why I keep fit, but also why supplementation is becoming more and more important to me, because I don’t have the same time to think about every meal being conducive to all the things I want.
“My body aches like everybody else’s, but that’s probably because I’m pushing it more than I did a few years ago,” she adds. “People go, ‘Can you run as fast?’ No, I can’t run as fast as I did, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to do an 800m or 1,500m. But when I put myself to something, I want to do it well.”
Dame Kelly Holmes is an ambassador for the supplement brand Ancient & Brave and its new product True Creatine+.
