The Reality of Being an Elite Pole Vaulter | Molly Caudery | Ep #77

0:00Molly Caudery, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. Obviously you're a pole vaulter. Yes, I am. Would you be able to explain a little bit more about yourself? Yeah, so I am an Olympic pole vaulter and two-time world indoor champion and Red Bull athlete. Yeah, incredible. I've never actually interviewed a pole vaulter. First time for everything. Obviously I've done a little bit of training with you and I find it crazy like the amount of work that actually goes into pole vaulting. Yeah. and how much like athletically demanding it is from your body but then how much skill you need as well yeah and I think one thing people don't realize is that I only actually pole vault maybe once a week maximum of twice a week um the rest of my training is actually much more important like pole vault's the easy fun part and everything building up to that is all the important stuff you almost kind of like train like a sprinter but then do so many like like you say plyometrics so much kind of like upper body work yeah strength work like i saw you like doing them crazy pull-ups in the gym yeah basically me and molly went on like an athlete training camp uh and we had like free time to train and uh you were training yeah doing like your own session and stuff like that and then yeah it was putting me to shame we call them um bubkas so sergey bubka was before mondo the the main the main man with world records so they're named after him and yeah you'd like it's the invert part so that's kind of what we're replicating doing that but crazy pull-ups works as well that's that could be the new name crazy pull-ups yeah or like an upside down muscle up yeah that's what it that's basically it yeah yeah which is is insane but um yeah where did your love for kind of like athletics and pole vaulting actually start so i was a gymnast first and a lot of gymnasts kind of naturally transition into pole vault because you've got that spatial awareness used to going upside down things like that um from the age of four until about 11 years old i didn't actually know that yeah yeah so gymnast first um at that at like 10 years old i was training 24 hours a week as a gymnast which like i don't even train that much now you probably do but i i don't do anywhere near that amount of hours um and how old would you then 10 10 yeah i i used to um what was the routine like so i used to miss a day of school on a tuesday to do an eight hour day I can't I don't know what I was doing in those eight hours but like that is just crazy to me to think about now um and then apart from that I think we'd do like four hours each each day um pretty much maybe a bit more but was the goal to become like a professional gym yeah that was definitely the goal I don't think I would have committed quite as much time as I did if I didn't think that was my goal um but it's crazy to think that I was so young with these thoughts but was it you driving that or kind of like your parents because it's a big decision to take a day out of school yeah yeah my parents facilitated it they weren't pushy at all they they did not like push me into you're going to be a gymnast you're going to do this they just knew that was my dream and did everything to support it um but I kind of realized at 11 years old I'm not going to make it you know I wasn't where some of the other girls were and for such a big commitment that's when I just was like yeah no I'm done and I was nervous to tell my mom actually but actually when I told her she was like thank goodness like she it was so much like driving for her a lot of commitment for for my parents as well so she was actually very happy and then I naturally transitioned into athletics went to my local club where my dad was my coach and then from there just kind of did all the different events tried pole vault once fell in love with it and now here I am was he a coach before like you came along was he part of like the athletics or was he kind of like a dad that was like right I'm gonna I'm gonna coach you I'm going to learn it and like he was he was a decathlete himself so he's he like did all 10 events he's done pole vaults he had a really good awareness of the sport loved athletics it's kind of in our family my brother was a pole vaulter still does a little bit for fun now my mum actually did it when pole vault first came out for women so you know we've all got like pbs I'm I'm first in the household um which you know I'm pretty proud of um but that's what really matters that's what really matters about like world championships or anything like that no no no that's that's way further down the list but my dad's pb was four meters 20 and mine's four meters 92 so like that's been obliterated but i think i jumped that one i was about 16 and that's when he knew like okay maybe maybe we could do something here um and and then i think when i was 17 i broke the under 20 national record and that's when things really kind of started to take off that's incredible when you went down to kind of like the athletics track what was the first thing that like stood out compared to like everyone else was it kind of like your your sprints ability was it kind of like your your explosiveness or is it just kind of like your skill i think i was really lucky to find pole vault i would say i'm a pretty well-rounded athlete and i've really grown into a lot of the things but i didn't stand out in like speed ability or plyometrics or anything like that but my overall ability and I guess yes skill level that probably came from gymnastics as soon as I pole vaulted it was just it was so natural it was like I found my thing and I've been so lucky to just kind of roll with that because I don't think I would you know excel like I have in pole vault in any other kind of sport yeah and then when did it start to get like super serious for you so I went to university in America when I was 18 for two years which uh university of miami i went off the rails yeah sounds fun sounds fun is it is it like you expect like do you know all the films that you watch everything you see in the movies is i would say 100 accurate which is crazy yeah and i i had the best time and i wouldn't um like i wouldn't change that life experience but it definitely like put me off my path as a professional elite athlete went from being like a 450 girl to being able to being able to barely jump four meters would you say it was worth it again i had a i had a lot of fun and like that that absolutely was worth it like it really made me grow in so many ways you know i grew up in a small town in cornwall and then moved to miami a massive city in america and there was like no in between so just to like get that life experience under my belt i don't regret um but after two years covid hit and it It was like I either make the decision to stay out in America or I come home and take my athletics more seriously.

6:35And I chose that option, moved to Loughborough, moved everything there. And I've been there ever since. What do you think you'd be doing instead if you didn't make that decision and you were still out in Miami? I kind of don't want to say. Probably just be like, oh. You can't put it on the podcast yet. No, no. You could imagine. Yeah. I'm joking. um i like to think i would have found my way but um i am glad that i came home let me just say that yeah no no it sounds good it's nice that like you you was allowed to kind of like enjoy yourself and stuff because a lot of people especially within athletics like i see a lot of people go like basically start going out yeah start going to the track less start going to training less and then they never really get back into it yeah and you did get back into it because it's not to say like if i was to go to a british university that wouldn't have happened it was my first kind of time with freedom and alcohol and this and that and i think it's important to enjoy those things at 18 years old yeah um but i very much knew like there was the deep like hole and sadness in me that couldn't be fulfilled with that kind of stuff and that's when i knew like okay i want to be a professional athlete i want this more than whatever was going on so yeah it was unfinished business yeah exactly it was a simple choice at the end of the day so um for someone obviously like yourself wanting to come back to the uk how do you find that kind of professional setup in in what you need because i assume you can't do pole vault on your own really no no you definitely need i mean one you need a facility and indoors is always better because the weather in the uk is pretty unpredictable in cornwall we didn't have anything the closest indoors was about three hours away in bath or cardiff so like hang on a minute you grew up in cornwall yeah you was amazing at pole vault but your nearest facility was three hours yeah indoor so we did have an outdoor track with an outdoor pit but like we'd be jumping in the rain and the snow and i always say like that's made me resilient now and like you get used to those conditions for when you're jumping outside whereas other people can be a bit like a bit scared of those conditions uh weather athletes yeah exactly so I think it like made me pretty robust um but yeah there would be some winters where I would barely do like five jump sessions but then come out and and jump or win nationals and things like that so like pole vault was never the the problem for me it was always like the on-track stuff that I would have to work harder at um yeah but yeah so right now I'm based in Loughborough which is perfect for me there's like there's no distractions around it's very opposite of miami i've got an amazing setup like all my physios are there my coach my i've got a psychologist i've british athletics hub so you like everything that i use is just on tap on my doorstep yeah and like you say no distractions so you kind of just like lock in yeah focus um what's your training looking like so well earlier this year had spinal surgery which was kind of like out of nowhere real shock uh did you do that just before a competition or just after so i'd just been to Rome Diamond League and won like a short approach which for me was I was like yeah I was like very very happy two days later I was in the gym and just had a back tweak which just happened to me a few times but this time woke up the next day and I just like my whole leg was pretty much numb and I couldn't move my foot it was really really scary um so I came down to see a guy who I thought might just be able to sort it out and he's like no you need you need surgery and I was like what like we've got like Commonwealth Games Europeans World Ultimates coming up and then three days later had surgery and yeah it's been five months and I'm back to full training I've made a full recovery so I'm just grateful to be where I am because for a minute there I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to like walk normally again let alone what was the actual issue so it's a it was a bulging disc which lots of people have like L5S1 yeah yeah and and maybe one other so there was a couple um but when i went to see the surgeon he was like it was fully calcified so i think it must have happened like for a while but it just trapped a nerve and that just completely shut off yeah yeah i literally couldn't bring my foot up which was which was quite scary um but yeah they did a great job and i'm back to to full health and fitness so hopefully next year we can uh just restart and has recovery been like and rehab been like straightforward more like as far as like recovery from a back surgery will go i would say yeah did you have to take like sometime like completely like off yeah so all like i've had my fair share of surgeries to be fair um and every single time you have to have two weeks doing absolutely nothing just to let the the scar heal and then it's normally about four weeks of just like really easy boring rehab training bits and then from there we can normally build back into training that's like the from my experience and surgeries that's what i've had to go through um and it was pretty similar um and as far as back surgery goes it was one of the like more simple simple ones it was a micro discectomy i think so it was literally in and out um but yeah it was it was pretty slow but yeah like i said i'm i'm fixed now which i'm very great you ramping training back up ready for kind of like the new season yeah so uh so go on i was just gonna say when does the season start i I was going to ask what I was going to say.

11:54So our season starts in January, the indoor season, so January to March. And then we go into another block of training for the outdoor season, which is end of May until September. And then we restart from there. So training will be how many hours per week? What's kind of like a typical Monday to Sunday training schedule? Hours I have to work out. But Monday, so I'll take you through it all. Monday is like a technical day so that's the day I actually pole vault um and then we do like a little bit of a circuit after and rehabby bits Tuesday is what we call multi throw and weights so we do like a lot of really explosive med ball throws just to like just keep I don't know what to say we do a lot of med ball throws to like keep the muscles snappy and explosive everything that we do has like a lot of purpose and really relates to the jump and stuff Wednesday is more of like a tempo running day with what's it with gymnastics we still do quite a bit when you say tempo running what could the running not your kind of tempo running yeah like maximum we would ever run is probably 120 meters that's that's our tempo running what's yours uh well a tempo run would be i don't know you do you do uh a tempo run it might be 10 miles okay yeah no ours would be like six 120s that's a very typical one like tempo okay day or we will sometimes make it more pole vault specific we'll do like when you say tempo like what what it just means not speed so on on thursday we rest and then on friday we do speed which is probably for for a pole vaulter is up to about 60 meters okay um that's proper that's just flat out yeah so is this like 90 95 percent yeah yeah and then temper running's more like 75 percent so i guess it's still of your like maximum but it's not speed okay okay so if that makes sense say for example let's just keep it to kind of like the 100 meter yeah so you do 120 but 100 meters if you're doing six by 100 meters yeah what speed would you be doing the 100 like 13 seconds 13 seconds yeah so for most people like that obviously for you it's 75 but for most people that would be an all-art sprint yeah yeah yeah yeah i guess so yeah but yeah that's i think you'd still beat me yeah so it's it's like still getting speed in your legs because for us like i do a three minute jog at the start of my session and that's probably the longest i'll ever run just because we don't want to train any slow twitch like it doesn't offer me anything it's all about fast twitch everything we do needs to be fast three minute jog that's it wow kills me do you actually dread it as well no it's fine i actually did a couple of 5k's in my off season which was tough i just thought i'd give it a go i just plod along i just i don't know how you do it just found it grim yeah i don't boring like not i can see where people say about the runners high and i i'm not i used to say i would never run when i'm older or like when i'm retired but i think i i could see the fun in it but i'm not there yet like for now i'd rather i'd rather do my six 120s that's that's like my favorite session yeah and is it is it the same within your training i've been to kind of like a track where there's been like sprinters training and you've got the music on it's kind of like a good time from start to finish you take forever warming up yep you you do your six by 100 meters whatever it is and then you cool down and the people come and go yeah they would have done their session probably twice three times over by the time you finished is that what the kind of vibe yes absolutely so like for for say a sprint session that we do on a friday we might spend a good 45 minutes warming up and then we'll have like five five 60 meter runs with a good five minutes in between each run because it's all about the quality and i know it doesn't sound like much but actually like exerting your body to a hundred percent to recover from that is is is quite hard i guess um and yeah it's all quality over everything like i love to train hard but i'm kind of not allowed to especially like i'm a bit fragile these days so we just train smart and my coach always says like don't be a hero in competition uh sorry in training in training be a hero in competition um but yeah don't be a hero in training like you don't need to win training um and what you're doing in these five minutes rest is it like super serious you're locked in focused like or you kind of just having a little are you just having fun all session just having a bit of fun we do a lot of analysis i guess even like in between reps especially sometimes like we'll get the biomechanists out and and they'll have like all the data in front of you and we'll we'll analyze almost in between every single run even like each contact like where my foot placement is how like if my shin angle is opening so it is quite scientific a lot of that kind of goes over my head and my coach will just give me like the snappy cues but there's so much that goes into it every single movement is is really detailed okay okay so i think we're on wednesday wednesday wednesday thursday we have a we have a rest maybe a bit of yoga or pilates just to kind of active recovery friday is a speed and weight session um sometimes in the winter i'll pole as well on a friday that's so so up to twice a week and then saturday is a so actually we've got intensive tempo and extensive tempo so on saturday is extensive tempo um which is like the harder session and that could be like hills or something like that um followed by like a cardio circuit so that's probably the one time in the week that your heart rate gets like yes high yeah and that's like your fitness that's normally like two hours yeah exactly that's two hours of like continuous movement that's the that's where we're getting like our aerobic fitness yeah so assume everyone dreads that session yeah but but actually i love it like i do like hard work um not like 5k but i like yeah i could see i actually think i would really enjoy high rocks i think me and me and joel have spoken about it about getting into it maybe when when we're retired so yeah i think you and joe would be good just for fun not not yeah but you're both so like strong as well i think it'd be pretty good to see yeah i'd need to like get my fitness up a lot but i think it could be good fun yeah do you ever like with kind of like the sprint training and stuff they say that you can't really teach speed would you say that's true to an extent definitely to an extent i think like for me i like i said earlier i'm not i'm not fast like i'm not i can never ever be a sprinter no matter how hard when you're doing when you're doing 100 meters in 13 seconds 75 yeah that that's fair but i'm not i'm not going to be like the next olympic sprinter like there's no matter how hard i train i would never be able to because i don't have like top top top top elite level speed um but i i think you can improve like like even five percent and if i can improve five percent then that means i'm five percent faster on the runway i can plant bigger poles i can jump higher so that's why we do so much speed work because making those subtle changes like for the level that i'm at will give me like just a few centimeters could be the difference between like winning and not in order like what is the most important thing so if you if you kind of like break down a pole vault like would it be the the sprinting that is the most important like actually getting up to speed so then you can propel yourself yeah so definitely like having speed is it is the most important thing but you have to be mentally prepared to then plant a pole that is suitable for that speed which is something that i actually struggle with like i'm pretty fast on the runway but but i get kind of quote unquote scared to get on big poles and it's hard to kind of like explain um but the faster you run the bigger pole you needed the bigger pole it is for me the more scary it is but the higher your jump and why would it be more scary because so like little easy poles they just roll through it's super safe it's super easy and then when you get on a bigger pole there's the chance like everything has to be right you have to be 100 committed otherwise like it can like throw you back onto the track it won't run through there's a little bit more risk to it um some people don't have any like problem with planting big poles it's it's it's kind of varies from athlete to athlete i'm actually on the conservative side like for example i grip lower than any other elite girl on the circuit but i push higher than any other girl on the circuit so like everyone has their balance to things i don't know if that makes sense to you yeah different ways to skin a cat yeah yeah basically yeah um do you ever practice running with the pole sounds weird but like yeah yeah again we actually like some tempo runs with the pole probably not 100 meters but like 60 meters worth of like run with a pole even like with a chain attached so then like when we drop that it's it's easy and you feel faster um and it's just kind of like building that fitness is it hard well obviously it's gonna be harder but like how hard is it running with a pole so weirdly for me and this is why i think pole vault like we found each other like i run with a pole so much better than without a pole it's just like my it's my happy place it looks so much more natural it just like fits perfectly so like i think it's easier but like other people if you were to like try it would feel like super clunky because you don't have your arms you're like like this and yeah um but it definitely it will slow you down but i've managed to like if you look at my speed which i've said is not amazing but my speed with the pole they're so similar whereas most people would have like quite a big differential between them and then you mentioned that there's different size poles but is it like different quality poles or like different brands like make different ones like shoes yeah yeah yeah absolutely so i use a brand called essex and they are carbon fiber poles okay other people use fiberglass poles and some will use like a mixture of the both and it just like depends on how your jump is how the bend is if you're like a fast swinger or if you like to are there any like illegal poles no no no no no uh like if you could make an amazing poll i've spoken to like red bull about it like all like the f1 guys making like a crazy poll like if you could do that it's it's legal yeah but i'm not sure how much i know i'm not sure like how much room there is for poll improvement but yeah it could be done could you not make like a mechanical one that like flings you into the air yeah i mean i would love to give it a try i think yeah do you think there's a bit of an advancement that could happen there pole vaulting or not or do you think i mean it's pole vault's been around for i don't know like yeah where did it actually come from i think even longer than that did they pole vault over rivers is that true yeah like moats and stuff i mean that's what i've been told yeah but i think like the whole olympics is based off like you sprint as fast as you can you throw javelin to like attack your enemies you do this you do like pole vault was to get over the moats yeah was it was it quite and incorporated quite like recently or like how long has it actually been in the olympics i think for women it was introduced in 2000 and someone will need to fact check to me because i'm not 100 sure but the men's was like a long time before that um but yeah it's definitely been around for a good 100 years but yeah they used to like vault with with steel poles into sand pits so there has been a lot of pole progression over the years um but yeah i'm not sure how much more we'll see yeah what are the most common injuries that people get for pole vaulters specifically i'd say achilles a lot i've had two achilles surgeries myself um i think because you naturally rotate and you take off like with your feet turned outwards it's a lot of stress through the body um and then on the on the other side that's your like takeoff leg so it just has a lot of force and impact going through it um it's pretty similar for a lot of the jumping events besides that some people deal with a lot of shoulder injuries because of the the force from the pole and backs as well just from do you have to learn how to land properly is that like a thing you kind of just adapt like with pole vault you start so small on such a small pole at such a low height like i've been doing for 15 years no one ever taught me really how to land they just just whatever you do don't land on your feet because you could roll an ankle basically um but you just pick it up or your head along or your head yeah i have done that snapped a couple of poles yeah it does like like you mentioned like it does seem pretty scary because you could go off anyway right yeah yeah and like it should be for me it should be well it is as simple as walking like but even walking i can like roll an ankle or something so like yeah yeah if you're not looking exactly um and like things do happen i've i've snapped two poles and both times like there's so much force in the pole and like energy one of them like the vibrations caused like a small bone fracture in my hand and then the other time like i just almost i always did like a complete back flip and this was in competition and i just had to carry on like through adrenaline um but snapping a pole is is pretty scary but it makes you a real pole vaulter so obviously you've uh achieved some success what is that like like on on the global stage i i think it's like the feeling that every athlete chases and like for me like it's everything that i could ever want and so i came onto this like and the elite scene in 2023 and i came fifth at the world championships and i was like wow like this is so much fun i love this and then i came out in the indoor season in 2024 four and I like started winning a few comps which at like a senior level I hadn't done yet and then I won the world indoor championships and like it ignited like a fire in me that I've never had before and then I was like wow I like I never want to lose again like this is this is like the best feeling in the world and as athletes it's like that's all we work towards every day like in elite sport um and that was a great year for me until I know how to the Olympics and like had an absolute u-turn um and then the following year then ruptured my atfl at the world championship so i had a really rough couple of years and then the beginning of this year i won the world indoor championships again and like it always just gives you that like that taste and like i've been lucky enough to experience like super high highs super high highs and like really low lows and like the contrast is quite hard to deal with but like the thought of what it can feel like is something that like drives me on a daily basis and do you do you kind of get used to like would you say now after experiencing them are you kind of like used to like say winning and then maybe potentially at the biggest events in in the year kind of maybe not performing the way that you wanted to do you get used to that a little bit not that you want to get used to it yeah i think so when i like broke through onto the scene in 2024 it was just like I didn't like know like I was so naive to it all it was just like the best feeling I was winning I hadn't been through like that much hardship it was just great and then I had a couple of really rough years and then winning again this year meant so much more to me like after everything that I've been through um and like the Olympics is something that like it just came out of nowhere I was in the best shape of my life I had absolutely no excuse to not like to perform the way I did I still don't really know what happened I like refused to let myself think that it was the pressure because I normally perform really well under pressure um part of me thinks maybe I was almost too relaxed and like I was just focused on like wanting to medal or or you know win the Olympics and I didn't even get through the qualification so like I've learned a lot um and I was really disappointed in Tokyo when I couldn't like use that and show the world what I can do and then I feel like this year again it got taken away from me through injury but like each time it's just like adding more fuel to the fire and I'm excited to like be able to prove to myself what I can do in the future is there any ways that you kind of dealt with that kind of low because I know a lot of people like come across that in their day-to-day lives obviously it might not be missing kind of like a world championship or like the commonwealth games for example for this year but it might be something else that how how do you deal with them bad times yeah i've got i would say like i've got an amazing support team around me but like by like just my family to be honest like my my mum dad joel like they they kind of they don't come everywhere with me but like they're there at the world championships when i don't do well or the olympics or like after surgery i just go home and like to spend time with them and and just being Cornwall it's like my happy place and they always talk about like sport being your identity and don't get me wrong like it's a massive part of who I am but there are things that I can find to do that also make me happy like I'm a very outdoorsy person or like just going home and like getting in the sea is like therapy for me so I just try and surround myself with like the people that I love and distract myself from what's happened and then on like another note to that I've actually just started working with a psychologist this year um I've tried quite a few times before but like it's never quite clicked for me but I found someone that's that's that I've been working really well with and I've had to really persevere for that because I know that it works for a lot of people but like I really struggled for it to work for me so if you don't mind like going into that like why did you seek out um like a sports psychologist this time so like a specific problem or thing that you wanted to overcome yeah kind of well after Paris every Olympics everyone was like you need to see a psychologist you need this you need that and I was I was just like I really didn't feel like I I did so I had to kind of force it and at the time I to be honest at the time I didn't really have many issues um so I just it just felt like I wasn't I wasn't getting much from it I didn't have like a goal that I wanted from them so we were just like chatting about not too much whereas now after I ruptured my ATFL when I came back I was scared of pole vault and that's not a place you want to be because you have to be fully committed so then I decided to yeah try try a different psychologist and they've just they've been I've only been using them for like a few months but they've been amazing and like just helped me reset my mindset and and talk through things and like use mechanisms to calm me down just like so it's kind of like the confidence just to like get back on the ball yeah yeah exactly back on there plant big it's hard it's hard to explain but yeah plant big poles stiffer poles and like i've got run through issues which is like when you run up and stop it's like in the in gymnastics they call it like the twists or something it's the exact same as that and it's like mending my body after like surgery or or whatever it's going to be is is the easy part like i go to training every day and and work on something rehab is no different but like actually trying to mend something in like up here is is quite difficult and is a much like more up and down journey I would say yeah no how good is it to like have have Joel with you that like understands it because he's an athlete as well yeah it's it's it's great I think like some people it'd be their worst nightmare because we we like we live together we go to training together we come home together like we compete together we go on warm weather camps together like you don't get much time apart but actually to have someone who understands like the ins and outs like the competitiveness the the highs the lows and to be able to share that with them and then like deeply understand is is is great like in my opinion it's it's everything that I need yeah I don't know about you but I think being an athlete requires a lot of selfishness how do you guys kind of like manage that because obviously that you're both trying to be at the top of your game it's it's actually been a real journey i would say like since we've been together there hasn't been a single like competition where we've both done well actually we both won the world uh sorry not about the british indoor championships this year and that was the first time we've both had a good competition but we've never even been on like a gb team together um because either one of us is injured or the other one hasn't made a team and and that's really hard to manage have you competed at the like you say you obviously competed at the same event and you both won yeah before that have you competed at the same event and one of you does well one of you doesn't yeah yeah and then what's like the situation when you go home it's hard like awkward or we're always no no the other is always so happy for the other that's nice one is always happy for the other but it's it's like hard because again like when you don't fulfill what you want to do there's like a bit of a hole inside and so I would say I hope he doesn't mind me saying this but for the first time this year like it flipped around normally Joe like the last couple of years Joel might have struggled a bit and like would be with me at all of my competitions on the sidelines which is it's hard and then this year we were finally like both tracking really well we were hoping to do Commonwealth Games Europeans together be on the same team and then I had back surgery and then like it flipped around and I was on the sideline and like the pride is amazing but like i also like i'm an athlete i want to be the one out there as well so it is it's definitely a challenge but at the end of the day i think both of us just want the best for each other yeah that's nice i think it's like a competition back back home yeah yeah yeah no i like we're competitive in day-to-day life but actually on the track like we just want the best i think the majority of athletes like we've all been through it so everyone just i just want the best for everyone to be honest yeah i was gonna ask that like what is the kind of like dynamics like um like within athletics as a whole but like your sport in particular like is everyone like super hyper competitive what's it like in like i assume you you have like a call room before and stuff like that like what's everyone like so this the sprinters is completely opposite to us like they're like i think they're kind of like mean to each other like Like they, in the cool room, I don't, like they'll play mind games or they won't look at each other.

34:26Like there's, it's a really hostile environment. Whereas pole vault, we can be out there for like four or five hours. And like, we're all just good friends. The male pole vaulters are like best friends. They all go to each other's weddings. The women's isn't like quite as close as that, but we all get along. It's probably the same like 12 girls that we always compete together about 10 times a year. And we've all become like reasonably good friends. And it's a nice environment. there's always like one or two but no i love that yeah no that's good that's cool though it's nice that like people uh do you think that's because i don't know it's probably quite a like a humble sport and like yeah i don't know i feel like sprinting is like it's the center stage in it people people what like it's the most viewed event in the olympics right 100 meter final whatever yeah yeah um i don't know i feel like you've also got to like have a bit of an ego yeah there's nothing like that i've spoken to so many uh like sprinters and they're just like i'm gonna crush my enemy whereas like i am not like that at all and also i'm competing at the end of the day against a bar like we're not we're not running down to the bar at the same time like it's me versus myself and how high i can jump or that's how i view it anyway it's not like yeah it's you against you kind of yeah yeah more than the like actually standing on a on a line and I think that they're almost different skills but yeah like field eventers are very humble and is there is there anyone that's got like a bit of an ego because again now with like social media and stuff like that it's almost like an advantage just to like shit talk if you can or you know make a and I think you've seen it like in distance running yeah it's definitely coming into athletics more um you know there's a couple of villains and a few stories and I think it's really good for the sport i don't think it's quite in my nature to be like that but i do think like the fact that you know about that and and people are hearing about it like it draws attention on our our sport does need that it's a bit of a a dying not a dying sport but like at high rocks events which what how long has that been around like it's been like eight years eight years like you guys would have much much bigger audiences or audiences so it's actually crazy this uh this major last weekend yeah um they had like a live stream and they had i think they had a quarter of a million people viewing yeah yeah um yeah that's pretty that's amazing compared to sport that's eight years old yeah that's huge whereas like even like we have our british championships and we don't sell out the stadium and we're one of the oldest events no one cares about athletics until it's the olympics but like in those four years we have the diamond league circuit we've got the world championships the european championships but no one really cares unless it's the olympics i think it's getting i genuinely think it's getting more and more popular yeah obviously we went to uh london diamond league we saw you guys at london league and that was that was insane like i'd i'd never seen anything like that yeah the roar of that crowd when josh cura that was that was insane yeah it's crazy you don't get much better than london stadium either like it's it's just the best place to compete and they are trying to do more and more like we do a lot of street meets now so like they'll set us up in the street so just like public viewers can watch and it's a bit of like fun and a bit of a spectacle would that be just pole vault yeah so they've got a few ones like pole vault i'd say is the most common but they also do it for high jump and shot put they can do it for long jump not gonna lie why don't they just find a street that's 400 meters long and they could just do everything just go yeah they could just do everything up to 400 meters i think they've done 200 meter races um a couple of times in america just like on a straight um but yeah it's cool it's just like something different and it brings them like new eyes to the sport yeah that'd be really cool i think bringing it like to different locations i think that'd be really in oxford street at the same time as london diamond league as like an extra event which would have been really cool they didn't quite get it over the line but i think in the next few years that could be like that i would love to do that yeah just doing um well red bull if you're listening anyone from red bull if you're listening make it happen please i wasn't i was injured in the game so it actually worked out but next year next year we'll make it happen well especially with pole vault if the what could you pull vault over do you think like what could be possible to like just cool like things where could you well like a double decker bus is about four meters 20 so that's pretty like easy it's pretty easy that's double decker bus yeah yeah yeah oh yeah um crazy like a pretty normal like two-story house i think i could get pretty easily onto the second floor um a draft maybe two drafts on top of each other you're basically like spider-man basically i'd love to be spider-man yeah but yeah my pb is four meters 92 hopefully soon to be you don't actually like when you say that like obviously it's incredible but it doesn't actually sound that much but then when you actually see how high four meters 90 it's like yeah like a wall or something like that yeah yeah what's the average floor and average floor is what two and a half meters yeah so about two floors about two floors yeah yeah that's that's crazy that's crazy um what do you do in kind of like your downtime because like you say at the moment like you're probably training a little bit more reserved than usual um i mean i love to read i've really got into reading fantasy so it's nothing too interesting but like i read i'm a very outdoorsy person so like just going on like walks or hikes things like that um i love cooking and baking so just like staying busy staying active um a few commercially bits here and there to like just just yeah like keep busy and like social media bits things like that but like i always say that i want down time and then as soon as i get like more than an hour i get i get so bored so like i actually always need something to do yeah that's that's good that's good and then like what do you think the secret is like across because obviously you spend a lot of time with athletes you're an athlete yourself like your partner's an athlete like is there like a bit of a secret or like is the similar things that you see among athletes that make them successful like 10 years of just undevoted dedication that's the secret no it's it genuinely is like you i see a lot of athletes break onto the scene when they're really young and do really well lose their way a bit and like find their path again like i've seen that over and over um and i do think it is just consistency and and building year on year um i think athletics is kind of like the long game probably like any any sport really um but it's just turning up each day and and getting the work done kind of probably similar to is there any other things that you like really focusing on or honing on like how much sleep you get in do you do any kind of like recovery or anything like that yeah so i'm big on sleep like i pretty much never get less than nine hours at least that's insane yeah like a 10 hour night is is really good eight hours I'd be a bit grouchy um so yeah I'm I'm like a big sleeper I've gone like a lot into like recovery wise a lot into like pilates I don't know if it's like because of my back and things like that but just like I've got like these big muscles but like I just like need the foundations to be able to use them yeah so like a lot of that and then I don't know for me just like i wouldn't recommend this and i don't want people to like listen to this and think they need it but actually like i've increased my hands-on therapy like i see my physio a good few times a week again more so since my back i think it's really good to be able to manage your own body but like for where i'm at right now i do rely quite like heavily on manual therapy yeah yeah no i think that's very kind of like person dependent i've actually gone the opposite so i used to get like a lot of massage yeah and i felt like i was just getting like niggles all the time and then i've stopped and like touch wood like i've been fine yeah yeah i think it's it's much better to be able to manage your own body and it's something that normally i would be be good at well if you find someone good then yeah it's kind of like a game changer in it yeah it is you've got to find that the right person that knows you yeah yeah yeah i've i think i've worked with my physio for about like six years now and like he just so how often you see them so probably like three times bearing in mind they're just like trackside so like i might just pop up for 10 minutes for like a quick check or this or that but like probably three times a week of like physio and like one soft tissue which like to other people and they say like it's not that's not like no uncommon like having trackside some people um used to i remember um who was it lindsay sharp uh she said that she um got like therapy every day yeah yeah and there will be people out there getting therapy every day um again it's definitely dependent on the person but i think it's actually quite important not to fully depend on it and find things that work for you that you can do and like you should like it is fine but your body shouldn't need that much like if you are an elite athlete and that that's what you use that's fine but do you nap not so much i used to be a big napper but i find now like i would rather just get my 10 hours at night i would just get my uh my 13 hours at night and uh you're a big sleeper yeah i'm trying to but you're embarrassing me i thought like i thought eight to nine was good but uh yeah it's decent it's not gonna you'd still be grouchy off that yeah i would i feel like 10 till 8 is just like perfect or half 10 till half 8 okay perfect yeah is that like time like asleep yeah pretty pretty much yeah yeah yeah yeah but also i'm i'm like i would say i'm a good sleeper like when i'm sleeping i just sleep because sometimes like joel will go to sleep two hours before me i'll still get more more sleep than him like because i just don't wake up either that's insane that is that is crazy but um no uh do you do like hot and cold therapy or anything like that i'm not i'm not big on much else what about nutrition nutrition i would say like i've just got like a very solid nutrition like over the last 10 years i've just like figured it figured it out for me like what again when i went to university and stuff like i was a good 10 kilos heavier than i was now and like had to work pretty hard to to get into like elite athlete shape from then um but but yeah kind of relatively like the same weight all year round or yeah i'll fluctuate maybe maybe two kilos but that's probably about about it like when i'm in absolute competition season i'll just shed a little bit because it gives you a bit more like pop off the top of the pole um but yeah i'm i'm pretty steady and i'm not i just listen to what my body needs like i don't record anything i don't know my macros i make sure that i'm just having like a lot of protein what's a typical day looking like so a bit of a bit of porridge in the morning i love like a porridge bowl before training like loaded up with with stuff um and then i'll do my training session come home have like just eggs on toast maybe a protein shake a bit of yogurt in the afternoon to bridge the gap just like like i said i love cooking so just anything anything for dinner like i'm not always trying to have like chicken rice and broccoli like i just vary it with whatever i fancy and then i probably eat chocolate every single day like i don't cut out anything i don't kind of chocolate i just love just a simple cabarees or like a plain one or like the bags of like twirls or something or like a whisper that's that's pretty pretty you're going through like a full bag no no i'm not like i'm really good at moderation okay but again like joe will eat the whole bag so like you're gonna keep it away i gotta keep it away yeah exactly but like i'll just have a little a little bit and the same with like don't get me wrong i don't drink all the time but like i also don't cut alcohol out like i'll have a drink every now and then when i fancy it so i'm just like everything in moderation i'm not strict about anything and that's just what works for me do you think that could potentially be kind of like the key is like you've got a relatively low stress life you sleep a lot you crack on what you're training but like it's not boring it's kind of just enough yeah you're not over training yeah and that's kind of it and that's exactly yeah like it's actually really simple and but i i will say i'm so lucky to be in the position i am like i don't i don't have a job besides being a professional athlete like i train for three hours a day do a bit of therapy do a little bit of recovery even if it's going for a walk and like that's pretty much it and not many people will get the opportunity to do that like if you've been at work all day and then you have to go and train like i imagine that's a very different lifestyle yeah no no it is but then you've got to think about all the things that regular people may not experience that you do yeah like your whole performance and everything that you do is in the public eye yeah and everyone's like if someone has does a shit job at work they're probably not being seen by and like they just do a shit job they might get told off by the boss or whatever yeah yeah it goes out to everyone yeah you've got to deal with that and like my my family or like my dad will always be like oh you've got such like a a nice easy life and like I do like I'm so grateful but it's not it's not easy and I've worked hard to get where I am and like we always talk about like sacrifices or choices or things like that and they are like small things but I like although I am very relaxed and everything I do like I'm constantly switched on i get three weeks off a year where like i go and have fun i go on holiday have off season but like besides that i'm always constantly thinking about making the right decisions constantly kind of like obsessed and it's so funny because we were speaking you've just actually been on holiday yeah and you ended up cutting it short yeah to go back to training yeah yeah i mean i didn't i didn't compete this year so i didn't feel like i needed a holiday quite as much but um but yeah we got we we came back a few days early and got back to it so what are the next kind of like goals so everything now like is a two-year lead into the la olympics so that's the that's like the ultimate goal we've got a lot going on between then next year we've got the world championships european indoors diamond leagues lots of other competitions but if you don't mind me asking is there much competition in kind of like how you actually get to the la olympics is there much competition for you personally so the way that it in the uk there that like pole vault is definitely getting bigger and there's a there's a decent depth in the uk i would say like there's a there's a few girls with the potential to go currently i would say i'm the only one ranked to go that the others will might get there um so like domestically there's not loads but um so for you it's just about staying injury free and arriving at the top of your game and doing what you've done before yeah by the time la olympics comes around yeah exactly that yeah that's pretty cool are you excited for it i'm very excited i think like it's going to be really interesting and i've always not like thought far enough ahead but like obviously with paris as my first olympic experience it did not go to plan like the absolute opposite of what I had hoped for um and I'm gonna have to like prepare to deal with those kind of emotions going into LA um I truly don't think it will happen twice but um and I'll do everything in my power just to like be as prepared as I can I don't think there's anything else that I can do more than that um but yeah no I'm I'm very excited to like start preparing and working towards towards it yeah no um it it sounds really kind of i don't know i think la is going to be so big like everyone's already talking about it and uh yeah is uh where's the world champs next year for like beijing so yeah oh sorry world champs it's every two years what's that yeah world champs every two years so it's been european this year yeah and then worlds next year um which yeah i think will be really cool it's in the birdness stadium which is like a really cool cool stadium in beijing and and then so you plan to compete there yeah but that's at the very end of the season so it's in the middle of september so you know i've got plenty of time to get to there but yeah i'll just kind of bounce are there any like new heights you want to hit so anything you want to break first yes first off i like i just want to get back to being fully healthy and like full fitness and jumping high after kind of having this back surgery and stuff but i've not i've not pb'd in over two years and I just didn't think that that was that was going to happen so I'd love to break my pb and then the next bar would be five meters and the bar after that is the world record so like if things all go right they are my absolute goals but I think and last year they were they were definitely my goals but I've almost had to like take a step backwards and just like get back to where i was and then go from there yeah and then kind of after that do you have any plans like what you want to do after your actual career of like competing it's i think i would like to stay within the sport i've not like i've not thought about it too much um how long do pole vaulters go lots of pole vaulters will go until like there's quite a few girls now that are like 35 and they're the girls like winning medals and stuff my like a plan I think is probably to retire in 32 when I'll be 32 um so I'll do that that Olympics in Australia um and then like I I'm quite big on family I'd like to start a family and that's like something like women in sport have to deal with and I've like considered not right now but like considered having a baby and making the comeback and like maybe but we'll we'll just like see how everything goes um but yeah i think i'll just like to stay within the sport uh i did a little bit of like commentary and stuff this year which was out of my comfort zone but i did enjoy it so like maybe go into something like that but to be honest i'm i'm not 100 sure what do you think you'd be doing if you wasn't balloting like it's such a hard question i've never thought about it like i've i've thought about it but i I've never pictured my...

53:32If you wasn't an athlete... But ever since I was born, I don't think I've thought about not being an athlete. I just think I would have made it work in some way. So that instinct's always been inside? Always. Like ingrown into the very core of me. I know we shouldn't... Not that we shouldn't, but you should have an identity outside of athletics and sport, but it has been such a big part of my life forever. So you always wanted to win when you were younger? Yeah. Hyper competitive? Yes. And when I was a gymnast, I wanted to be you know an Olympic gymnast and then when I moved into athletics it just shifted to athletics and I think it would have been like that in any sport that I did um you know I used to like hockey and netball in school and I was always like very competitive in that so yeah I I honestly maybe I would have been a chef because I like cooking but like I don't I can't give you like an absolute answer what would uh some quick right some quick fire questions yeah what is kind of like your ideal meal to cook like if you're trying to impress joel what you're cooking him he's boring he'd just want a burger like if it was me i'd do like some really good thai food or something like that you can cook good thai food i would like to say yeah yeah yeah oh really good chef yeah i don't know yeah yeah no i do i really really enjoy cooking like i could spend i'll get home from training i'll spend like four hours cooking and baking it's like it's my love language as well like i really enjoy it i just get fat if i did that yeah that is the thing like i do have to make are you a bad influence on joel like he's a high jumper so it's hard like high jumpers kind of need to be light yeah um whereas pole are you saying he's picked the wrong sport for him to be with me and high jump high maybe maybe no no i'm kidding um i actually try to make really like good healthy nutritious but yummy meals maybe i'd come out with a cookbook when i'm done you should do it now like i am quite passionate about it yeah yeah that's true that's true for my hours of making a cookbook yeah cook with molly what's your worst habit

55:39oh he's whispered it to me um i'm really messy i am like i just whatever everywhere i go i just create chaos around me like we could get like a hotel room and in two minutes the floor is like covered and it's not something i'm proud of and i've tried to change but i just can't yeah i feel like a lot of people judge i'm exactly the same by the way yeah but i feel like a lot of people judge yeah and like i won't see it like i've been told a hundred times like put the milk away or like close a cupboard door or something i just like i don't see it like i I don't, yeah. You've only got pole vaulting on your mind.

56:17Exactly. There's nothing else going on up there. Now, they do say though that like the most successful people, especially like within sports, the most successful athletes, kind of like hyper, so fixated on their sport that everything around their sport that they're not really asked about. And they're a little bit lazy with and they just want to be the best. And that's what, that's actually a superpower. Yeah. Because if you cared about being tidy all the time, then you'd have less energy. waste of energy yeah waste of energy yeah but is joel tidy yes is he really tight dead yeah neat for you yeah but that balance maybe it does work yeah like i cook he does everything else it's perfect balance i love that i love that yeah and if you could live anywhere in the world where would you live hawaii hawaii yeah you've been yeah got engaged there oh yeah but um that's a good one like i yeah it was it was good um when i got there like i've never felt so at peace like my soul was just like very happy there and i've traveled a fair bit but it's definitely like the one place that i would love to to go back to yeah it is crazy and there's no like dangerous things out there i think the biggest thing on land is a chicken yeah oh they're noisy yeah did like a couple of days like they just roam everywhere don't they chickens everywhere in the airport we're literally in the airport and like the luggage was coming around and there was a chicken stood on like the luggage belt yeah they're everywhere that's great that's great and then the turtles in the sea yeah like it's crazy just sharks though a lot of sharks i love sharks yeah yeah they're like my favorite animal might be a bit off topic but did you did you go swimming with them in hawaii do you know what not i would love to go like swimming with like great whites or like tiger sharks yeah we just did like the cage yeah but i've i've never i've never done it it's uh it's on my bucket list yeah that was that was my next question what's your favorite animal after that is what is your favorite color

58:23thank you for today i really appreciate it thank you um was there anything that you want to cover anything i don't think so is there any controversy within track and field is there anything that you want to see in track and field that like i would love to see the like continuation of development that they're currently doing to like bring new people into the sport and like keep encouraging new people to try it as well like there are it is a great sport and like yeah that's pretty cool have you got any cool ideas for that you could do i think like the street meet thing is is massive i think just like they've had the world ultimate championships this year where they they like changed a few things just tried to like make it cool and like a bit different and new and just like things like that will keep drawing attention to the sport and and encouraging more and more people to try it as well they could do like a celebrity olympics company yeah that would be cool that would be like like soccer aid but for the olympics yeah and like even like having a professional athlete and then some celebrity like doing the same event just to like show the almost like the difference show how good you are no or like like little master classes like bring a load of people to come and try pole vault you still need to come and try pole vault i do need to try pole but i'm still too embarrassed i couldn't even do the plyometrics that's uh they got they got a lot better in the session yeah yeah but um yeah we do need some drill sessions you need to take me through um but yeah no i find i think everything that you're doing is incredible i find it mind-blowing like the level of skill and dedication that it takes and how much time and effort and energy you put into it i feel like you're the kind of person that is very optimistic and like shows all all the kind of good stuff in your life but like you say you've been through a lot of struggles as well so but um obviously coming out the other side of that and i think it's so good to see thank you i know thank you molly thank you so much for having me that was fun