Alison Mowbray
Gold Medal Flapjack, Silver Medal Life is my first book and an autobiography about an awkward kid who was no good at sport but falls in love with rowing and goes on to get an Olympic medal. The most important thing to me in writing it was that it should be a really good read, that happened to be, at least in part, about rowing and the Olympics. I hope it reads like a novel that also happens to be a true story. I have tried to take people who have never been there inside the Olympics and into an Olympic final and write about the sport I love in a way that appeals to rowers and non-rowers alike. But I also hope it also helps people with snippets and strategies to help them through their own training or achieve their own goals, whatever they may be. I have described it as a Silver medal life of achievement, addiction, alcoholism, anorexia and Alzheimer's because of the many situations I've faced along the way. But a Gold medal story of passion and perseverance, and not letting anything or anybody get between yourself and your dream. And of what happens next, because this was written eight years after winning the medal. What do you do when you've achieved everything you ever wanted to achieve? Where do you go from there?
What made you decide on that name for the book?
The book started out as a recipe book and the first recipe I was always going to write was for my Mum's legendary flapjack, so the title came from that. Whenever I told people the title they loved it and immediately got interested in the book so I thought I was on to a winner. I've cooked, baked, collected and made up recipes all my life. I used to cook for friends a lot when I was rowing because it was a cheap way of being sociable that didn't involve alcohol, which since I never had much money and always had to get up really early were important factors. When I cooked for friends and crew mates they'd always say they wanted the recipe and I'd tell them that when I finished rowing I was going to write my recipe book and they could have it then.
I started writing the recipes down, alongside a short piece about what I was doing in my life at the time, in chronological order of when I first baked them (starting with the flapjack recipe at about age 4) within weeks of my Athens final and retiring from international rowing. I thought that I would just go to the local print shop and print 20 copies to give to friends and family for Christmas. Then, the story sections took over, I discovered I loved writing and I thought that what I was writing might be good. I long knew it wasn't a recipe book anymore but I couldn't take the recipes out because it seemed so arrogant to say I'd written my autobiography when nobody knows who I am. But then I let the first people read it and they said that although they had originally liked the idea of the recipes, when they got reading they skipped through them because they couldn't wait to get on with the story. It was such a confidence boost that I eventually took out the recipes and called it what it is, an autobiography. But I kept the flapjack recipe in so I could keep the title and because flapjack and cooking still feature so much in the book.
Why was being an Olympian never your first or second choice of career?
Because I wasn't a sporty kid. I couldn't catch, throw hit or run, and even if my height and enthusiasm got me onto a couple of the school sports teams my lack of ability got me dropped just as quickly. I reckon there would have been several hundred kids from my school that staff and pupils alike would have lined up ahead of me as most likely to compete at the Olympics. I loved learning and especially Science so I thought I might be a doctor, a teacher or an engineer. But I also always I wanted to do something unusual, preferably something women didn't usually do, so whenever I heard about jobs that women didn't or weren't allowed to do I used to think that I should try and be the first. After watching a documentary on submarines I decided I would like to be the first ever female submarine commander, then I remembered that I really like being outdoors and being cooped up drives me crazy. But my dream job was always to be a Blue Peter Presenter because I love making and baking things and I envied their adventures. I still think that I'd make a really good Blue Peter presenter.
Please tell us about how and when you discovered rowing.
I discovered rowing during my first week at Liverpool University. Someone had told me that I'd make a good rower because I was tall so I joined up alongside about half a dozen other sports and music societies. The only rowing I'd ever done was in the little boats in the park and the Lake District so I had no idea but I wanted to take the opportunity to learn something completely new.
When did it start to become a passion for you?
From the very first day. Loads of us met outside the Student Union that first Wednesday afternoon and got the minibuses to take us the few miles to the lake in Knowsley Estate. The boat house was built into the side of a hill (sort of like a big bomb shelter) by this beautiful little lake in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. We used to sit on the flat roof and it felt like our little Kingdom. The second and third year students were really enthusiastic about teaching us how to row and I still remember almost all of that first rowing session ever though it was over 20 years ago. Eight of us first year girls got into a boat and, coxed by one of the older students, we were taught how to build the stroke up gradually until by the end of the session we were all rowing full strokes together. I'm sure we were rubbish but to move the boat together, to be able to do that, was an amazing feeling and I was totally hooked on trying to do it better. From the moment we got out of the boat none of us could stop talking about the intricacies of the stoke and about rowing in every detail, even though we hardly knew anything yet. I rowed for the next 15 years and was still, even in my last race, learning something new about how to move a boat better through water. I also loved being part of a sports team for the first time, the friends I made there are still my best friends, and finally I loved getting fit for the first time. We did circuit training twice a week and I was so unfit to start with that I couldn't finish any of the exercises and could hardly move for the next week, but it seemed like the perfect challenge and was the start of a life long journey to discover what else my body will do.
The book started out as a few stories from your life; when and how did it begin to take shape into something more?
I was working as an Inspirational speaker talking to schools and businesses. I'd thought it would be a short term thing and once the glow of the Athens Olympics had died down I'd stop getting work, but the opposite happened. People loved the unusual story and the way I told it and I got more and more work from recommendations. Then at one point three or four years in, I spoke at two events in a week that were especially well received. At the second one I spoke to several hundred of 13-18 year girls and at the end I was literally mobbed by the girls wanting to talk to me and ask me questions. I felt like a pop star. One girl said "You've got killer legs, I'm going to take up rowing if it gives me legs like yours" and I laughed, rather embarrassed. But on the way home I thought that it wasn't such a bad thing that these girls found something to aspire to in my size 12, strong, well-muscled legs, rather than size 6, airbrushed, glossy magazine legs and that there did seem to be something in my story that really worked. So I started re-writing my recipe book to include more of the story, meaning just to write down the words I said when I stood up to speak. But then when I started I remembered so many more stories and began to write in much more depth. I wrote more about my school days than I ever meant to. And then I stopped for a while, because I knew it had turned into an autobiography and I thought "What am I doing? Why am I writing this? Who is ever going to want to read a book about me?" and also because I'd reached the point in my life (about 18) when my father's alcoholism became really evident and started playing a much bigger role in my life. I didn't know how to keep writing in this depth without writing about it and several other aspects of my life that I'd never really even spoken about to anyone.
But by this point I'd discovered I loved writing and I thought that what I'd already written was good. I thought that maybe I could be a writer, so I decided to keep going with the autobiography as a sort of practice book, the only way I could keep writing was to think that I'd never publish and no-one would ever see what I'd written. But then, when I'd finished four or five years later, I couldn't believe what I'd written and how I'd written it. I've always loved reading and so admired writers and I thought I'd written something pretty good and even though it was really personal and the thought of people reading it was really scary I wanted people to read it. I started sharing chapters with some of my closest friends and they loved it so that gave me the courage to work for the next two years to get it published. I was terrified once it was published and didn't really sleep for the first week, but then people started to contact me through my website and Facebook to say they couldn't put it down and it had kept them up at nights reading and it's an amazing feeling. Like winning another Olympic medal.
Why do you think there is lack of understanding of just how self-motivated and tough Olympians and, in particular, rowers, have to be to compete?
Because of the comments I still get when I meet people. I'll be working with a business or school the whole day and at the end someone will often say to me "Are you going to compete at the next Olympics?" and they really seem to think that an athlete can just choose to go, do a bit of training and turn up. I usually say something like "No, I've been here with you all day, not training, how can I be going to the next Olympics?" trying not to be too rude, but that's what I mean about people just not getting it. All the Olympic rowers I know have to train 3 times a day, most days, for 4 or even 8 years just to get to go to their first Olympics. I remember the first time I ever spoke at a school prize giving after the Athens Olympics. I stood up and told my story, about all the highs and lows and training on no funding around my job and studies to make the team and then the years of full-time training around a part-time teaching job that it took to get my medal. When I sat down, I sat down next to a local professional footballer and he leaned across to me and, under cover of the applause said "I'm so embarrassed, I had no idea you guys trained like that, I had no idea anyone trained like that, I don't do anything like that and I bet you don't get much money do you?" I told him what I'd got per month on my UK sports grant which I knew would be about what he'd be paid per day and he said again "I'm so embarrassed, I had no idea."
It's important to me that people understand because I know from experience that it's this hard work that makes all Olympian's dreams come true and I think too many people just assume we are naturally talented and have some great advantage over them. So, they give up on their own goals and dreams too early because they think they don't have the 'natural' talent. I never felt like a natural talent so I learnt and made up a lot of mental strategies to get me through the training and fierce competition and I've been able to write about these. Some of the feedback I've loved most is from people who say they now really do get it and have been helped to achieve their own goals by reading my book.
What is next for you?
I'm not quite onto the "What's next?" yet. Getting Gold Medal Flapjack published was like training for an Olympic medal all over again and I kept thinking I'd done everything and pushed it through the finish line only to find out I wasn't even at the start. It was so tough working out what I needed to do (I had no idea when I started) and getting it all done around my full-time job. I had the first copies in my hands just before Christmas and collapsed, exhausted, for a few weeks thinking I'd done it. Only to realise that because I'm not famous I still hadn't even got to the start line. It's one thing to write the book and get it into print, it's another whole job to let people know it exists and that they might want to read it.
But I always have two or three things on the go at the same time. I've spent the past few years bringing all my science, sports and psychology background together in some work I do around nutrition and healthy life-style, really practical stuff. I love it and want to work with more people around that, it will be my next book. I also love trekking and Argentine tango. In Gold Medal Flapjack I talk about "doing the things that won't wait first" and I know I need to do as much of these as possible while my body will still do them. I plan to carve out more time in the next few years to do more of the great wilderness treks and spend more time in Buenos Aires dancing tango.