WORDS HATTIE PARISH
‘Retiring is a real shock,’ says Jessica Ennis-Hill sagely. ‘You’ve spent your whole life living a certain way – it’s not just training, it’s the way you eat, the way you sleep. Your whole life is bundled up into your career. When it stops you can’t help but wonder, “How is my life structured now?”’
It’s not an unfamiliar premise – many retirees speak of the void it leaves in their life, of seeking a new sense of purpose. But most of those people are in their 60s, not sporting a rippling six-pack and Insta-documenting hill runs. The 33-year-old heptathlete retired from athletics in 2016, just four years after her success at the London Olympics had the nation cheering at their TV screens. A silver at Rio in 2016 rounded off her career nicely – along with World and European Championship titles and the current British record for the heptathlon. It appears idyllic – Jess retired on her own terms and as one of Britain’s most decorated athletes – but the lifestyle change was a lot to come to terms with. ‘It’s strange for any athlete,’ she contemplates. ‘You suddenly don’t have to get up every morning and train. You don’t have a focus, you lose that goal of being ready for competitions. I was always working towards something as an athlete, so when I retired, there was a hole where those goals were.’