Marathon mum’s long and winding road to Paris
A Waikato athlete takes the challenges of motherhood in her stride as she steps up to the marathon for the Paris Olympics, reports
From the moment Camille French wrapped up a tortuous Olympic track campaign in Tokyo in 2021, the Hamilton athlete told herself: “I’m going to make it to Paris. I’m going to do this the right way.” The hard part, as the soon-to-be-mum was about to discover, would be finding the time and support to make that lofty ambition a reality.
That she is essentially there now, having been named in New Zealand’s initial 15-strong athletics team for the Paris Olympics (July 26-August 11), to run in the marathon, leaves this 33-year-old wife of former top Kiwi 400-metre hurdler Cameron French, and mum to nearly 2-year-old Sienna, feeling decidedly proud of herself.
It’s been a journey fraught with difficulty and doubt, but one she has negotiated with the dogged determination that is a prerequisite for her new event.
Not only has this Waikato super-mum been true to the vow she made on the finish-line of the 10,000m in Tokyo on August 7, 2021, but she has negotiated a minefield of challenges to get there, many of which revolved around the beautiful bundle of joy she welcomed into the world in June of 2022. It is fair to say this Olympic journey of Camille French (née Buscomb) has not been your run-of-the-mill pursuit of athletic excellence.
Before we delve into the transition from motherhood to marathon runner, quite the story for an athlete who had to figure out this would not be a solo quest, it’s appropriate to wind the clock back three years to the postponed Games of the Tokyo Olympiad.
French, a two-time world championships performer, competed in the 5000 and 10,000m in Tokyo, and felt as fit and ready as she ever had in her career. Instead, her first Olympic experience turned into a nightmare amid the chaos of the Covid era.
The Waikato athlete has not shared this story publicly before. Until now only close friends and family members have been privy to the finer details of her Tokyo Games soap opera. There’s a sense of unburdening as she details an experience she can only tab “insane”.
She arrived in Tokyo designated as a close contact of a Covid positive – the person she had been allocated to sit beside on the plane over, never mind that she had immediately moved elsewhere in the plane because of proximity concerns.
It didn’t matter. This was a Games playing out under strict Covid regulations. Protest as she might, authorities would not budge in assigning close-contact status. Rules, schmules.
“I spent the entire Games locked up in a room,” she recalls. “I wasn’t allowed to do anything. I couldn’t go to the dining hall. I was eventually escorted by car to train by myself. It was 100% worse than what everyone else was experiencing.
“I got tested twice a day. I’d never had Covid before, and was negative the whole time. I was worried they wouldn’t let me compete, but they fought for me to race if I was driven by myself to the meet, warmed up on my own, raced, and then left straight away.
“It was literally the worst thing in the whole world.”
French couldn’t even train until after her 5000m heat on day one of the track programme. She spent the entire Games locked in a room far away from the rest of the New Zealand team, with food delivered to what felt like a prison cell.
“I wasn’t allowed to be at anything. The whole team knew. I was like a leper. It was so so sad – no-one wanted me anywhere near them because everyone was so scared about Covid. The very first time I got it was like a year later.”
Needless to say, this was no sort of preparation for peak athletic performance. French came home 14th (out of 19) in her 5000m heat, in a disappointing 15min 24.39sec, missing a spot in the final by over 24 seconds.
Ahead of the 10,000m straight final on the final day of track competition she had at least been able to train, solo of course. But it was rinse and repeat: the Kiwi trailed the big field home in 19th place in 32:10.49 – the best part of a minute off her PB.
“I don’t even know how I did it,” she reflects. “It was a horrible Games experience. But as soon as I crossed the line after my last race I told myself, ‘I am coming back. I will 100% be in Paris. This is not how it ends’. That was a change from after the 5k when I thought I might never run again. I had never been so unhappy in my life.”
Soon enough despair became delight as baby Sienna was welcomed into the world. Camille had continued running, at a reduced clip, for a large chunk of her pregnancy, but when weeks turned into months after the birth, it was soon time to return to training, and fulfil that promise made to herself in Tokyo.
What’s more, she had decided to make the leap from track to marathon. “I just wanted something new – a fresh challenge,” she surmises. Valencia, in December of ’23, was set as the target race.
“It felt like good timing – 18 months after having Sienna. I didn’t feel I had to rush back, and it gave me basically a year … time to get ready, it was a good course, a quality race. I put all my eggs in that one basket.”
But there was a problem. Husband Cameron had launched his post-athletics career as a project manager in construction, was committed to long hours, extra days, and Camille was flying largely solo with Sienna.
Circumstances limited the ability to lean on family.
“The main challenge was finding the time to train, and it was something I struggled with for a long time,” she tells the Star-Times from Hamilton. It was our second chat of the day, the first interrupted by Sienna’s demands, and then a late-afternoon spin on the treadmill. Welcome to Camille’s world.
“I was so slow getting back running, and that was because I just wasn’t doing enough training. It took ages to feel like I could ramp it up (in marathon mode she puts in about 160km a week, hitting the bricks often twice a day). I would run for 30-45 minutes, but my legs were sore, everything was slow, I wasn’t making progress. I was stagnant.
“I couldn’t see how I could train, and look after Sienna, and breastfeed, then look after me and Cam. I just couldn’t fit it all in.
‘‘I had no physical setbacks; it was all just around time. I didn’t ask family for enough help.”
Then, little pieces started to come together. Former top Waikato runner Dianne Rodger would pop along once a week to mind Sienna while Camille put in a track session. A nanny was added two mornings a week.
Afternoon runs were made with baby in pram. Then Camille’s mother cleared time to cover a morning, and then two. Finally, Cam’s mother jumped in another morning.
“Suddenly I was, ‘holy heck, I’ve just filled a whole week of training’. From March onwards I doubled my training, five days a week. I got so fit after three weeks. And it’s really cool they’re all such a part of it, and they have such amazing relationships with Sienna. She loves it, and it kinda all works.”
French, who is coached by Nic Bideau out of Australia, then added another couple of people to help with her own training, and Team Camille was complete. Now races could be contemplated. Which is when it started to get serious.
“I thought if I’m going to ask for this help, I’m going to make this work,” she says. “I felt confident. I could see how hard everyone was working to help me. It made me so happy, so proud, so grateful. That was the way I could repay them.”
Part one of the plan was the Gold Coast half-marathon last July. She’d had a couple of track hitouts over summer, and grabbed bronze in the national road mile in Rotorua. But the GC was a sighter, the would-be marathon woman thinking a sub-70min performance would have her on target for an Olympic qualifier over the full 42.195km in December.
She ran 69:59, finished fifth, and was over the first hurdle.
“If people rush into it after having babies, sometimes they have setbacks. I thought if I was more conservative at the start, hopefully I’d have fewer setbacks later. It didn’t
“It was a horrible Games experience [in Tokyo]. But as soon as I finished my last race I told myself, ‘I am coming back’.” Camille French
give me much room for error. Once I started, it was, ‘this has to work right now’.”
Valencia was her first ever marathon. Cameron and Sienna accompanied her. And a purposeful and focused French strode around the scenic course in 2hr 26min 08sec – well under the Olympic standard of 2:26:50.
“I knew I could do the time. There was no way it could be harder than my preparation. It had been a whole new level of training in terms of quality and duration. I was basically backing up PB half-marathons for six weeks straight, plus a long run.”
French has been inspired by other mums who have returned to competition after having babies – people such as champion shot put exponent Dame Valerie Adams, and Irish athlete Sonia O’Sullivan who is married to her coach. Throughout the journey she has constantly reminded herself, “it’s doable”.
And now? She tucked away a second marathon in Nagoya, Japan, in March, recording 2:28:23 which she regarded as a quality effort in blustery conditions far tougher than Valencia. She will prepare for Paris mostly in the Waikato, factoring in hill running and heat-chamber work to assimilate conditions at the Games.
“Making the team was stage one. Now I just want to have a good race. I want to run my best. I feel like I’ve got experience behind me. I’m confident.
‘‘I’m definitely a lot tougher than I was in Tokyo. I’ve been through a lot. I’ve overcome a lot.” The marathon mum has kept her promise.