The one thing our pregnant star can’t do other mums-to-be can: Planning a training regime for two

South Australian marathon star Jess Trengove is pregnant with her first child but as an elite athlete, there’s one simple thing she can’t do other mums-to-be don’t think twice about.

It’s said it takes a village to raise a baby and when it comes to Adelaide’s marathon sweetheart Jess Trengove a tight-knit hamlet is firmly in place, months before bub even arrives.

The 31-year-old announced in May she and runner husband Dylan Stenson, 30, were expecting their first child — it will be the third grandchild on her side (a little cousin to nieces, Milly and Sophie) and the first for the paternal grandparents.

“I have no doubt being a parent will be very difficult at times but there are plenty of opportunities that I have seized throughout my life that I didn’t expect to be easy, the rewards make the challenges worthwhile,” writes Trengove, the sister of Port Adelaide footballer and former Melbourne co-captain Jack, in a recent blog.

Marathon star Jess Trengove, coach Adam Didyk and sports dietitian Olivia Warnes sit down to plot a training for two, now Jess is pregnant for the first time — over coffee at Coffee By the Bean in Lockleys. Picture Matt Turner.

The Sunday Mail sat in as Trengove’s own “athletes’ village” — including coach Adam Didyk and dietitian and sports nutritionist Olivia Warnes — met to begin sketching out a plan for the days, weeks and months ahead, before and after baby arrives.

“The ultimate thing is that having a baby is more important than anything we do in sport, so this is real life now,” says Didyk, the reigning Athletics SA coach of the year.

As an elite athlete, there are things Trengove needs to consider that other expectant parents don’t — and it has nothing to do with preparing to run really quickly the equivalent of Adelaide to the outskirts of Port Willunga, post-baby, potentially with the world watching on.

For Trengove, there is no such thing as simply grabbing a popular pregnancy multivitamin or supplement from a supermarket or pharmacy shelf.

As a funded athlete, she can be tested at any time by Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, regardless of whether she is actively preparing for competition or not.

“During pregnancy there are multivitamins and what-not you are meant to take but for me, supplementation is a tricky area as it is difficult to be confident a multivitamin hasn’t been accidentally contaminated with a potentially banned substance,” she says.

“I reached out to the Athletics Australia doctor to check if I could take ‘this, this and this’ and he was like ‘no, no, no’. So, rather than using multivitamins, I’ve had to look specifically for folate on its own, zinc on its own.”

Trengove in the final moments of her medal-winning marathon final performance at 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. Picture: Adrian Dennis/ AFP PHOTO

She is being supported by Warnes, who has worked with Trengove since 2012, and has been researching where best to source pregnancy supplements and how to ensure things such as the marathoner’s iron levels are adequately maintained at this key time.

“While vitamins and minerals aren’t generally tested, there are companies including a good one in the US that do test products specifically for banned substances, so ideally, whatever Jess uses will have been batch-tested,” she says.

Warnes, who works with some of the state’s top netballers, says she is excited to be learning more about pregnancy and elite sport, soaking up knowledge where she can.

In a stroke of serendipity, physiotherapist Trengove is doing a women’s health course as part of her professional development, looking into diagnosing and treating pelvic floor issues during pregnancy as well as safe exercise during pregnancy — a course she’d enrolled in before falling pregnant herself.

And with his star marathoner pregnant with her first child, Didyk, too, says he is seeking support and guidance — with the health and wellbeing of Trengove and her unborn baby the highest priority.

Jessica Trengove and husband Dylan Stenson announced in May they are pregnant with their first child. Picture: Instagram

“At the end of the day, we need to recognise, there is another person being brought into the world and that is primary … anyone who is starting family, or has had a family knows that and no one is going to try and put that at risk, that’s the key consciousness here,” Didyk says.

“I am fairly fortunate to be supported by a good medical team at Athletes Australia and SASI (South Australia Sports Institute) and am seeking advice in terms of what is right (for Jess) at this period of time and also what is right post pregnancy was well.”

Didyk though does have an advantage. He and his wife Kate, also a runner, have two young children — five-year-old Brodie, who was page boy at Trengove’s Adelaide Hills wedding in April — and Lachlan, 2.

“I made a big effort to learn about what my wife was going through, reading numerous books so I knew what to expect every month when she was pregnant,” he says.

“And, I’ve had that direct involvement in terms of seeing how (Kate) went about her training, and have seen that, in certain parts of her pregnancy, she didn’t feel like she could do anything.”

Team Tempo coach Adam Didyk with wife Kate and children Brodie and Lachlan, post marathon at the Commonwealth Games where they are celebrating Trengove’s bronze medal. Picture: Supplied

He says fatherhood has given him a new perspective and forced him to become more flexible.

“The reality is things don’t always go to plan … we bought a running pram but the kids would start screaming their heads off five minutes into a run, no matter what we tried, it just didn’t work, so all of a sudden, our availability to train and exercise was less and we had to take turns,” he says.

As well as his own kids, Didyk will draw on his experience working with racewalker Jared Tallent, a four-time Olympic medallist who welcomed his first child, a baby boy with Commonwealth Games silver medallist racewalker wife, Claire, in May 2017.

“When I went on a training camp with Jared and Claire, on some occasions I’d be looking after the baby on the side of the track and even changing a dirty nappy while he and Claire were both training,” he recalls.

Marathoner Jess Trengove with her younger siblings, sister Abbie and brother Jack. Picture suppled by Jess Trengove.

While competing at Tokyo remains a dream for the Naracoorte-born athlete, Trengove isn’t setting strict time frames or expectations.

“(By nature of what we do), athletes are driven and if you put goals there, we are going to do what they can to achieve those goals … pulling back is harder than doing the training,” she says.

“If it is really tough one day and the baby is crying and won’t sleep, you’ll have this niggle in the back of your brain that you have to train and suddenly it is an added stress — a huge part of sport is the mental side, your mental state dictates what you can do physically.”

“It is all really personal … we can sit down and structure out things in regards (to Jess’s) training but at the end of the day, she can only do what she can do — it is really important she stays within the realms of what is right for her and what she can manage,” adds Didyk.

For Jess Trengove, the next few months are all about making sure she — and her unborn baby — remain are strong and healthy. Picture Matt Turner

“There is still the potential to look at things like the Tokyo Olympics but at the end of the day, we are only going to know how realistic that is when we see how Jess responds and copes when the baby arrives … it’s not, ‘well, the baby is out, it is time to get back on the track and training’.”

For now, Didyk says the focus is ensuring Trengove is “strong and healthy”.

“We do know Jess has her best days ahead, not behind her,” he says.

And there are plenty of amazing athletes, women who’ve achieved personal bests and ran incredible races as mums, to draw inspiration from.

British distance runner Paula Radcliffe who famously won the New York City marathon nine months after welcoming a baby girl is one, US runner Kara Goucher, who set a personal record at the 2011 Boston Marathon, seven months after she gave birth to her son, is another.

And who can forget Gawler-born Olympian Lisa Ondieki who set a course record in New York in 1992 that stood for nine years, two years after giving birth to her baby girl?

Trengove and her team are hoping lessons they learn will pave the way for more elite athletes and sportspeople to pursue their sporting dreams post-maternity in the future, citing the expansion and heightened profile of professional women’s sport, including AFL and cricket.

“What we’ve discovered … is what little set guidelines there are available for elite athletes who fall pregnant as opposed to those (mums-to-be) who just want to stay active during pregnancy … there really isn’t a lot available for elite athletes,” says Trengove.

Family has always been hugely important to Jess. She is pictured her as a child with her younger sister and brother, Abbie and Jack. Picture supplied.

“There is this increasing need for information because women are playing sport and elite sportlate into their 30s — we have plenty of young, female athletes in (the Didyk-created) Team Tempo. (The focus needs to be) not around a reward system but investing in athletes for the future … it is nice to be part of that era where you can have a voice, and stand up for what you believe in.”

Didyk believes at a national — and international — level more research and energy needs to be channelled into encouraging and finding ways to help women remain competitive at the top level of sport after having kids.

“I think in many respects this is an interesting case study for the people who are in the team around Jess — (she) is a fantastic ambassador,” adds Didyk.

Globally, conversation has turned to the financial protection of athletes during and post pregnancy.

In the US Nike has come under fire for its treatment of pregnant sportswomen after it was revealed the sportswear giant wanted to slash the contract of the most decorated female runner in Olympic history, Allyson Felix, by 70 per cent after she gave birth to a baby girl last year.

“If we have children, we risk pay cuts from our sponsors during pregnancy and afterward,” the six-time gold and three-time silver Olympic medallist recently wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

“It’s one example of a sports industry where the rules are still mostly made for and by men.”

Others such as Goucher and US track star Alysia Montaño, who ran the 800m race at the 2014 US track and field championships when she was eight months pregnant, have added their voices to the call for maternity protection in sponsorship contracts.

It is something the Australian Basketballers’ Association (ABA) and the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL) has already addressed, last year announcing a new parental and pregnancy care policy that includes, among other things, providing care and financial support for mothers with children up to four years old for away trips.

A young Jess Trengove: Picture supplied by Jess Trengove.

Still, argues Trengove, the public perception of women in sport by some needs to change with social media also adding a new layer of complexity around pregnancy and exercise for many high profile athletes, eroding privacy and allowing strangers to publicly pass (and share) judgment.

Trengove says she was shocked by the maliciousness of abuse hurled in the direction of herself and US runner Stephanie Bruce when the pair went jogging together when her running mate was pregnant. “(Bruce) had a sizeable pregnant belly and was wearing a crop top and people were yelling all sorts of things at us — it was quite a confronting experience,” she says.

Closer to home, Didyk’s wife experienced similar verbal attacks. “My wife used to get abused for going out jogging and she was doing far less than what she was given permission to do by her doctor,” says Didyk.

Controversy over women playing sport while pregnant isn’t new. It was almost two decades ago former Adelaide Ravens netball captain Trudy Gardner was thrust into headlines when she lodged a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission after being banned from playing in the National Netball League in the early stages of her pregnancy.

Two years on, the 2001 ban was lifted and the star was awarded $6750 for “hurt, humiliation and loss of match payments”.

For Trengove it’s a question of balance and doing what “feels right”. “I am playing it day by day, I am still outside and getting sunshine and feeling like I am doing something, for both my fitness and also my mental wellbeing,” she says.

And, her coach for one, seems pretty happy with the pace she is setting herself. “You’ve a nine-month marathon going on here,” he says.