With three adorable children in tow, the bubbly and cheerful Eliza Ault-Connel, aged 37, does not appear to be like your average elite athlete, at first glance.

Yet Eliza will be one of the 11 athletes who is vying for top honours in the inaugural Marathon Wheelchair category at this year’s Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (SCSM).

Her Foray Into Wheelchair Racing

Born able-bodied, Eliza contracted meningococcal disease at the age of 16, and as a result of this, she had to have both of her legs amputated above the knees.

Her foray into wheelchair racing had began in 1998, when she moved to the sport after a short career as a Paralympic runner on prosthetic legs, eventually giving up running due to countless injury. She is able to walk with the aid of prosthetic legs, though.

Said Eliza, “Wheelchair racing is totally different to running. I had to go from being predominantly lower body to having to use my upper body. It was a huge shift in my training regime, but you know, I fell in love with the sport of wheelchair racing and this sport has given me so many opportunities since then.

Eliza has never looked back since, and has continued to excel in her wheelchair racing career, with the highlight of her journey being a second placing at the 2018 Commonwealth Games Wheelchair Marathon.

She took a break from wheelchair racing to have her three kids, but returned to the sport about two years ago, to prove to her kids that nothing was impossible.

Her First Trip to Singapore 

And now, this effervescent lady is looking forward to racing in Singapore, a city that she is visiting for the first time ever.

Said Eliza, “It is a huge honour to be here in Singapore and racing against these top wheelchair athletes for the first time in the Singapore Marathon. We are happy to be coming here to test the course and test our abilities here too. It will be very exciting.”

As I was talking to Eliza on the sidelines after the SCSM Elite Athletes Press Conference, her three young children were, in fact, playfully running rings around her and I thought that this had been really cute.

Eliza continued on, “Singapore is such a beautiful city and to be here, and have my family with me, is great. I feel very safe here and having my kids around, too. We have had an amazing time so far, going to the Singapore Zoo and Sentosa, as well. I hope to be able to continue to enjoy the city in the coming days, and have an amazing race too.”

Start Time Too Early 

However Eliza admits that the early start time for the Singapore race could pose a challenge. 

She said, “The challenge of a new course, together with racing at 4.30am in the morning, will be very new and very different for us all. It’ll be the first time where we need to have lights on board our wheelchairs and that will be exciting. This is probably the earliest that a race has flagged off. Prior to that, my earliest was a 6am start, so this will be challenging but I am relishing it and it is going to be exciting.”

She added, “To make it in time to start, we’ll have to be up well before 4.30am; so I plan on being in bed by 6.30pm the previous night and we will have a 2am wake up. So it will be a really long day.  But to have the race over and done with by 6.30am means that we will have the whole day to enjoy in Singapore, though.”

Humidity Not A Problem

She is not concerned about the humidity levels, though and added that she is used to it. Said Eliza, “I do a lot of my training on rollers so I do not have that wind flow when I am training. I live in a hot area in Australia too, so the heat is something that I am quite comfortable with.”

Eliza is based in Aubury, which is a suburban region located halfway between Canberra and Melbourne.

And Eliza added, “I will make sure that I carry enough water on board and make sure I am well hydrated in the lead up, including taking mineral salts, so I will be well prepared to face the Singapore weather.”

Drawbacks Of A New Race

But the fact that the Singapore wheelchair race is brand new on the wheelchair marathon circuit, means that Eliza and her fellow athletes will have nobody to turn to for advice, where the course is concerned.

She said, “We will not have any other athletes who have raced this, so we cannot ask for tips about the road surface and the course profile so it will be unknown. But then, we are all in the same boat, so we will all have to look after each other and have a safe race.”

Her Training

To train for her wheelchair marathon races, Eliza clocks about 180km – 200km each week, but during the tapering phase for each race, she drops to about 70km, much like the world’s top marathon runners.

She added, “We will have a couple of days off, leading to each marathon and will do double 10km tempo rolls, to increase the intensity while decreasing the distance.”

Races Per Year

Each year, she does about ten marathons. Said Eliza, “Most able bodied athletes cannot get in that many marathons. It is a pretty demanding schedule for us, but we are lucky that we can recover a little faster than able-bodied marathoners, so we can do more races.”

She added, “We generally do the five world majors and apart from that, we may add in another couple of marathons in our home country, then there are those opportunities that come up, like this one in Singapore.”

Hopes to Boost Singapore Paralympic Sports 

Besides soaking up the atmosphere and the race, Eliza hopes that coming to Singapore to showcase wheelchair marathoning for the first time can help to boost the image of Paralympic sports in Singapore.

She said “It is really fantastic and great to bring something new to a country where there has not been much exposure for para athletes. So we hope that this will not only show people with disability that there are options for physical activity out there, but also to encourage people in general, to move more.”

Chilling Out In Singapore

And once her race on Sunday is done, like any other athlete, she is looking forward to chilling out.

Said Eliza, “I am looking forward to a beautiful swim at Marina Bay Sands with the hubby and kids. And I simply have to have some chicken rice. So I plan on going to the Maxwell Market as I heard that it is very good for chicken rice. I love dumplings too, so I am keen to find the best dumplings in Singapore.”

Spoken like a true foodie, indeed.