Our Alana continues to spread the healthy eating message

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Our Alana continues to spread the healthy eating message

Five years ago, pole vaulter, Alana Boyd, was preparing for her third Olympics at Rio de Janeiro and representing Brisbane Produce Market as the Healthy Eating Ambassador for the retail program. Half a decade later, she’s known as Alana Quade, has had two children and is working in the family business with her husband, Ryan, but her devotion to the importance of healthy eating remains front of mind, albeit for a different audience. While the current batch of Olympians have just completed their life changing journey in a Games like no other before, the importance of the event remains the same. “Because it only comes around every four years, it makes it that little bit more special to become an Olympian,” Mrs Quade said. “It’s the pinnacle of your career for most sports so you put everything into it and, given the postponement last year, the whole process would have been really hard for a lot of athletes. I think everybody who is on the team would be extremely grateful that they made it.” With no spectators and the spectre of COVID looming over the event, this year’s games had a very different feel. “It would have been a bit eerie without a crowd, but regardless they pushed themselves to the limit. The competition was still fierce. Having a crowd can go both ways, having 20,000 people in a stadium cheering you on can be a massive adrenaline boost but at the same time it can also be distracting.” Mrs Quade competed in three Olympic Games and said that each was very different both in terms of her own performance and the event in general. “Rio was my best performance and I jumped so close to my personal best but I also knew it was going to be my last,” she said. “With age comes wisdom, and I approached the Games differently to my previous ones: I went in there with nothing to lose. My advice to other athletes would be to trust that you’ve done all the work that you can. What have you got to lose? Go in there and just give it everything you’ve got.” Since Rio, Mrs Quade has retired from athletics, married, given birth to two girls - Matilda (3) and Charlotte (1) - and worked hard at growing the family’s building company. “I feel like it’s been a lot longer than five years but at the same time it feels like only yesterday too,” she said. “I still try to have balance in my life and keep fit, but my training regime is definitely not what it used to be! But life is really good. I love being a mum and my life after sport.” According to Mrs Quade, eating healthy, fresh produce is absolutely critical for athletes and a partnership with the Brisbane Produce Market made sense. “Being able to provide your body with fuel to make sure you can put in your all at every training session or every

Healthy habits: As Brisbane Produce Market’s healthy eating ambassador, Alana Quade (nee Boyd) spruiked the benefits of shopping at your local fruit shop for the retail program.

Our Olympian: Alana at Rio de Janeiro with the Brisbane Markets Limited logo proudly displayed on her pole.

competition is just vital. I have always been big on eating my fruit and vegetables so when the opportunity came up to align myself with Brisbane Produce Market it was the perfect fit,” she said. Mrs Quade said that having the support of Brisbane Markets Limited (BML) behind her allowed her to focus on her preparation for the Olympics without worrying about financial concerns. “Unless you are a football star or the very best in the world, it is very difficult to balance training and employment,” Mrs Quade said. “Having financial assistance from BML allowed me to put that worry out of my mind and just get on with the job at hand leading into Rio. But also, just knowing that I had the support of everyone at Brisbane Markets and everyone who shops at their local fruit shop, was just amazing.” While healthy eating is still an important focus as a mother, the battles at the dinner table are the same no matter your background. “My two-year-old loves fruit but for some reason she’s just decided that she doesn’t want to eat any veggies,” Mrs Quade said. “I try to hide them and research yummy ways to cook them to keep it exciting for my kids because I want them to have the best possible nutrition so that they can develop into strong and healthy adults. It’s definitely something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life and pass down to my children.”