Paula Radcliffe says she started putting money into a pension at 19, after her first serious income from running began arriving in her teens. The 52-year-old former marathon runner said her approach to money was shaped early by a mix of modest earnings, careful saving and a belief that sport would not last forever.

Radcliffe said she started earning from running at 19 and began making financial investments from that age. She said her first proper sponsorship, with Asics, came when she was about 19 and was worth about $30,000, while her first race prize money was probably about £50 or £100. The biggest early check she remembers was about £55,000 for winning the London Marathon and setting the record, money she said helped cement the habit of saving rather than spending.

“I started investing my running winnings into a pension at 19,” Radcliffe said. “That was when I started paying into my pension.” She said she also began drawing a sports person’s pension from 35, giving her another layer of income long after the races had ended. Her father set her up with her first bank account when she was about 13, and she said her parents were more savers than spenders, even camping around Europe when she was growing up.

That money discipline mattered because the commercial side of elite running was smaller when Radcliffe began. She said British Athletics’ trust fund system even provided a Citroen ZX through approved sporting channels, and she recalled that her first years in the sport came with limited prize money before sponsorships and major marathon wins started to change the picture. The financial upside was real, but it was still tied closely to performance and to systems that restricted how athletes could use the money they earned.

Radcliffe said she still works with Nike, a relationship that has lasted since 2001, and added that a lot of her current income now comes from investments made with money earned during her career. She said she also works for the doing commentary, gives motivational speeches and runs a podcast that required a large upfront commitment before it began to pay back. “I work for the doing commentary, I do motivational speaking, and I’ve got a podcast, which took a huge investment of time before it started bringing any income back,” she said.

Her story sits at the center of The i Paper’s How I Manage My Money series, but it also reflects a wider lesson that outlasts marathon medals: for Radcliffe, the real win was not just the money she made on the road, but the choice to lock much of it away early and let it work for her later.