The oldest ever female European champion explains why motherhood has been no barrier to her increasing success

Jo Pavey fits in her running around her family to the extent that she sometimes does her "morning" track session at 1pm because that is when her children are ready and hasn't been on a training camp for six years.

Yet despite that on Tuesday evening in Zurich the 40-year-old beat athletes up to 21 years younger who live the professional athlete lifestyle and go warm-weather and altitude training to claim European 10,000m gold.

The mother of two admits to finding the situation "funny" and "surreal" but thinks it is her self-satisfied approach to life and flexibility that is key to the form that has finally given her the first major title of her career.

The subject of whether childbirth offers female athletes some physical advantage has been hotly debated over the years, but Pavey would argue against that.

"The disadvantages outweigh the advantages," she says of childbirth and athletics. "I got really unfit when I was pregnant and then had to come back. I don't think there's a performance thing. I think the lack of conditioning it causes is a disadvantage."

In fact, Pavey points out that, having given birth to her daughter Emily last September, she was still breastfeeding in April - one month before the trial race for the European Championships. Such was her fitness at that time she was unsure whether she could do enough to be selected.

She recalls: "When I was breastfeeding and going down the track doing sessions my times were terrible and I was lying on the floor feeling exhausted and thinking, 'how on earth am I going to be able to run? This is hilarious how slow I am'. It was almost as if I had been training with loads of weights on me. When I got my body back to a normal state it got better."

But the Devon "supermum", who won an English Schools' title 26 years ago, says family life does have its advantages.

"I'm really relaxed in my personal life," says Pavey, whose husband Gavin is her coach and a former 3:50 1500m runner. "I feel so happy. I've got a supportive husband and two lovely young children and I train really hard, but I don't get stressed about it and I feel like my running will be what it will be. Just being a busy mum keeps me active and busy all the time and gives me a lot of endurance."

One might think it takes meticulous planning to be an elite athlete and a mother, but Pavey claims she is anything but organised.  "I'm completely disorganised about it," says the Exeter Harrier, who explains how sessions at the track with Gavin and the children go. "My morning track sessions ends up being 1pm in the afternoon because I go when the kids are ready and clothed and fed. Then sometimes my recovery run is a bit close to the track session. I always train twice a day, but I do it when it works for the family. That's the beauty of my husband coaching me. I think being flexible has worked for me."

Persistence has been key too for Pavey, who did not win her first major championships medal until her 2004 Euro Cross bronze at the age of 30. Her first track medal was a silver at the 2006 Commonwealths. After giving birth to her son Jacob in 2011 and injury halted her move up to the marathon, she showed the best form of her career, placing seventh and first non-African-born athlete in both the 5000m and 10,000m at the London Olympics, becoming at the age of 38 the second-quickest Brit in history over 25 laps.

Then earlier this month she gained admiration for her dogged determination in gaining Commonwealth 5000m bronze and 10 days later became the oldest ever female European champion. That is a record she could again break on Saturday, when at the age of 40 years and 330 days she goes in the 5000m final.