Retired National Hurdler Dipna Lim-Prasad On Motherhood And Parenting

For the most part of her childhood—particularly from primary school until her mid-twenties—Dipna Lim-Prasad dedicated her passion and time to running. The defining moment for the now-retired National sprinter and hurdler came when she had to decide on a career path as graduation from university loomed closer in 2014. 

“Running wasn’t really an option, it was not a viable career per se. [But] every time I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life, running was always the answer. It came to a point I was like, why not try?” the former Singapore Sports School student-athlete shared in an interview with theAsianparent.

“The idea was that I would only go full-time for one year and retire in 2015 because Southeast Asian Games (SEA) games were in Singapore that year,” Dipna adds. The experience, however, left the full-time NIKE athlete “really hungry for more”. She then decided to forge on with her professional endeavour, with the support of her now 37-year-old husband, Poh Seng Song.

“I didn’t want to leave anything hanging in that sense so I really wanted to get the goals done then have a kid. Then if I have new goals, or if I’m still really hungry for it then I’ll come back to the sport. So that was my mindset very much from the get-go,” explains Dipna who won the 400m and 400m hurdles silver at the 2017 SEA games.

Dipna also broke the 43-year national record held by Singapore legend Chee Swee Lee. “That’s my most memorable race,” the 29-year-old says.

Transition From Full-time Athlete To Being a Mum 

Dipna notes that for the most part of their relationship, her husband has been waiting for her to be ready for certain milestones. “So like getting a house, getting married, having kids. We were, in a sense, on different pages in our lives,” she says. 

The compromise for Dipna and Poh then was the year when the 2018 Asian games were held.

“After the season while on holiday, I did a lot of reflecting,” Dipna recounts. “We spoke and I decided it was a good time for me to take a step back from the sport. So we decided to try for a baby [which we got] and here we are! (sic).”

The couple has a son, Tien, who is now 16 months old.

According to the first-time mum who ran for 17 years thus far, being fit allowed her to adapt to the bodily changes such as weight gain that came with pregnancy. 

While Dipna said moving about did not affect her as much as it did for her expectant friends, she was faced with a totally different challenge: “[Pregnancy] affected my joints in the sense that then I couldn’t run anymore. My joints really hurt a lot.” 

“So that was a bit difficult because I wanted to run, specifically run but I couldn’t because of that,” says the Co-founder for In My Shoes, a movement to provide running shoes to the less privileged youths in Singapore.

Dipna says she was recommended to engage in low impact exercises like swimming or cycling instead—both activities which she didn’t particularly enjoy. Having symphysis pubis dysfunction, the home-maker says she was also advised against doing squats.

Towards the third trimester, there was “a lot of trial and error” in what Dipna said she could do. She continued: “It was a bit of trying some new things, but also then being a bit less active in that sense.” 

Since having Tien, Dipna shares that her greatest challenge is finding the balance between personal time and being a mother. She says: “I mean, parenting is like 24/7 right, it doesn’t end. So it’s really about trying to find the time. [To] carve out time for work that isn’t related to the baby, or just time for myself to just chill and do nothing”.

But at least, Dipna says that she is lucky to have a supportive husband that has a flexible schedule and would look after Tien so she can tend to her community roles such as In My Shoes or Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) Athletes Commission, and go for the runs that she loves.

On Parenting And Her Advice For Parents: “Just go with the flow”

Likewise, in terms of parenting, Dipna’s approach is pretty much to “just go with the flow”, which is what she would advise fellow parents as well. 

“There’ll be so many people that will give you conflicting advice even [but] I think it’s good to hear everyone out. I like to hear people out because I think it gives me a lot of options,” shares Dipna who would then explore them and see what best works for the family.

“But at the same time, ultimately, your kid is really just unique and [so is] your parenting style, how you guys interact—and everything is really just going to be different. So it’s good to have a starting point in hearing what everyone has to say, but you’ll figure it out.”

When it comes to her little one, Tien, Dipna admits that there is a lot of pressure on whether he would follow in her footsteps, or that of her husband who is also a former national sprinter. “Everyone says [Tien’s] like a little sprinter,” says Dipna. 

However, she explains that Tien “is his own person” and it is about providing him with an environment where he can flourish and be the best version of himself. 

“It’s very much like a gardener concept [whereby] Tien is this seed we’ve been given, and we don’t know what plant or what flower he is. So it’s just very much [about] providing the right environment for him to grow and eventually bloom into whatever he’s supposed to be, or whatever that seed is,” says Dipna. 

On how parents can support their children in their passion for sports, Dipna shares that it is all about exposure and providing support, letting children experience sports without the pressure.

“I think that if you pressure kids too early on then they lose the love and fun [in the play itself],” says Dipna. “It just becomes a bit too scary or rigid.”

The 29-year-old who volunteers with the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) Athletes Commission and SafeSport Commission, says she sees sports as an opportunity for not just children, but anyone to learn values and lessons that are difficult to teach in a classroom such as teamwork and communication. 

“When children are playing sports, it’s really more like an organised playground or an outside classroom,” Dipna says.

“The main goal is for each child to learn skills and values while playing sports. This process-based focus sets the foundation as they get older, such that they enjoy the journey rather than [being] outcome-driven and only look towards the medals,” she explains.

Inspiring and Empowering Youths

While still a full-time athlete back then, Dipna shares that she held a part-time job as a coach at a Girls’ Home. She recounted a mind-boggling experience wherein the girls who came for track and field training arrived in their school shoes or sandals, instead of sports shoes. 

She later learned that not having access to sports shoes was more common than she thought—and that having these shoes are considered a luxury. “There’s still a financial barrier, even in an affordable sport like Track and Field,” explains Dipna. “And that really shocked me and made me feel very frustrated. So I thought about how I could help relieve this problem.”  

Now as the Co-founder for In My Shoes, a movement to provide running shoes to the less privileged youths in Singapore, Dipna works with youths to help collect, clean and give out second-hand shoes—and sometimes, brand new ones. 

“When we first started out, most [of the] donated shoes were from national athletes. So we would share with the recipient where the shoe had been or helped to accomplish,” says Dipna. She cites that these shoes were previously worn to break a national record or win a SEA Games medal.

But ultimately, Dipna explains that the point of the movement is to inspire people and enable them to play sports.

“So that’s very much the road we’ve taken where it’s very much just building on the memories of the shoe and continuing to achieve other great things with [it].” 

Lead image source: Instagram/dipnalim

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