Bump, Bike & Baby

by Moire O'Sullivan

  Though this knowledge makes this endeavour mentally easier, it doesn’t make it any less physically painful. Fortunately, what with Eamonn coaching me for the last two years, I know I’ve done as much as I can to maintain my strength and fitness over the latest pregnancy.

  It is October, so a good time to start the long, hard slog of winter training for next year’s racing season. If I want to do this groundwork, I need to find a gym near Rostrevor to do weights and some rowing sessions. I also want a swimming pool attached to the gym to do some cool-down laps. I find a sports complex in the neighbouring town of Kilkeel, a twenty-minute drive from Rostrevor. So when Eamonn gives me a thirty-minute rowing session to do one day, I go there to sign up to the gym and check the place out.

  Driving into Kilkeel town fills me with trepidation. I have ten sets of thirty-second sprints to do on the rowing machine when I get there. I arrive at the sports complex and present myself at reception.

  ‘Can I use your gym?’ I say to the lady behind the desk.

  ‘No problem at all,’ she replies, handing me a form. ‘Just fill in your details and we can make you a member.’

  I write down my name and address, and other contact details. I then get to a section asking about previous medical history. When it asks whether I’ve been pregnant recently, I come clean and tick the box affirmatively.

  I hand the form back to the receptionist, who takes a quick look at my answers.

  ‘Just hold on a moment,’ she says to me, as she picks up the phone, and makes a covert call.

  A manager appears at the desk from out of nowhere. He looks at the receptionist, who silently hands him my completed questionnaire. He takes a moment and scans through my answers.

  ‘Recently pregnant?’ he says.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I reply, catching my breath. ‘But I’ve passed my six-week medical with my doctor. And I have a coach, and he says it’s okay to train.’

  I’m just about to give him the name and number of everyone who can vouch for my gym suitability. But just as I reach for my phone’s contact list, I see him signing my form and approving my membership.

  ‘Just had to check, love,’ the receptionist says to me kindly, once the manager has gone on his way. ‘Couldn’t sign you up myself if any of those boxes are ticked with a yes.’

  I nod, and tell her it’s totally understandably. I then sneak into the gym and do my training. I proceed to nearly die from the half an hour rowing session. I develop blisters on my hands from pulling on the handlebar. I get friction burns on my ass from straining too hard on the seat. The next day my quads and core scream blue murder for the duress I put them under with each stroke.

  I soon begin to have a love-hate relationship with my training timetable. I dread opening it up every morning to see if Eamonn will give me a nice or evil session that day. Admittedly, some weeks are easy, like on one Monday that starts off with a simple one-hour slow jog. Tuesday sees fifty minutes of strength and conditioning exercises, with an hour’s easy bike afterwards. Then there’s a bit of a step up by Wednesday, with a repeat of my dreaded thirty-minute rowing session. Thursday sees a repeat of Tuesday’s session, with Friday concluding with another sixty-minute easy run.

  Such a week’s training shows Eamonn is still being careful. He wants to make sure I can cope with the load he suggests. It is perfectly understandable. I gave birth less than three months ago; I am breastfeeding Cahal, who still wakes up two or three times a night; and I now have two young children to run after and round up by the end of each day.

  Eamonn also knows he can’t let me off the hook forever. He has the task of getting me fit again. The week after, he starts to put efforts into a seventy-minute run, with twelve one-minute sprints, with three minutes recovery between each one of them. He increases my bike times to ninety minutes, and throws in twelve more thirty-second efforts at over two hundred watts each time.

  Just when I feel like I’m starting to cope, Eamonn steps up the intensity again. I only notice he has slipped it into my timetable during our weekly call.

  ‘You want me to race?’ I say. ‘Already?’

  ‘Just a 10k,’ Eamonn replies, before moving swiftly on to the next subject.

  But he is not getting away with it so lightly. I have begun to purposely note in my timetable each week, as a subtle reminder, exactly how old Cahal is. I want to remind Eamonn that Cahal is still just a baby, and that I’m still getting used to being un-pregnant.

  ‘Cahal will only be twelve weeks by then,’ I say.

  ‘It’ll be a great way to mark the occasion,’ Eamonn replies, a bit too casually for my liking. ‘And it’ll help you get used to racing again.’

  I know I could point-blank refuse Eamonn’s suggestion, and Eamonn would accept my stance. But ultimately, I know Eamonn is probably right, yet again, and I might as well follow his advice.

  I find a ten-kilometre race up and down a local hill called Slieve Gullion, a mere thirty-minute drive from Rostrevor. When I arrive, I see Spiderman, Batman, and Wonder Woman milling around the car park. I didn’t know it was a fancy-dress hill run in aid of the local hospice. Admittedly, I feel a bit like the Michelin Man these days with additional post-pregnancy fat rolls. I suppose this roly-poly outfit will have to suffice as my fancy-dress costume for today’s fundraising event.

  I have no idea how fast or slow I can go, having not raced in over a year. So when the starting gun goes, I take off at my normal pace, wondering how well I’ll fare. Unfortunately, within a hundred metres, I realise I’m not faring very well. My body refuses to comply with how fast my head wants it to go. Instead, my lungs are self-combusting under my abnormal load. My legs are dissolving beneath me, with no air to fuel them forward.

  Within seconds, I can’t breathe or run. I start to walk, and I’ve not even emerged from the flat forest trail and reached the uphill bit yet.

  The route is very short and simple compared to the adventure races I’m accustomed to. But this knowledge is little comfort to my post-natal body, which I barely recognise now. And as I take longer and longer to complete the race, my boobs run out of room to accommodate my growing supply of breast milk. I dive over the finish after an hour, oblivious to my placing. All I can think about is feeding Cahal, and avoiding a repeat bout of mastitis.

  Fortunately, Pete is standing right there at the line, with Cahal in his arms. With Cahal violently wriggling and crying, the need to feed and be fed is undeniably mutual. We make a hasty dash to the car, where I give Cahal an emergency drink. I sit in the passenger seat, sore and sweaty from the race that I’ve just completed. I concede to the depressing fact that I am nowhere near competitive, but that it was definitely good to be racing again.

  They say motivation follows action, and the ten-kilometre race has given me renewed enthusiasm to train. But just as I think I can get stuck back in to running and biking, Cahal gets horribly sick. It starts as a bad cough, and then he starts to throw up. I have to keep him at home with me instead of dropping him off at our childminder where he would surely infect the other children. Unfortunately, I can’t even leave Cahal with Pete and nip off for a quick one-hour jog. The very day Cahal gets sick, Pete has to fly off to Cambodia for work.

  I bring Cahal to the doctor later that day and he is prescribed antibiotics. However, the medication does nothing to cure Cahal’s illness. Instead, he seems to get even worse. So there I am, home alone, with a baby puking up all of his feeds. At the same time, Aran is having a terrible-two day and throwing strategically violent tantrums. I don’t know whether to hold the baby or restrain the toddler. This is the exactly the scenario I feared happening before getting pregnant in the first place.

  That night, I worry so much that I barely sleep a wink. I imagine my baby is going to vomit in his sleep and suffocate to death. I call the doctor the next morning and beg for an appointment, then leave Aran to Julie as soon as she can take him. I can barely cope with Aran and his current mood swings in addition to a sick baby.

 
I then hightail it to the surgery with Cahal. A different doctor sees Cahal this time and examines my son extensively. When he is unable to detect the oxygen levels in his blood, he tells me to go straight to the nearby hospital. I slip into autopilot as I speed down the road to Newry’s Daisy Hill Hospital. I dump the car and rush to the children’s ward. The medical staff do an assortment of tests and inform me Cahal has contracted bronchiolitis. The illness causes inflammation and congestion in the lungs’ small airways, making it difficult to breathe. It is a common illness amongst the under-twos. Only a minority of children with this condition need to be hospitalized, and Cahal is unfortunately one of them.

  I descend into sheer panic.

  Is Cahal really that sick? Can I not care for him at home?

  I nearly didn’t bring him to the doctor. Am I a bad mother?

  How did he even manage to contract this infection?

  Did I put him in danger by bringing him to Rostrevor so soon after he was initially discharged from hospital?

  What am I going to tell Pete? Should I even tell him, when there’s nothing he can do for us now?

  And who is going to look after Aran if I have to stay overnight in hospital with Cahal?

  I pick up my phone to call someone, but have no idea who to talk to.

  First things first. Aran. I need to call Julie and ask her to look after him for a bit longer than normal today. I am sure she will understand.

  I then call my mother. She lives three hours’ drive away from Newry and I doubt she can help me out of this mess. But in the absence of my husband, who is in the skies somewhere above the Middle East, at least she is someone I can talk to.

  My voice resonates with deep shock as I speak to my own mum. Amazingly, she seems to understand my predicament, and volunteers to come over and look after Aran. I think she is probably just excited by the prospect of hanging out with her eldest grandson.

  I then take a deep breath, and dial Pete’s number. Surprisingly, he picks up.

  ‘Where are you?’ I say, dispensing with pleasantries.

  ‘Bangkok,’ he says. ‘Why? Where are you?’

  ‘Daisy Hill Hospital,’ I say. ‘Cahal’s been admitted.’

  ‘What? But, what? Why? Is he okay?’

  I feel an explanation is required.

  ‘Cahal has bronchiolitis,’ I tell Pete. ‘He’ll be fine. They just want to monitor him for a couple of days to make sure he can breathe and feed properly again.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Pete says. ‘Do you want me to come home?’

  Yes, of course I want Pete to come home, to save me from this insanity. But I know that, if he turns around now, he’ll likely arrive just as Cahal is discharged. It will look like I’m an over-reactive mother, or worse, that I made the whole thing up just to make Pete return.

  ‘No, everything is under control,’ I say, surprised by how convincing my voice sounds on the phone. ‘Mum is coming over to look after Aran. And I’ll stay with Cahal at the hospital until he’s allowed go home.’

  Pete is speechless. I’m gobsmacked too, astonished by how one small child can cause so much disruption to so many lives.

  ‘Honestly, Pete,’ I say, ‘Everything will be fine.’

  Though it sounds like I’m trying to reassure Pete, it is I who need convincing.

  I stay in hospital for four nights with Cahal, sleeping beside him on a sofa bed. Nothing exists beyond the beeps of the machines and the slightest cry from my child. And although his condition is not a serious one, I am consumed by the entire affair. This is what being a mother is all about: I will drop everything for my child in their time of need.

  I find it difficult to express large quantities of breast milk for Cahal, so I cannot leave him for long. When I do get a chance, I race back to Rostrevor to check on Mum and Aran. They are having a blast, wrecking the house, surviving on milk and buttered toast, playing outside in the garden all day long. I am just glad they are having a good time. It lets me concentrate on staying with Cahal while he makes his slow recovery.

  While Mum and Aran are on their extended holiday, I also manage to get some rest by Cahal’s bedside. I manage to miss two rowing sessions on my training timetable and a particularly gruelling bike session. And though, before children, I would have cursed having to sit out these sessions, I am stunned that I’m okay with this change of plan. I have already invested so much of my time and energy into this tiny human being that a couple of extra days caring exclusively for Cahal doesn’t really matter.

  What bothers me though, during this time in hospital, is what I see unfurling on my phone. Feelings of such extreme envy engulf me so much that I literally want to explode.

  With nothing much else to do while Cahal is undergoing treatment, I spend hours surfing Facebook and Twitter. On Saturday evening, I chance upon photos and results from the Sea to Summit adventure race. I had completely forgotten that the event was taking place this weekend.

  Though I never intended to compete, I feel ridiculously jealous as I see old friends battling it out over the Westport course. I ran this race when Aran was four months old and finished in third place.

  I want, I need to adventure race again.

  I tell Eamonn about this revelation when Cahal is finally released back home.

  ‘I want to try and win the National Adventure Race Series again,’ I say.

  Up until now, I wasn’t sure if it was even possible to vie for the title with two young kids at home. But after seeing the Sea to Summit race results, I don’t care if it’s feasible or not. I would see myself as a profound failure if I didn’t at least try again.

  Eamonn tells me he’s happy to support me with whatever race plans I have. And though it seems a little boring to try to repeat the same season as I had two years ago, I have discovered that repetition is sometimes for the best. The training and racing suited me well when Aran was a baby. If it worked then, it should help me now, seeing that Cahal is of a similar age.

  The only problem with such a plan is its implementation. Its execution hurts like hell. Within a week of agreeing with Eamonn to compete in the Series, he pencils in a one-hour hill rep session on Bike. Such a session entails going up and back down the same hill multiple times. It is generally known to be a ball-breaker.

  The wind is howling as I pedal up to the base of the slope I intend to cycle up and down nine times. Sudden sideways gusts nearly knock me off my trusty steed. As soon as I turn a corner, the winds try to push me all the way back home again. I speak soothing words to calm both Bike and me.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whisper. ‘We’ll be okay. We can do this.’ But I need more than calming words to stop the heavens from opening up and pouring down torrential rain, straight on to my helmet.

  I start pedalling hard and fast up the hill to start my first one-minute interval. And if the effort isn’t hard enough, the cold rain soaks me to the skin. I turn around at the top, and start my two-minute recovery. The glacial wind cuts through my raincoat as I speed downhill, freezing me to the bone. I’m relieved to turn around and start the second uphill effort just so that I can warm up again. I try to forget that I have to do this a total of nine times. I tell myself this is character-building, and that I’ll appreciate it in the end. It is only when I bike down to Julie’s to collect Aran and Cahal that I realise how awful the session was.

  ‘Oh my God, what happened to you? Are you okay?’ Julie asks as I walk through her door. I catch a glimpse of myself in her kitchen mirror. I look like I’ve been dragged backwards through a jungle. My hair is a mess, my cheeks are bright red, and my clothes are dripping wet.

  I explain to her my bike session, and apologise for the muddy puddle I’ve just left on her kitchen floor.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Julie says. ‘My husband Martin mountain bikes. He is always coming in here caked in dirt, and ready to keel over.’

  It is always good when your childminder completely understands and can relate to your weird biking obsession.

&nbs
p; Fortunately, my training isn’t always as punishing as this uphill bike session in the wind and rain. Living in Rostrevor means I can use the whole of the Mourne Mountains as my personal playground. I revel in running up and down the Mourne Way trail that traces its way through forests and meanders around stunning peaks. I explore the local country roads together with Bike, grinding his gears as I head up the steep slopes towards Spelga Dam.

  I even get to join like-minded mountain runners as I compete in the local Turkey Trot on Boxing Day, something I could never do while living far away in Derry. I find the race advertised on the Northern Ireland Mountain Running Association’s website. It is billed as the best event to work off the excesses of Christmas dinner. The route crosses two cols between three of the Mournes’ highest mountains, Slieve Bearnagh, Meelmore, and Meelbeg. It’s a nine-kilometre race with over four hundred metres of climb.

  Despite the cold, wintery conditions, and the prospect of snow on the passes, most of the participants turn up in shorts and singlets. I had heard the Northern Ireland mountain runners were a hardy lot, but this is taking the biscuit. But it is only when the race starts that I realise how invincible these northern athletes are. They take off at a gallop, not one of them slowed down by Christmas overindulgence. We cross cascading rivers, clamber up sodden bog, scramble over stones, climb over the towering Mourne Wall twice, then slip down a mist-drenched valley before returning to the start via more rivers, rocks, and bog.

  While most of the populace are at home, tucking into leftover turkey sandwiches and watching Home Alone, I am out in the mountains running full kilter, freezing my ass off and falling flat on my face in ice-caked mud.

  I absolutely love it. Rostrevor is perfect. I think I have finally found my home.