Bump, Bike & Baby by Moire O'Sullivan

Author:Moire O'Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

14

Adventure

Although the Wicklow Mountains are a stone’s throw from Greystones, I rarely manage to reach them. It is a minimum twenty-minute drive to get to any decent hill, meaning travelling alone takes a whole forty-minute chunk out of my allotted crèche time. This, in my mind, is an inefficient use of childcare.

With Pete agreeing to mind Aran at home on Sunday morning, I decide to indulge in a couple of guilt-free hours of mountain running. The Irish Mountain Running Association have scheduled a race out of Glendalough in mid-April, coinciding nicely with our new babysitting pact. The race promises twenty-eight kilometres of running over three peaks, with nearly one thousand four hundred metres of climb. It sounds like a perfect way to get reacquainted with the hills.

Long mountain races don’t attract many women. So I’m not surprised when I am the only lady at race registration. Even the men are far and few between, put off by the long distances, steep climbs, and tricky navigation.

With five minutes to spare, a car speeds up to the start. A somewhat flustered Niamh throws herself out of the passenger seat. ‘I’m so disorganised!’ she giggles, throwing a map into her back pocket and sprinting past me towards the registration desk. The last time I saw her was two years ago, when she lugged her newborn baby into the crowded pub. She is a transformed woman from the one I saw that day. I had heard on the grapevine that she has returned to her old winning ways. Just a few weeks ago, she triumphed at a major half-marathon trail race through the Wicklow Mountains. And by the looks of her new streamline, svelte self, she could easily float up and down a mountain or two today.

At the stroke of noon, the race director waves us off. The pace is fast from the start as we climb the forest road and head towards St. Kevin’s Way. I try to keep in step with the leading men. But my haste for speed means I fail to think about the direction in which I am heading. Niamh takes a clever shortcut through the forest, and hits the trail right in front of me. I push to catch up with her, cursing my error, and together we run shoulder to shoulder towards Scarr Mountain.

All of sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see Niamh flinch.

‘Oh no!’ she exclaims. But even with something obviously wrong with her, Niamh refuses to slow.

‘What’s up?’ I say, between my laboured breaths.

‘My pelvic floor’s just gone.’

Before having Aran, I would have stayed silent, too embarrassed to enquire about her sudden incontinence. But, having gone through childbirth myself, I totally understand what she means.

‘Oh God, I thought that was just me,’ I say, forgetting all about the race. ‘I have to be careful not to wet myself, especially when I sneeze.’

‘You should talk to Maeve,’ Niamh says, barely breaking from her stride. ‘She can’t run downhill any more without her bladder giving out.

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