Exactly six years ago on a Wednesday morning, around 5 am, I started having my first contractions of my first labour. I didn’t have a great labour and it didn’t go the way I had hoped it would but at the end of it I had a beautiful baby boy. In some ways labour and birth stories and very similar to marathon stories: the more horrific and gory the details the more likely we are to share them or the more people want to hear them, or so we think anyway.
Six years ago things had started off as I had pretty much expected, in the way that so many races do. I had read books and I had done my research. I had prepared my body in the best way I could and I had attended natural birthing classes to learn all the techniques for coping with labour. But as with races, not everything can be predicted and even though you do your best to prepare, sometime things fall out of your hands.
My first labour took me to the brink and was painful in ways that I never thought it possible for a human to cope with. It was a test of endurance of the human body and forty hours later ended in us being rushed to theatre to have a caesarean section. Not exactly the blissful birth I had hoped for. It was bloody and horrible and frightening. My son had to be given help to breath when he was born and I felt bruised and battered from surgery not to mention physically and mentally exhausted (as an aside I love it that they do this to women and then go ‘here now look after your baby’). But when I held him for the first time, all that pain and tiredness felt insignificant compared to the love I felt for the boy I held in my arms.
‘He’s thinking, what the heck just happened to me?!’
I really don’t know where I’m going with this but I’m sure I’m just a bit emotional because of the day it is and because I’m tapering. And my story isn’t the worst of the birth stories you hear. But when I run I often think about my first labour and I remind myself that what I’m feeling isn’t the worst that a body can experience. It is running, it is not a matter of life or death. During my first marathon at mile 19 I had a wobble and then reminded myself that a marathon wasn’t going to be 40 hours, a marathon would only be a fraction of that time and so I kept my legs moving.
I know this will mean nothing to people who haven’t had babies or don’t want babies but if anything a labour shows what a body can succumb to and it’s ability to come out the other side, and to heal. In fact I think that’s what it taught me, that if I could have that experience then there should be almost no limits to the endurance and pain tolerance of the human body.
But in stark difference to a marathon, I wasn’t given a medal at the end of labour, I was given something to cherish in a completely different way. Someone to nurture and grow and support for as long as he needs me. I love him and his brother more than anything in the entire world and I hope as they get bigger I can share my love for running with them (although rugby seems to be winning that argument right now).
Post Park Running age 2
So in just under two weeks time, when I’m standing on the start line at London I might have a little think about how different it was six years ago and how blessed I am to have two healthy, happy little boys. I will put one foot in front of the other and if it gets tough I will remind myself that my body has been through something a lot tougher. And I will think about the hugs that I will get once I travel back home after the marathon. Marathon running is a labour of love and it can get me down with niggles and wobbles but it is nothing compared to the love I feel for my boys, who have no real idea what a marathon is or what a PB is. To those two boys it’s just running and in a way it makes London seem slightly less scary.
Run My Own Way 