Jennifer O’Connell: ‘I don’t have to be good at running, just at going for a run’

I have joined a gym. I know. Madness.

Now I think about it, this is a madness has afflicted me at regular intervals over the last decade, always – as it happens – in the month of January.

January 2007 was the first time. I was suffering from the acute desperation familiar to many new mothers, a desperation has nothing to do with eagerness to “bounce back” into our pre-baby bodies. Once you’ve had a baby, bouncing anywhere is unwise.

The reason I joined the gym was, I suspect, the same reason so many celebrities manage to shimmy back into their size 4 jeans within weeks of giving birth. There are gyms with crèches.

I had heard whispered rumours of these magical places, where new mothers stroll gently on treadmills or doze on yoga mats, while their infants are cared for by fully qualified FETAC Level 7,821 minders. I finally found one that was 30km from home, cost the monthly equivalent of a week in Tenerife, and involved driving across the East Link bridge in the company of the only baby in existence who hated travelling by car. But it had a crèche.

When I got there, they handed me a questionnaire. I scanned the list of reasons for joining for one that said “a respite from the crying” or “a quiet shower” or even “to sit with a coffee and flick through a magazine without a small human clamped to my nipple”. But there was none, so I lied and ticked the box that said “to be healthy”.

There was a ripple of panic as I handed over my baleful, and ominously quiet child. “Don’t worry,” the minder said kindly. “She’ll love it.”

“But you’ll page me if there’s a problem?”

“We won’t need to page you, I promise. Go. Enjoy.”

I got as far as the changing room before she paged me. “She was upsetting the other babies,” she said, returning the small, apoplectic human, whose face had turned the colour of boiled ham.

The small human and I cried the whole way home, and we never went back. Every month, as the money left my bank account, I was struck by visions of cocktails by a glistening pool in Tenerife.

January 2009 – Gym no. 2

By this point, I had acquired responsibility for two small humans who were, I was sure, destined to shake off the shackles of their DNA and become Olympic swimmers. Or at least lifeguards on Tramore beach. So every Sunday morning, my husband and I would head to the hotel with the gym and the fancy swimming pool and squeeze two wriggling bodies into swim nappies and brightly coloured lycra. Every Tuesday, the youngest would get an ear infection. We stopped going.

January 2013 – Gym no. 3

Let’s just say that joining the gym at a university full of lithe, impeccably-groomed 18-year-olds is not great for the morale of a tired, thirtysomething mother of two.

January 2015 – Gym no. 4

The YMCA in California: a place with the aesthetic sensibilities of a 1970s retirement village-cum-psychiatric institution, whose classes were full of Trump supporters named Bud and Mindy. I didn't kid myself that I would use the gym. Gym no. 4 was a purely economic calculation: I got nine days' holidays a year, and the Y ran the cheapest summer camps in Silicon Valley. We were in.

So now it’s January 2017 – Gym no. 5

There is a pool, which the children love, but I didn’t really join for them, or as a circuitous route to cut-price babysitting. I have finally joined a gym to get healthy.

The first time, I mumbled something about a workout to my husband, a marathon runner so competitive he insists on beating the toddler at hide-and-seek. He immediately started proffering goji berry smoothies and advice on running apps and pain barriers.

Here’s some advice for family members of those who have joined a gym for the first or fifth time. The first rule is this: don’t talk about the gym membership. Discreetly avert your eyes if you notice them leaving the house in lycra. Don’t say anything “supportive”, or “inspirational”. Don’t ask any questions. A polite “Well done, you seem to be still alive,” when they return will suffice. And if they suddenly stop going, due to ear infections or lithe students, don’t talk about that either.

I have begun interspersing the gym visits with short runs through the woods. After the first few times, as I stumbled through the forest or wheezed inelegantly on the treadmill – the runner’s high proving just as elusive as my pre-baby body – I realised something.

I’ll never be good at running. But I don’t have to be good at running. I just need to be good at going for a run. I just need to become someone who regularly puts on runners and moves at slightly faster than a stroll. Even I can manage that. Maybe. And if I can’t, let’s never speak of it again.

joconnell@irishtimes.com