At some point on Saturday morning, Niamh Allen will get into the car with a couple of her Leevale clubmates and set off on the 540km drive from Cork to Derry. They’ve given themselves a good six hours, not including stops.
Allen won’t be doing the driving, thankfully, and is looking forward to a few cat naps along the way. They’ll check into a hotel, have a good feed, then get an early night before the National Cross-Country Championships on Sunday.
This time last year, Allen produced one of the biggest breakthroughs in the recent history of the event when finishing second in the senior women’s race. At 29, she’d never come close to making the national podium before, at any distance. With that she also won her first international vest, selected for the European Cross-Country in Turkey three weeks later.
She finished 11th there, the best Irish woman, and has enjoyed a remarkable 12 months since. In March, she won the National 10km road title in 31:44, the fastest time ever clocked by an Irish woman on home soil, also making some headlines in May when winning the Midleton five-mile road race, beating all the other women and men in the field of 340 runners.
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Some of the talk after her breakthrough at the National Cross-Country last November was around her fresh juggling of motherhood and running. Just 12 weeks earlier (and that’s not a misprint) Allen gave birth to her first daughter Lily. She was still exclusively breastfeeding, including just two hours before the race started, after which she promptly handed Lily over to her fiancé, Will.
After her maternity leave was up, Allen started a new job in HR with IT specialists Nostra, on a four-day week, just a few minutes from her home in Cork city. Will (now her husband) also works, with Musgrave, which means she’s now juggling work, motherhood and running, plus whatever domestic obligations come on top of that. By her own admission, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
A spontaneous return to the track in July saw her run 8:51.08 for 3,000m at the Cork City Sports, before in August she came out and won the 5,000m at the National Track and Field Championships, running the last lap in 67 seconds. She also won the Cork Women’s Mini Marathon in September.
Allen is far from alone in her capacity to combine motherhood and running and whatever else comes in between. Fionnuala McCormack continues to compete at the highest level, finishing 10th in the New York City Marathon earlier this month, just seven weeks after finishing ninth at the World Championships marathon in Tokyo. At 41, McCormack is the mother of three daughters – Isla (six), Isabelle (four) and Naomi (two) – and is coached by her husband Alan McCormack, a former National Cross-Country champion himself, incidentally.
Ann-Marie McGlynn, who won the senior women’s race last year ahead of Allen, is a mother of two – Lexie (16) and Alfie (13) – and last month fell just one place short of winning a third successive National Marathon title. At 45, McGlynn also coaches part-time. One of the main reasons she returned to running after a long break was to help her deal with Alfie’s acute illness, three weeks after his birth.
It is clear, from talking with these three women about their running, is that this is entirely their own choice. For them, motherhood – despite all the responsibilities and occasional stresses which can come with it – is more of a help than a hindrance. A bad race, a poor time, even an injury is very quickly put into context when there is a hungry little mouth to feed.
It was also pointed out to me, following some high praise for Allen when she won the National 5,000m last July, that it’s no different to anyone juggling work, running and fatherhood. As if this was all somehow flattering to women in a way they didn’t necessarily deserve more than any men in a similar situation.
That may well be true in some cases, and the part about motherhood helping to put running difficulties into context surely holds true for fatherhood too. But there are obvious and natural differences when returning to running after becoming a mother – physically, just for starters.
Men’s and women’s cross-country running is now on complete parity, after European Athletics last year announced “a historic twist” by having both the men’s and women’s races at the European Cross-Country run over the same distance for the first time.
Both the men’s and women’s senior races in Derry on Sunday are 7.5km. For the men, things might be just a little more testing; the course is always more cut up by the last race of the day. No complaints from any of the women about that.
Allen says her own approach is no different to last year, despite the spotlight and higher expectations. Lily is also staying at home in Cork with her father, meaning there won’t be any immediate excuse about lack of sleep.
“Last year I had absolutely no expectations, I just jumped in thinking ‘why not?’,” says Allen. “This year there is that element of expectation on myself, which I’m trying to manage – just go in and enjoy it again.
“But my experience becoming a new mum, I found it overwhelming, not knowing where I was going, what I was doing. I found running was a bit of a safety net for me. Because it was going well, it gave me a boost in that area, and I brought that forward to motherhood and into a new job.
“It’s all fed together nicely. Running has been an absolute crutch this whole time.
“And whatever about the race, I’m looking forward to having a little hotel stay, having a proper night’s sleep hopefully. And not thinking about breastfeeding, or making sure the baby is okay. I keep telling myself I can be no more sleep fatigued than I was this time last year.”
And win or lose, there’s the 540km drive from Derry back to Cork, before the fun of juggling it all starts all over again.
