Thinking more of starting again

Counting down. Any day now and I could split into two. Intuition and a few dreams tell me that when it happens I'm going to have a baby boy. I don't have anything more scientific to back up the guesswork though. When it all happens I will have to get down to planning ahead. Life is going to be different.

Training sessions, for instance. It won't be as simple as lacing up my shoes and running out the door. Right now I'm sitting outside enjoying the sunshine, training for the day is finished . . . yes I am still training a bit. I have given up on the running for the time being, but I am still logging a few miles in the walking shoes. It's hard to imagine things changing.

The weather here in London hasn't helped. We've had this wonderful sun. All along in my mind I've been saying that come the summer the baby will be here. Now summer has sort of started early and I'm still waiting. I'll feel cheated if July and August are bad months. Everyone asks how long left, how long? I brought some friends over to a track meet this evening and over there I met a few fellas who I would normally train with. They were asking how long more I had left, saying I was starting to get big. I told them how little is left and they were shocked. That's not big at all. I don't know. The other day I was in the gym with my friends Richard and Brenda and I picked up a 10 kg dumbbell. I was telling them that this is the extra weight that I am carrying around (10 kg not a dumbbell!) It seemed hard to imagine the weight spread out as a little baby. Just have to keep going. Now that the sun is showing its face late into the evenings I have no hesitation walking the three miles home from the swimming pool. There's great satisfaction in striding past cars sitting in traffic on my way to the park. I thought that I would have a lot more free time with less ability to train over the past nine months, but I've found that I just replaced intense training sessions with less strenuous activities that take more time than normal training does anyway.

People ask me when does it all end? When will the gym and bike sessions stop? I'm thinking more of when things start again. I feel like I am in a holding pattern now, like a plane circling over Heathrow. I have maintained a lot of fitness, so that things will be easier for me to get back to normal training as soon as I can. I want to get back, doing some more intense work. Which brings me to the next question everyone asks me: when will you start back training fully again? No answer to that. I have thought about it a lot and spoken to friends and `experts', but nobody has a clear answer, everyone is different . . . pain tolerance varies from strong people to wimps . . . recovery also varies . . . I will have to listen to my body and figure it out for myself. I will need help when I lay out a map of the year ahead. We will need to look at the roads that need to be taken, the speed limits to set along the way and determine how much distance I can cover every day in order to get myself as ready as I can be on the start line in Sydney next year. There will be stops, maybe even diversions along the way, but I am prepared to be flexible and not write my plans in stone . . . a piece of paper and pencil should do just fine. The main people who will help me with all this will be my coach Alan Storey, my physio Gerard Hartmann and my number one babyminder Nick.

Gerard will be in London from late June to mid August. That will be a huge help. His arrival isn't solely for my benefit, it's a continuation of what he has done for the last few summers. He comes over and takes care of Kim's stable of athletes - 50 Kenyans, the Americans and all the rest. It works out good for me too though. I've worked with Gerard since 1992 and I trust him totally. A lot of what I do this summer will be dictated by Gerard. For instance I hope I can have a jog a week or so after the birth. On the other hand maybe I'll be happy just to go out for a walk by then. I can't figure out on this side of the birth why you couldn't go out and just run or why you would feel so tired. It's new territory. I've never had any kind of operation which would have stopped me from doing stuff before so I don't know what to expect.

By the end of the year though I would like to have put down some times on the track. Under 4:10 for 1,500 metres say. I would like to have run all the Olympic qualifying times by the end of the year, the 1,500, the 5,000 and even the 10,000. I'd like to be happy about having done them without too much effort. Alan will draw out the main plan and guidelines. A 15-month schedule deciding what we need to do in between and what kind of marks to make along the way to give me confidence. He will set out what we will do in a perfect world. Maybe come into Hyde Park on July 11th. We talked about that the other night. He was saying I should come in and maybe push the pram around. Just a little starting point. It will have to be flexible. Plans are fine, but things change. Apart from the baby I have to see how I recover and how I feel and how capable I am of training again. Alan isn't going to be cracking the whip to get me running fast sessions or races, more likely he'll be holding the reins to keep me back initially. We will not have high expectations or deadlines to meet, just a gradual return to full training and racing. No demands or expectations until I have an okay from Gerard who'll size me up, ensure both legs are still the same length and everything still moves in a straight line.

That's the fear, that something between your back and your hips gets out of line. I'll need to be looked at from head to toe, realigned and adjusted. Then I will have to follow a prescription of exercises to strengthen any weak areas. Apparently ligaments get all loose and you become very flexible for everything except the splits. It will need patience. There's enough time but not enough time to make mistakes. If I do everything correctly and listen to good advice it should be okay. Ultimately it will be me going out doing the running. Whatever I do will be down to me and how honest I am with myself. I remember Gerard came to see me in Philadelphia before the 1996 Olympics. He came down to a track session with Marcus. He could see something was wrong. Himself and Marcus spoke about it. I knew things were wrong too. It was so close to the Games though that we all said nothing in the end. You know what happened afterwards. I'm told that after childbirth there are a lot more red blood cells in your system, that the experience can be similar to the effects of altitude training. A lot of women have improved their times a lot after their first child, but you have to look and see where they have started from.

A lot of women decide then that they are going to make the most of what is left of their careers. They say, too, that they are a bit more relaxed after the baby arrives, they have a bit more substance in their lives and running isn't the be all and end all of their lives. Having other responsibilities helps them focus. You train and find time for training and time for living. You become more organised. You do the training and go home and get on with things rather than hanging around watching other people, reading magazines and talking track. As long as you focus on doing your best, there is not much more that you can expect from running. It's the Olympics next year and I will be 30. I reckon I could go until the 2004 Olympics, but a lot depends on results next year. I will continue to run on the track and possibly decide to tackle a marathon one day. It depends on how I come back. Right now I just want to come back and be better than I have ever been before and as such I don't see myself drawing any lines. I think it will be easier to keep going with one child in my life. There's no urgency to stop and take a break. The next 15 months should be interesting and enjoyable. The same job, but different. More substance.

(Sonia O'Sullivan was talking to Tom Humphries)