Running: The Autobiography Read Online Free Page B

to have to do a quick Caesarean and get her out. It wasn’t planned, but it worked out well because it was short and sweet. I got a phone call, rushed down there, didn’t know what to expect. It was 2–3 a.m. You get to the hospital and it’s all quick, quick, quick. You’re panicking, but for the nurses it’s just an everyday thing. Then, within 10 to 15 minutes, it was done. The baby came out, it’s a girl. Wow! Pure elation.
    I was 28 and life suddenly made more sense. Until then I had just been playing tournament to tournament and one year rolled into the next; then Lily arrives and a sense of responsibility comes with it. It was a bit of pressure, I suppose, because I had to provide for this little baby. I’d provided for Taylor for eight years, but because I didn’t have an active role in her growing up it didn’t feel like it. You stop thinking so much about yourself as a self-contained unit and more about yourself as a father – making sure the baby eats and sleeps and has a good home.
    When you’re just looking after yourself you kind of know you can get through to the other end, and in the end it will be alright. The feeling I had now was almost primitive – I was the hunter-gatherer, the provider. Family has always been important to me, and we have always been a close unit, even when both Mum and Dad were banged up in jail. Mum, Dad, me and my younger sister, Danielle – the O’Sullivans. We’d always supported each other throughout, and this is what I hoped for with my new family. We were close in every way. Last year I bought a house in Loughton, a couple of miles away from the rest of the family in Chigwell, and I couldn’t cope. I thought,what have I done? It was like another world to me, and I seemed to spend all the time driving from Loughton to Chigwell so I knew it wasn’t right for me. Mum, my snooker table at Mum’s, Dad, Danielle, my running routes, my local haunts, like the bagel bar, are all around Chigwell. Sometimes you don’t realise how rooted you are in your community; it took me moving a few miles down the road to realise it!
    So when Lily was born it was important to be around Chig-well. For the first few months Jo and I were getting on fine. We’d started going out in 2001 and had been together for around five years. Jo and I met at Narcotics Anonymous, where we were both being treated for addiction. We had a bond from the start, and in the early days we got on great. We’d always had our little tiffs, like everyone does, but soon after Lily was born things started to become difficult. Before, I’d always had my own routine. Ask any sportsman or sportswoman and they’ll tell you the same. Without routine you’re lost; you’re not going to achieve anything. I would go for my runs, work out in the gym, play my snooker. But when Jo was pregnant there was more pressure on my time. She wanted me to go to all the meetings about childbirth and getting ready to have a baby, but I wasn’t into all that. Perhaps I could have been more supportive, but I saw that as her role. I was there for her to tell me about it when I came home, but I couldn’t break up my day for hospital appointments and meetings about birthing pools or how to pack your bag for the maternity ward.
    I didn’t feel it was something I had to contribute to until the baby came along, and I always felt we’d know what to do when it happened. I’ve never been one for preparing for things; I’ve always been much more, let it happen and see how it goes. I think men are just constructed differently from women biologically. There is something in women that makes them wantto prepare for babies, and they feel it much earlier than men do – ’course they do, they’re carrying the baby. Whereas for fellas, we’re not really involved and don’t understand what our contribution is supposed to be till the baby arrives.
    I’m not saying I’m right, but this is the life of most successful sportsmen. We need our