In a heartwarming story out of Philadelphia, PA, 34-year-old Chris O’Donnell was so inspired by how his wife, Annie, was handling her first pregnancy that he made the spontaneous decision to begin training for a marathon.
“I saw how much she was struggling and how much she needed someone to step up and take care of her and I thought, ‘I want that for myself. From her. Now.’ So, I started training for a marathon and now we’re both in pain!”
Aww, how sweet!
Chris said he has always wanted to run a marathon ever since a couple weeks ago when it became apparent that Annie might actually need him to play an active role in the pregnancy.
“Annie is very independent, but months into her pregnancy, I began to sense that she needed someone to support her,” Chris said. “Or, at the very least, grab her ice cream when she’s craving it. It totally blew me away how she was doing this whole thing on her own, so I wanted to do something on my own, too. Plus, my training regimen doesn’t allow for ice cream, so it’s better to just not have it in the house.”
In spite of just recently getting into training, Chris already has big plans for how he wants the race day to unfold.
“If all goes well, Annie’ll go into labor right when my race is about to start,” he explained. “She’ll miss most of the race delivering our baby in the hospital, but that’s okay. Hopefully it’s a quick pregnancy, though, because I want her to be there when I cross the finish line. Maybe the baby could come, too? I could even put the medal around the baby’s neck for a picture! Can you imagine that? A baby wearing a marathon medal? Baby’s can’t run marathons! They can’t even walk until what? Three, four years? I’ve been so busy running that I haven’t gotten around to reading any of the parenting books.”
So thoughtful of him to take it upon himself to plan out the minutiae of delivery day!
Chris ultimately admitted that the marathon training was taking up a ton of his free time that could otherwise be spent doing literally anything to help his wife through the pregnancy.
“Of course, I wish I could be around more during the pregnancy!” he said. “But I’ve got this whole voluntary, menial, self-imposed running thing going on right now, so… Plus, Annie’s super strong, she barely even needs me! I’m definitely going to need her to stretch me out later, though. Pregnant ladies can do that, right?”
Chris added that he planned to be much more involved once the baby was actually here, unless he qualified for Boston, in which case, he’d be gone, like, way more.
As of press time, Chris’s wife Annie had just carried all the groceries in from the car by herself in spite of being seven months pregnant, because Chris had claimed he was too sore to move.
“She’s like a superhero!” Chris said from where he was icing his legs on the couch. “I’m going to have to train full-time for a triathlon for the next kid just to keep up with her!”
