“With both of us working we would really miss Nora during the week, and want to have her with us during the evenings,” says Borem-Shickel. “So most of the time I would bring her with us. If Nathan and I were both training, he would do his motor-paced efforts while I rested and we would switch off watching her.” Training partners helped, too, and sometimes the couple would hire a babysitter to come to the track. The track even enabled Borem-Shickel to breastfeed Nora in the infield during breaks. “I could turn my chair away from the group and finding a quiet area.”
Borem-Shickel says having Nora at the track prevents her from getting too wound up and “in her head” before and after race time. “As soon as you step off the racetrack, you don’t want to display negativity, even if you’re upset with yourself,” she says. “Your child doesn’t really care if you just lost the race. So you just have to flush that energy from yourself and be Mom.” It also helps you slow down and see the big picture. “Your training plan is at the mercy of your child and that’s okay,” she says. “You learn a lot of flexibility. So if something is going to go wrong on race night, and you know it always does, you’ll make it work however you can.”
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Once kids are older, most velodromes have programs for them to ride with instruction, sometimes even with bikes to borrow. It’s also common for tracks to hold a kids event on race nights where they can do a lap or two on the apron (flat part) of the track on their own bikes. “Sometimes I feel like I’m dragging Nora along, wondering if she’ll hate me for this,” Borem-Shickel says. “But I know she doesn’t now, because she wants to go on bike rides, which is fun.”
“I find that a lot of people in the cycling community like kids,” says Borem-Shickel. “We’re incredibly thankful to have such good friends at the track; they are very understanding. Nora always comes first in our workouts and it helps to have (track riders and staff) on board with that, too.”