Ciara Mageean

I'm more in the loss of a family that I always really wanted.

Yeah, really, really hard.

Throughout this journey, it's been strange because the main worry of death is that thing that is so big.

So all of those other little things seem inconsequential in comparison to dying really soon.

But

it nearly felt like I couldn't mourn them completely because there was something much bigger having a stage four cancer diagnosis, but not getting to finish my career and not getting to have a family.

Like any of that alone would have been a really hard struggle for just a normal person and for me at any point in my life.

But now I've been given a stage four diagnosis on top of it.

But yeah, the fact that I won't be able to

have children with Tommy and wonder if they'll have his beautiful blue eyes and will my running talent come through and will they be a fierce Mika Mugi player or would they like to be on the track or would they love to do music and I always was like I'm going to give my kids every opportunity in life to chase all of their dreams and

And like my siblings getting to be aunties and uncles, like my brother's a brilliant singer.

And I always choked, you're going to be the one teaching them music.

I'll be the one teaching them all the sport.

And yeah, it was really, really tough.

And I know that there's people out there that go through that struggle.

And it was one of the things with my book that I felt I want to share this journey I'm on because...

As much of my running career can cross over into life.

And I would hope that people could resonate with some of the things that I went through and some of the lessons that I learned and the path that I was on.

This current journey of this cancer diagnosis and going through this is probably something, it's definitely something that so many more people can resonate with.

Whether it's cancer or another health complaint or it's a loved one that's gone through this.