Ciara Mageean - “If I’m going to die, I’m going to fit in as much living as possible now”
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What achievements defined Ciara Mageean's athletic career?
My first guest today is from Port of Ferry, County Down. She's had a hugely successful career as a professional athlete. This week, actually two years ago, she won gold in the 1500 metres at the European Championships. She's been to three Olympics. She currently holds five Irish records from 800 metres to the mile. Her racing career, however, ended last year when she was diagnosed with cancer. And she has just written a fantastic memoir called My Greatest Race. Ciara McGeehan, good morning.
Good morning.
OK, so people know pure athletic stats and everything and records and all that. Let's give them something relatable to put in perspective how fast you are. Am I right in saying you're the world record holder for parkrun?
Yeah, I am. Possibly. I don't think anybody's better at it.
Yes. Yeah. So give people your parkrun time and that'll give them something to gauge against them.
No, look, listen, I'm terrible with my times.
How did Ciara's cancer diagnosis impact her life and career?
It's like 15, 13 is my parkrun time.
15 minutes. OK, so digest that, all the parkrunners at home now. So, Ciara, look, we go back to the start. Sounds like a very happy childhood in Portoferi. You were a competitive kid, though. Camogie was your first love. It sounds like you were a pretty tough flair, were you?
Ah, look, it's for my opponents to say. But yeah, I certainly took no prisoners out on the pitch. Whenever I put that Portoferi jersey on, yeah, I'd run through an absolute brick wall. So yeah, that was probably that fierce competitiveness that I had at an early age that then transferred directly into athletics. But I certainly had to hone it in in a more disciplined way than I maybe did on the commodity field.
Okay, yeah, yeah. So then you won your first senior running title when you were only 15. When did it become apparent that you had to let Camogie go and maybe focus on running?
I'd say there was probably a little bit of... Like acknowledgement during my late teens that, OK, you're very good at this running stuff and maybe the camogie should take a back seat. I honestly would say if somebody had forced me to give up camogie early doors in the sense that like 15, 16, 17, 18, I would have left athletics because I absolutely loved camogie. And maybe just that stubbornness in me would have said, do you know what? I'm not listening to you say that. But for me... There's probably a realisation whenever I was getting to world championship stage at junior level. So basically under 18, under 20. And I was heading off to represent Ireland at the highest level. And I was playing like our local rivals only a couple of weeks before.
If anybody knows the GAA, your fiercest competitors are the people right next door to you. So playing Ballycran and thinking, God, if I get hurt on this pitch, then that's not good. I've trained so hard and I'm actually representing my country at a world championships. But for me, I was like, look, I'll... it was kind of like a line in the sand where I was like once I finished what I called minor so like under 18 camogie and was heading off to university that I'd be like okay that'll be my last season now in saying that I've been playing senior camogie since about under 14 I don't even know if that's legal anymore but yeah it was just a point where I said okay I'll draw it here You described the running talent as a blessing and a curse so that blessing curse is it something you're born with yeah?
I'd say, yeah, look, I compete in a gross motor sport and there has to be a certain level of just raw talent there to be able to excel at the highest level.
So you're differently made up in some way to most people, yeah?
I'd say not to blow my own trumpet because it's nothing that I actually work towards, I think, to compete at the highest level of many Olympic sports. Yeah. there has to be a genetic component to it that you have these skills. Now, I don't know what it is. Like I grew up in a house, I have four siblings and the other three aren't Olympians. So whatever way the genes came together to make me, both physically and mentally, because the mental component to be a world-class athlete, I know so many people who have had the talent, but not lasted to be able to reach the highest level.
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