{"id":532948,"date":"2026-06-13T07:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/532948\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T07:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:01:15","slug":"ciara-mageean-i-probably-wont-make-my-40th-birthday-thats-rough-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/532948\/","title":{"rendered":"Ciara Mageean: \u2018I probably won\u2019t make my 40th birthday. That\u2019s rough\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of months back, Ciara Mageean<\/a> was sitting on her couch at 10.59am. The time is specific and important. She was bored, which is also important. On a whim, for something to be at, she grabbed the laptop and logged on to a bowel cancer support group on Zoom.<\/p>\n

It was a resource she hadn\u2019t tapped into before, mostly because she hadn\u2019t felt the need. In all truth, she didn\u2019t especially feel it now either. But cancer<\/a> has that brutal dichotomy of days \u2013 some are the most significant and urgent of your entire time on the planet, others are long and lost and purposeless. You do what you do to get through them all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like, \u2018Sure, I\u2019ll just tune in and listen,\u2019\u201d she says now. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a big believer in things happening for a reason. For some reason, I was bored at specifically a minute to 11 because if it had been half-10, it probably wouldn\u2019t even have entered my head. But now I was listening in and a lady came on who had obviously done this before because everyone seemed to know her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe started to tell her cancer story and while she was chatting away, she goes, \u2018Oh, hold on, one of the nurses is here \u2013 Hello! Come on in! I\u2019m on this Zoom.\u2019 And it was her district nurse coming in to take her blood. She just kept chatting away and I was like, \u2018Oh, this is their normality.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their normality that nurses are so commonplace in their house. It\u2019s their normality to have a sharps box in the corner of their front room and a cupboard full of medication and laxatives. And a timeline that fluctuates because sometimes you\u2019re good and sometimes you\u2019re bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sitting in Mageean\u2019s livingroom in Dunmurry, a quiet suburb just south of Belfast<\/a>. This is the house she and her fiance Thomas Moran moved to when she came home heartbroken after the 2024 Olympics<\/a>. Her running career is all around us \u2013 awards on the shelves, running track on the wall, a framed cityscape of Paris (of all places) above the sofa.<\/p>\n

This was supposed to be their starter home, the bridge between here and Los Angeles in 2028<\/a>. Once those Olympics were over, she\u2019d be 36. She\u2019d hang up the spikes, they\u2019d move out to the country, they\u2019d start a family. They\u2019d get on with the next phase of life, catch up with their friends who\u2019d got a head start on all that stuff while she was busy with athletics<\/a>. That was the plan. Before.<\/p>\n

Before cancer. Before stage four. Before chemotherapy. Before immunotherapy. Before the sickness and the tiredness and the lakes of tears. Before ever giving a second\u2019s thought to death or survival, fear or hope. Before sitting on this Zoom call and hearing all of it reflected in a stranger having her bloods taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe started talking and gave her name and said, \u2018I was diagnosed in 2016 with stage four bowel cancer.\u2019 She just spoke briefly, like, \u2018Oh, if I was going to tell you a whole story, we\u2019d be here all day.\u2019 I didn\u2019t envisage that I would be jumping on to this Zoom call and ending up feeling like I wanted to cry.<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean: ‘I didn\u2019t know if I was going to be dead in a matter of months.’ Photograph: Evanna Devine for The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were like, \u2018Who wants to go next?\u2019 I said, \u2018I just want to thank that lady for sharing her story. I was diagnosed with stage four<\/a> in May of last year and was told at Christmas that surgery\u2019s not an option and that radiotherapy is not an option. Kind of giving me a two- to three-year outlook. And hearing you say that you were diagnosed in 2016 and you\u2019re still here and you look great, I didn\u2019t know that could be a reality.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came back on and she said, \u2018When I was diagnosed, I was given six to 12 months to live. They told me that surgery wasn\u2019t an option.\u2019 And as she was talking, I was thinking, \u2018For some reason, I needed to see the clock at 10.59 and to remember this call was happening and for that lady to have decided that she was going to be on it and give me that message.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I\u2019ve always kept that bit of hope. There\u2019s always outliers in statistics, there\u2019s always progress in research. I\u2019m not necessarily the same as somebody who has been given a stage four bowel cancer diagnosis and is older than me and has other co-morbidities and had more risk factors. Maybe I can be the exception to the rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

This should not be happening. Of course it shouldn\u2019t. Shortly after her diagnosis, she was handed a booklet on bowel cancer from Macmillan Cancer Support. She flicked through it and came to the page on risk factors associated with the disease. She became more and more angry with every heading she read.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018As soon as I got that diagnosis, I felt like the grim reaper was on my shoulder\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Ciara Mageean<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Age? She\u2019s 34. Less than five per cent of bowel cancer patients are under 50. Around one per cent are under 35.<\/p>\n

Diet? She\u2019s worked with a Team Ireland nutritionist for over a decade.<\/p>\n

Low physical activity? She\u2019s the reigning European champion at 1,500 metres.<\/p>\n

Overweight? Look at her.<\/p>\n

Alcohol? Barely touches a drop.<\/p>\n

Smoking? Never once in her life.<\/p>\n

Family history? None. Zero. Nada. Zilch.<\/p>\n

Basically, if you lined up everyone in Ireland, north and south, in the order of their risk of being a stage four bowel cancer patient, Mageean would be away at the back with the playschool kids. Yet here she is. This is her life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just over a year since her diagnosis. She was on a training camp in Font Romeu in France, mostly doing bike work because her ankle still hadn\u2019t healed fully after surgery the previous September. Thomas was there; some friends from her former training group in Manchester were there.<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean celebrates winning the
\nwomen\u2019s 1500m final at the 2024 European Athletics Championships, Stadio Olympico, Rome. Photograph: \u00a9Inpho\/Morgan Treacy <\/p>\n

It was a fun time, even if it was slow going on the training front. She gradually realised she wouldn\u2019t be making the 2025 track season. Once you hit your 30s, injuries clear up in their own sweet time. You can\u2019t cram for the exam like you might have got away with in your 20s. But that was fine. LA was the only goal that mattered now.<\/p>\n

Mageean\u2019s first Olympics came in Rio when she was 24. She made a semi-final, a credible effort for a newbie. Her second was the Covid games in 2021, but she tore her calf a week before her event in Tokyo and didn\u2019t get out of her heat. Paris in 2024 was all set to be the pinnacle, before a dormant volcano in her Achilles tendon erupted in the pre-Olympic camp. Another Games gone.<\/p>\n

So she wasn\u2019t stressing over her recovery in May 2025. She could write you a thesis on the extent to which nothing is promised when it comes to the Olympics. You can be European champion in June and still not make the start line in August. Once that happens to you, you\u2019re not going to worry about a slow-healing ankle three years out.<\/p>\n

The one thing that was irritating her, though, was that she couldn\u2019t seem to last any length of time between trips to the bathroom. Athletes are well used to keeping the toilet door where they can see it \u2013 the balance of diet, fluids, supplements and high-performance exercise can be a delicate one to strike. But this was getting ridiculous.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that camp, I\u2019d have been spinning on the spin bike and would have to get off the bike to go the toilet up to six times in an hour. And not just like, \u2018I need to go to the toilet.\u2019 It was, \u2018I need to go to the toilet NOW.\u2019 And cramping along with it.<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean at the Mary Peters Track in Belfast. Photograph: Evanna Devine <\/p>\n

\u201cThomas was like, \u2018Here, I really do think you should get this looked into. It\u2019s not normal to be going to the toilet this often.\u2019 So I said it to Sharon Madigan, my nutritionist. We said we\u2019d get it checked out in the Institute of Sport when we got back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long story short, she got referred to St Vincent\u2019s Hospital<\/a> in Dublin. She intended going by herself but they said she\u2019d be getting a mild sedative, meaning she couldn\u2019t drive after it. So her mother went with her. They weren\u2019t fretting \u2013 at worst, it would be irritable bowel syndrome or something in that realm. She sent her mam for a dander around the shops while she had a bowel scope.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then when (the doctor) came back later on, I took one look at him and I was like, \u2018Oh God, this doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s good news.\u2019 The indicators were there \u2013 he brought a nurse in with him and she was asking me, \u2018Do you have somebody with you?\u2019 So I called my mummy in from the waiting room and he told me there and then that he\u2019d found cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean and her dog, Sammy. Photograph: Evanna Devine <\/p>\n

What would you do? The world falls in on you, how would you react? Mageean did the one thing she would always do if she could. She went for a run.<\/p>\n

The diagnosis was on a Tuesday afternoon and she spent Wednesday morning at the Institute of Sport in Abbottstown. Gym work, a strength and conditioning session and a run. \u201cActually, a very good run,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t really know why. Partly, it was to keep up appearances. She had an appointment at the institute that day that she didn\u2019t want to cancel, knowing if she did, she\u2019d have to explain why. She still hadn\u2019t told Thomas or the rest of her family yet \u2013 she wanted to wait until they were face-to-face \u2013 so she was hardly going to tell anyone else. The easiest way out was to keep the appointment. And if she was going to be there anyway, she may as well get out and run.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I don\u2019t want to be that girl who looks like a skeleton on her wedding day\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Ciara Mageean<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMaybe it was a thing of, \u2018This is what I\u2019m used to doing.\u2019 There was a comfort in it. Maybe I was just like, \u2018For as long as I can, I want to continue being me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Cancer is a thug. It smashes into your life without warning. It invades the small things. That peace you had but never noticed. That future you put off. Your solid ground, your sense of control. Cancer gets in there with a billy club and shatters it all to bits.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Women are now being commanded to \u2018lift heavy\u2019 in the gym by algorithmsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The next while passed in a blur of appointments and scans and updates, each one hitting worse than the last. Early on, they clung to the hope that as she was young and fit, this was a cancer that had been caught early. No such luck. An MRI revealed that it was stage four \u2013 she didn\u2019t need Dr Google to tell her what that meant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a reality that comes with that. According to the statistics, people with stage four bowel cancer have a 10-15 per cent chance of being alive in five years. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Am I going to die?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy\u2019s not a big crier. But we just cried for a week. He took a week off work and we just cried every day. Then we went down to Portaferry to tell my family. I\u2019d told them already that I had cancer but then to tell them that it was stage four, that was probably the hardest part.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean, her partner Tommy and her dog Sammy at the Mary Peters Track in Belfast. Photograph: Evanna Devine <\/p>\n

Soon enough, the chemo slog began. An initial dose of 12 rounds, each a fortnight apart, filled out the rest of her 2025. The first few were tolerable, the next few were tough, the last few were vicious. She would get chemo on a Thursday and be a write-off until at least the following Tuesday. A small mercy was that her particular type of chemo doesn\u2019t cause hair loss. It does cause nerve damage, exhaustion and unending sickness though.<\/p>\n

Her oncologist scheduled an appointment for Christmas Eve. She brought Thomas and her sister M\u00e1ire, a doctor, with her. They were hoping to hear that the chemo had reduced the tumours enough for radiotherapy and surgery to finish the job. But the news he had for them was devastating.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe basically said, \u2018We\u2019ve reviewed your most recent scans with the multidisciplinary team and we don\u2019t feel that surgery is an option.\u2019 I sat there thinking, \u2018What do you mean surgery\u2019s not an option? Just go and take all of it out! Take whatever you need out of me!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he said, \u2018We also feel, weighing up the pros to the cons, that radiotherapy isn\u2019t something that we should go ahead with. Because if you have radiotherapy, it\u2019ll put you into early menopause. The negative effect on your body would far outweigh the positive effect of trying to shrink those tumours.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, no surgery, no radio. Those were the next steps we were hoping for and he was telling me they weren\u2019t happening. For the first time, I basically asked him upfront: \u2018Are you talking timelines now?\u2019 And so I found out on Christmas Eve that the consultant probably realistically feels that I might have two or three years left.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that was f**king rough!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I\u2019ve not watched a lot of athletics … I\u2019m just so jealous that I don\u2019t get to have that\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Ciara Mageean<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When they left the room, she hugged her fiance and her sister and the three of them stood there in ashes. Straight away, she decided two things. One, they weren\u2019t going to tell any of the rest of the family the news until January. Bad enough that the three of them had had their Christmas ruined, no sense taking everyone else down with them.<\/p>\n

And two, she was going to get back to Jamie D\u2019Alton, the producer of the RT\u00c9<\/a> television show Uncharted. He\u2019d been on to her for a long time asking if she\u2019d ever be interested in doing it, but it never was an option when she was running and chemo had colonised her life for the previous six months. But now? Bring it on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come to realise that with cancer, you can just be unlucky. I\u2019m just really bloody unlucky. So I walked out of that appointment with M\u00e1ire and Thomas and we all had tears in our eyes. I was like, \u2018Well, do you know what? If I\u2019m gonna f**king die, I\u2019m going on that adventure.\u2019<\/p>\n

A few weeks later, she was in Costa Rica<\/a> with Ray Goggins<\/a> and Michael Darragh Macauley<\/a>. Anyone who saw the programme a few weeks back wouldn\u2019t believe that the month before it was filmed, she was just finishing up her 12th round of chemo. And was just about to plunge into another six.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so, so glad that I did it. So glad that I didn\u2019t wrap myself up in cotton wool and think, \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t do this because I\u2019ve got the cancer. I\u2019m on the chemo.\u2019 I postponed a round of chemo to do it actually.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things I wish I\u2019d known earlier. I didn\u2019t realise that at the start, nor did I even have the mental capacity to think about not just taking every single bit of treatment that I could, as fast as I could. Whereas now I realise this is going to be a long journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long? She has no idea. Nobody does. But in January of this year, just a few days before she headed off to Costa Rica, she got her first glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n

The same oncologist who sat her down for that awful appointment on Christmas Eve was back with better news a month later. A PET scan had revealed that the majority of the cancer cells in the lymph around her bowel, liver, lung and abdomen were now inactive. And that the tumour in her bowel was now dormant.<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean celebrates winning the women\u2019s 1500m final at the 2024 European Athletics Championships, Stadio Olympico, Rome. Photograph: \u00a9Inpho\/Morgan Treacy <\/p>\n

In layman\u2019s terms, it meant the chemo was having an effect. So he ordered up more of it. He couldn\u2019t say whether it meant surgery might now be possible somewhere down the line. He couldn\u2019t say whether it meant a change in possible timelines or anything like that. All he could say, all he was very careful to say, was that most of her cancer cells were inactive.<\/p>\n

So she went to Costa Rica and started into six fresh rounds of chemo when she got back. She has just finished up the last of them in the past few weeks. What comes next? She doesn\u2019t know yet. She tries, as much as is practical, not to make cancer the entirety of her life.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0William Dalrymple: \u2018The Scots and Irish like to be the ones who resisted empire, but we were deeply complicit\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cStressing and worrying about it isn\u2019t going to change it. You\u2019re so entitled to those emotions obviously. But you could lose yourself to it. I don\u2019t know what this journey is going to look like. I don\u2019t know at what point I\u2019m going to get sick. As soon as I got that diagnosis, I felt like the grim reaper was on my shoulder and I didn\u2019t know if I was going to be dead in a matter of months.<\/p>\n

\u201cTommy and I are engaged but we\u2019ve never had any rush on the wedding. But now I was like, \u2018Do we need to get a move on here?\u2019 Because I don\u2019t want to be that girl who looks like a skeleton on her wedding day. Or having to be in a hospital bed with Tommy beside me and me in a wedding dress in the hospital bed. I want it to be a normal day.\u201d<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s how she\u2019s carrying it. Living with the normality of it all. They\u2019re looking at wedding venues, getting out and about, going on holiday. They\u2019ll head to the Mont Blanc marathon in a couple of weeks. Thomas wants to bring her on a jaunt to the Faroe Islands. Life is happening. No point waiting on it.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018I need to make light of it. It helps cope with the genuine worry\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Ciara Mageean<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the middle of it all last year, her manager and friend Sin\u00e9ad Galvin suggested it was time to do a book. They\u2019d always talked about getting around to it once she retired. Now that retirement had been decided for her, why not get it down on paper? If nothing else, it would be a good distraction.<\/p>\n

So she and sports writer Cliona Foley went to work. They had to fit everything in around the chemo, which meant doing it when she was well enough, which wasn\u2019t always predictable. Sometimes she\u2019d be okay to get down to it the Tuesday after a Thursday treatment. Sometimes it would be Wednesday. They rolled with the punches.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a cancer book. Or at least, not only a cancer book. The ups and downs of a career that came to a lonely, premature stop are in there too. She never got a swansong race, never heard one last bell and got to pour every ounce of herself into one last lap. Her career ended in a physio room in the Olympic Village in Paris, without her even knowing it was over. Surgery isn\u2019t the only event that leaves a scar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not watched a lot of athletics,\u201d she says. \u201cI see the results but I haven\u2019t been able to turn it on and watch. It\u2019s not a positive trait, it\u2019s a human trait. I\u2019m just so jealous that I don\u2019t get to have that. If I was still running, I would get to be at those World Champs or those Europeans. That\u2019s my European title that is going to go in August. And it just still hurts too much.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book has probably helped me come to terms with a lot of it. Things like Paris. I literally came straight home and launched myself into the surgery and the rehab and finding a house and getting back running. And then I got this diagnosis.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Emily O\u2019Reilly: My brother\u2019s HIV seemed under control. So why did he die?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I never really gave myself a chance to address it and say, \u2018Yeah, that was really hard.\u2019 But there\u2019s still a huge part of me, and I\u2019ll hold my hand up and say it, it\u2019s jealousy. And it\u2019s a lot of grief because I\u2019m sort of grieving the loss of a career. And even just grieving the loss of being able to bow out of it the way I wanted to. I think the book helped me process some of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CiaraCiara Mageean: ‘I\u2019ve always kept that bit of hope.’ Photograph: Evanna Devine <\/p>\n

And so she keeps trucking. Good days and bad. Sometimes, out of nowhere, she\u2019ll be accosted by the unfairness of it all. It hurts when it happens and she has learned to let it hurt. Learned to find the dark humour in it too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be sitting on the couch and I\u2019ll be like, \u2018F**k. I might be dead in two years.\u2019 I certainly won\u2019t … well, I don\u2019t want to say certainly but I probably won\u2019t make my 40th birthday. Like, that\u2019s f**king rough.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re planning this wedding and I can\u2019t help but think, \u2018The poor lad\u2019s going to be left a widower in his 30s.\u2019 And then I\u2019m like, \u2018Sure then he\u2019s going to be a bit old! It\u2019s going to be hard for him to find a new partner!\u2019 I say to him, \u2018Here, you can\u2019t move on from me too fast …\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople probably are like, \u2018I can\u2019t believe you\u2019re saying that.\u2019 But I need to make light of it. It helps cope with the genuine worry that I\u2019m going to leave him on his own. We\u2019ve been together for 13 years and you think that you\u2019re going to have your whole life together.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, all they can do is plan in the short term. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month. What\u2019s next on the treatment front is up in the air. But summer is here, plump with possibilities. She doesn\u2019t know how many of them she has left.<\/p>\n

None of us ever do.<\/p>\n

My Greatest Race by Ciara Mageean is published by Gill Books on June 18th. Read an extract in Monday\u2019s Irish Times and on irishtimes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple of months back, Ciara Mageean was sitting on her couch at 10.59am. The time is specific…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[663,110,42328,19786,18,19,17,85128,361,215691,9714,211391,1181,132],"class_list":["post-532948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-belfast","tag-cancer","tag-ciara-mageean","tag-costa-rica","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-los-angeles-2028","tag-magazine","tag-michael-darragh-macauley","tag-olympic-games","tag-ray-goggins","tag-rte","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116741518095594165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}