I stood on the pavement looking at those Macmillan cancer centre doors again and felt a shiver down my spine, as if a huge dark cloud had come over my body. As much as I try to define my life in other ways, the reality is that this is a big part of my identity now.

After a hard week at home with the flu, I am back in London for hospital. I am grateful that I did at least manage to get out on my bike for a 30km ride around the tracks of Glenmore before getting on my train south.

A break in the rain, and my cough, allowed me to jump on my bike and turn the pedals and I had never felt so alive. The fresh air and the scenery was just perfect. I wish I could have made it out more but my train south was leaving the next morning.

Once through those doors, though, I felt calm. It’s like being home. The one thing I noticed today is just how busy this place is, with hardly a spare seat in the place. Surely these people don’t all have cancer?

I check in and get the lift to ground zero, quite fitting with how I regard my current fitness level. I share the lift with another guy who is also struggling to walk. We share a glance and a smile. Kind of “yeah, I know what you’re going through mate”.

I’m in the waiting room now, on the only last empty seat. I am flicking through news stories on my phone and read that a 32-year-old American runner, Gabriele Grunewald, has died after a 10-year battle from a rare form of cancer.

I don’t want to compare her story to mine but I can’t help it. It felt like mine. We must have both found out about our tumours at a similar time, 10 years ago, and both never let that stop us from chasing our dreams.

I read about the day she had been first diagnosed. Her coach offered her the chance to sit out the race schedule for the next day. Her response was “coach, you don’t tell me what I can’t do” before she went out and ran a PB for the 1500m. Even after she lost half her liver, she still went on to win a national title.

I did the same, pretty much. The day after I was first told about the tumour I turned up for training.

As I got to the end of the article and read about how she lived I felt inspired to do the same, to find that inner drive that I have struggled with post radiation.

I know after last week that I have to be smart, I can’t just smash myself every day to get fit again. But she kept going no matter what, and that is how I want to live my life too.

I know for the next five years I will be coming here and for that I am thankful. I am thankful as for the first nine years I didn’t get this support, but now I am at University College London Hospital I have everything I want in terms of support. All I need now is this double strand DNA break and those little tumour cells to die.

I get through my appointments in the basement and leave the building, the usual mixed emotions swirling around in my head. It isn’t until I have spent an hour or so wandering about, mostly in circles, that I start finding myself again.

We all deal with stress in different ways and for me I call it Walkman. It was my way of coping after hard days in radiation. I would just walk, not with any destination in mind and with no real purpose, just walk because I could and it helped to clear my mind.

I find myself in a cafe reflecting on my morning and processing my plans to get training again. Then a friend sends me a message about Chris Froome who is in hospital after hitting a house wall at 54km/hour. He is in intensive care with multiple broken bones and the extent of his injuries are unknown.

I don’t know Chris and have never met him but athletes feel a bond with other athletes. We have an understanding of what it feels like to train with a single-mind focus on one goal to then in the blink of an eye have it taken away.

When he awakes and the reality hits him of the crash and his injuries, I know how he is going to feel and also what it’s going to take to get through this next few months. It will be a very difficult time for not just him, but his family.

I hope he can ride again and that he can have the same mindset that made him a multiple Tour De France winner to win through this next challenge. It might be harder than any bike race he has done.

I pray that Chris only has broken bones to deal with. As for me, it is time to push on back home to recover from another day in oncology and to rest my body so I can get back to training.