When Shane McGuigan lines up for Sunday’s London Marathon, he will do so fuelled by two ambitions.
Firstly, he is running to raise money for a charity close to his heart. Secondly, he has an awe-inspiring goal of clocking a time between 2 hours 39 minutes and 2 hours and 43 minutes.
McGuigan, a former amateur boxer, has always enjoyed training but his running feats are particularly impressive. He has got to the point where he can more than match his formidable stable of fighters when it comes to a run, and that stable includes Chris Billam-Smith, Adam Azim, Malik Zinad, Caroline Dubois and Ellie Scotney.
McGuigan has racked up many miles in his prep.
“I have basically just decided to do it as my thing,” he told BoxingScene. “You might be doing CrossFit or Hyrox or something like that, and just for me, I don’t really want to be in a gym environment. I’m in the gym all the time with the fighters and I just want a little bit of freedom outside of it, I can get myself a coach, and so I did that, I decided to do that at the end of 2023, and in 2024, I’d done some good stuff. My first marathon was 2.53, which obviously is a decent time for your first one, and then – I don’t know what I did on my first half, it was maybe 1.27 – I worked that down to, like, a 1.20 flat at the end of 2024, and then 2025 was just riddled with injury after injury.”
The frustrations mounted and McGuigan, a pros pro, would always have to put his fighters first when needed, too.
“I just wasn’t getting anywhere with the training,” he admitted. “I was still trying to train, at quite high volume but I kept breaking down. Luckily, I got quite a bit of momentum at the end of last year. I was going to go and do [the] Valencia [marathon], and then Caroline [Dubois] got her fight [in Miami], so it’s just sort of been like one mini block [of training] after another.”
Now McGuigan is a couple of days away from a goal that is not only on the edge of ambition, but one that is close to his heart.
McGuigan’s much-loved sister, Danika, passed away in 2019 from leukaemia. The actress had successfully battled the illness in 1997, when she was just 11, but it could not be stopped when it came back years later.
It was a harrowing time for the family, of course, including Shane and his father, Barry, the iconic Irish fighter. She was only 33 years old.
Before Shane’s bad run of injuries in 2024, he had hoped to break the 2.40 barrier in Berlin and now that is his plan for London this weekend in what is his fourth marathon. It was when he ran in Seville that he was approached by the charity, Young Lives Vs. Cancer. It formerly went by another name, CLICK [Cancer leukaemia In Childhood] Sargent, and Barry McGuigan had raised big money for it, enlisting the support of other sporting A-listers including motor racing’s Eddie Jordan and English soccer great Gary Lineker.
Even after Danika got the all-clear in the 1990s, such was the impact of the charity’s work with the McGuigans, the family maintained their fond affection for it and when they asked Shane if he was interested in running to raise funds for them, he happily accepted the opportunity to wear their vest.
“I’m honored, it's a great charity,” he said. “A lot of families, they just can’t afford to stay in London [while family members are having treatment] so one of the siblings or their children can get the treatment and they help house them [the remaining family members]. They’ve got these like safe houses around the country where families can go. And within that space, they’ve got counselling, grief counseling, all of the stuff that goes hand in hand with what you’re going through.”
The charity’s name change has seen it branch out to assist families whose relatives are struggling with other issues, including brain tumors and other forms of cancer.
Their tireless work to help kids and their families have fuelled McGuigan in his training and they will do again on Sunday come race day.
“I do love my running,” he explained. “I like my training and stuff, but there’s times in it that when it gets pretty monotonous. It’s pretty boring.
“And I can lean in and think to myself, ‘I’m lucky enough and able enough to do this.’
“That was one of the main driving factors to getting fit. I was thinking Danika passed when she was 33 years of age. Many, many other kids passed even younger than that. What’s the saying? A millionaire’s got a million problems, but a sick man’s got one. And that’s literally it.
“You’ve got to make sure that you prioritize your health and your wellbeing is as much as you can and find something that kind of goes hand in hand where you can get some enjoyment from it. And if I really push myself to my limits, that’s definitely a driving factor, to push myself to my limits for a great time, because if I can come in at a really good time – I’m nowhere near close to being the most famous person or anything like that that’s ever run for the charity – but if I can put up a really good time in the vest for the charity, and that can gain some momentum and attention, then that can create more awareness and more funding. And that’s my aim really.”
