Magda Pearce and Greg Ireland aren’t running the New York Marathon this year for themselves.
They’re running for Team Chelsea.
“It’s never ever been in my wildest dreams doing the New York Marathon,” Greg Ireland explains.
“But if you find your why, you can pretty much do anything, and Chelsea was my why.”
Greg says the genesis of Team Chelsea’s New York Marathon dream started several years ago.
“They were doing a memorial for Chelsea at her high school and they said, ‘can you bring some art or something in’,” Greg says as he prepares to go for a run/walk in Semaphore early on a Monday morning.
“We were going through some of her work, she was a very good artist and we pulled out this bucket list.
“It was probably an A3 size cardboard sheet with some stickers on it and a couple of things on it were to travel to New York and she wanted to run a marathon.
“I mean what 11-year-old knows what a marathon is let alone wanting to run one.”
Chelsea had created the bucket list when she was still in primary school.
“Things like swim with the whale sharks at Ningaloo, and she and some friends went up to Quorn one time, they wanted to climb Devil’s Peak but the weather wasn’t suitable, so that’s another thing she wanted to do,” Greg explains.
But Chelsea’s plans were devastatingly cut short in August 2020 when she, and her boyfriend Lukasz, were murdered in South Australia’s South-East by Lukasz’s father.
“And it’s coming up four years and it’s still as strong now as it’s ever been,” Greg says.
The grief and pain the family continues to feel is relentless but a bond has been forged out of the tragedy.
That bond will see Lukasz’s mother, Magda Pearce, run the TCS New York Marathon with Greg in November this year.
Magda says this a Team Chelsea event but she’ll bring the memory of Lukasz with her too.
“Lukasz wasn’t a runner, but Chelsea was definitely a runner, she runs really well.
“If it wasn’t for Chelsea, if it wasn’t for her bucket list,
“If it wasn’t her dream to run the marathon we wouldn’t be doing it.”
Magda says getting herself moving has been important for her, following Lukasz’s death.
“I used to like being healthy but moving my body was my last priority,” Magda says.
“I did not care less, so unfortunately I got myself really, really unhealthy.”
It was her young son Ricky who inspired her to make a change.
“So I started to watch what I’m eating and exercising a bit and then I decided maybe I could stop drinking altogether,” Magda says.
“I don’t have room for alcohol in my life right now with everything else.”
Greg, like Magda, knows he’ll experience many feelings both physical and emotional as he runs through New York with 50,000 people as millions more watch on.
“I’m equally parts mega excited and absolutely cacking myself,” Greg says.
“I’m looking forward to it, but I know, I talked to Magda yesterday and I said, ‘It’s going to be so emotionally draining,’ which it will.
“There’ll be the physical pain, there’ll be the mental pain, but there’s also the emotional pain on top and I know that’s going to happen.”
Magda feels exactly the same as she reflects on the opportunities that were taken from Chelsea and Lukasz.
“It’s going to be really shit in a way that we have to do it because they can’t do it themselves.
“This is one of those things that they were robbed of, like, you know, ticking off their bucket list and doing what they had every desire to do.
“I’ve got no doubts that Chelsea would have gone to New York and Łukasz would have gone with her, not necessarily running with her, but she would have waited for him.
“I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d crossed the line together, even though she would have been so much better than him and so much quicker and faster.
“All we really want is that our children are not forgotten….they’re not here to be doing it so we have to do everything that we can do to keep their names alive, it’s really important to everybody.”
And it won’t just be Greg and Magda in New York…
Greg and wife, Debra will meet Chelsea’s sister Maddie in the US where she is already doing Camp America.
Magda, her husband Ash and son Ricky will do New York before going onto Disneyland to give Ricky the full US experience.
Greg and Magda are also raising money for Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation who Magda also works for.
They’ve already gone past their goal of $10,000 and have another fundraiser coming up to keep the momentum going.
Chelsea’s Independence Day New York Marathon Fundraiser will take place in Jackson Square in Hindmarsh on July 4 … US independence day.
https://events.humanitix.com/chelsea-s-independence-day-new-york-marathon-fundraiser
