Last Christmas, Sir Chris Hoy was left wondering if this might be his final festive season.
Just weeks after being diagnosed with stage four cancer, which had started in his prostate and spread to his bones, he was about to start chemotherapy on 22 December.
There was a sense of dread about a punishing 18 weeks of treatment lying ahead of him, not knowing how his body would react nor whether it would slow what doctors had told him was incurable but treatable.
“I was thinking about how many more Christmases have I got,” he tells The i Paper.
“This time last year everything still felt like this could be the last one.
“It wasn’t a given that the chemo would work, there were just a lot of fingers crossed that it would work and work quickly. There were so many unknowns, so many questions, there was fear, there was worry, it was a really dark time.
“To think back to then, I wouldn’t have believed it if you said a year on I’d be able to sit here and talk about it and be feeling better, be able to ride my bike pain free, lift weights sensibly, drive in a race car, run around with the kids and do things that I couldn’t do without pain previously.
“This is not just paying lip service, I genuinely feel lucky at this point now.”
What a difference a year makes, even just a few months.
At the end of the summer, he still found it hard to talk about his cancer and his wife Sarra’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis, and also about the couple’s two children without breaking down.
To be in Hoy’s company is to feel genuinely optimistic for the future not just for him and his family despite their respective health battles but about one’s own life more generally.
And this Christmas Day will feel far from his last, spent at the family’s home in Cheshire, just him, Sarra, Callum, 10, and Chloe, aged seven.
“It’s going to be as low-key a Christmas as it can be as it’s always chaotic spending time with the four of us and watching the kids open their presents,” he said.
“It’s enjoying the innocence of the kids at the moment in the sweet spot – that magic of Christmas at that age.
“Last year felt like a lot of trepidation and unknown.
“The reality is that nothing’s really changed, I’m not cured, the cancer’s not gone away but I feel like I’m better equipped to deal with it.
“The ship is more stable and I’m appreciating life a bit more than perhaps I’ve ever done.”
His book All That Matters lays out the details of his diagnosis and the ensuing chemotherapy in stark detail but it merely acts as a precursor to a far more uplifting message for the future, his own and that of anyone reading whatever difficulties they might be facing.
He and Sarra thought long and hard about whether to write the book in the first place but have both been blown away by the reaction to having done so, one he calls “incredibly life affirming”.
He has been inundated by messages from a seemingly limitless list of friends, cancer sufferers, families affected by it and all manner of celebrities, and he is apologetic about not having been able to reply to each and every one of them.
But he has been buoyed by the number of people who have gone to their GPs to have a PSA test, which helps detect prostate cancer, easily treatable if caught early enough.
Part of the thinking behind the book was to help others not endure the same fate but also act as a platform for the Tour de 4, the charity cycle ride planned from Glasgow to Edinburgh for next summer, aiming to shine a spotlight on stage four cancer.
“We couldn’t really go big on a charity event and raise a lot of money without explaining why,” he said.
“Having explained my diagnosis it makes perfect sense why I’d want to do this and show that a lot of people with stage four cancer are very lucky, stable, fit and able to do the things they did before the diagnosis. There’s still a lot of life to live.
“You can have this image of someone with stage four cancer lying in a hospital bed and I know I did. This is important to raise awareness but also raise a lot of money so this isn’t even a thing or something we have to consider in the future for the next generation or the one after that.”
The exact details of the Tour de 4 are currently being mapped out but Hoy has been buoyed by the number of people asking to sign up to take part or simply help out in whatever capacity.
“I want it to be a success, for it to happen every year and for people who take part in it say they can’t wait until next year but it’s going to take a huge amount of work,” he said.
It is understandably his primary focus for the year ahead, as well as considering another ride on the continent at some point to raise further funds.
There is also his podcast, Sporting Misadventures, marrying his dual loves for sport and comedy, where a comedian comes on each week to talk about his or her sporting mishap.
Guests to date have included the likes of Jack Whitehall, Jason Manford and Joe Wilkinson.
It was one of the few constants in his life even amid the darker days and the chemotherapy in the early part of this year.
“It just helped me through the year before this was all public,” he said.
“All I had to do was get out of bed, go to my back bedroom to record it and I felt like achieved something without getting out of the house.
“For an hour, it put cancer totally on the back burner. It wasn’t so much escapism but just realising I’d not thought about cancer for an hour.”
With everything the past year or so has thrown at him, does he almost feel more alive than ever?
“Yes, in a sense but I’m still the same person,” he said.
“It’s changed me a little in appreciating things more. In any case, I’m still a grumpy old bugger but just not as grumpy!”
