This much I know: Derval O’Rourke, athlete and author

I still love running and walking my dogs — a labradoodle and a rescue dog, half lurcher, half greyhound — so you can imagine how much exercise they need.

My family were not particularly athletic but my father always loved sports. He opened up the world of sport to me. He worked for Ford in Cork and mum stayed home with me and my older sister.

I didn’t feel like I was in any way academic until I went to UCD. I got a scholarship and specialised in Business Studies and went on to do a Masters.

But it didn’t make me want to work for a big company. If anything, it made me want to become an enterpreneur. I admire people who start up things on their own.

I used to train six days a week, 11 months of the year. I think my best trait is an ability to work very hard and stay focused. I led a structured life for a long time and enjoyed it.

I was incredibly lucky to meet people who helped me during crucial times in my career.

I had an agent called Andy Norman who said talent was irrelevant, what you need to be is spirited and capable of taking chances. Everyone fails all the time but the trick is to keep going.

I was coached by a great husband and wife team Sean and Terrie Cahill. In athletics you might have eight good races out of 100. They taught me to cling to the positive.

When I’d phone them in a flap from some hotel room half way across the globe after a disastrous race, they were amazing at instilling into me that you don’t have to be good all the time.

I’m not particularly religious. I do believe in some kind of afterlife but I have no idea what it is.

I had a lot of positive internal dialogue at the start line whenever I felt under pressure to perform.

I’d tell myself everybody is nervous and that it is perfectly okay, but if I am a little less nervous I will perform better. I do the same thing now whenever I am faced with something daunting. I think ‘in an hour this will be done’.

My biggest challenge has been the fact that I have chosen to work in fields in which I must be completely self-reliant. I have essentially always been self-employed. My success was dependent on how fast I ran.

I put a really high value on my quality of life. My idea of misery is doing the same thing for 25 years. A ‘nine-to-five’ job is not for me. I went back to study cooking at Dublin School of Cookery in 2012. Then I wrote my first cookbook.

I’m working for the IRUPA (Irish Rugby Union Players’ Association) three days a week on off-pitch development and I’m writing my second cook book.

I met my husband Peter O’Leary at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He was sailing.

We were seated next to each other on the way home. Afterwards, I remember being gutted with how I ran there, but then I’d think — hey — I’d never have met Peter if I hadn’t gone to those Olympics.

We live by the sea in Crosshaven in Cork. My main motivation was to win medals, but athletics gave me much more than that. It gave me a full life for a long time.

I don’t fear much but we’re expecting our first child in a few weeks and I worry more about Peter and the baby than I have ever worried before.

I lack patience and life has taught me that nothing will replace hard work.

Olympic athlete Derval O’Rourke is an ambassador for this year’s Coca-Cola Thank You Fund. Voluntary and non-profit organisations in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are encouraged to apply for the fund, which will award a total of €125,000 in five separate grants this year.

The grants will fund projects with new ideas to get us more active, more often. Applications are being accepted online until 6pm on June 29 at www.coca-cola.ie/thankyou.