'Less than two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer, now I'm running London Marathon to help others'

After being diagnosed with cancer in October 2023, Lisa didn’t know if or when she’d make the start line of a running event again. But she’s found her way back to doing what she loves, with the help of a pioneering exercise programme. “Before my diagnosis, I was on a runner’s high,” the 52-year-old says. “I felt the fittest and healthiest I’d been for a long time. Then came the words ‘it is breast cancer’, and my world was turned upside down.”

Lisa, who lives in Harrogate with her family, had been active since she was a child. She had always enjoyed running, but in her 30s and 40s it took a back seat, and it wasn’t until 2021 that she reignited her passion for it. She says: “I loved how it made me feel fit and healthy and I liked being outside. I started running again regularly and signing up to events.”

In May 2022, Lisa ran the Manchester Half Marathon and completed the 13.1-mile event faster than she’d run the Leeds Half Marathon a decade before. That same year, she finished the London Marathon after securing a ballot place – and later signed up for the 2023 Berlin Marathon too.

"But I knew when I went to Berlin what was around the corner,” she says. “I’d already noticed a change and had been to see my GP. My gut just knew what it was. My first hope was that it might be hormonal. But a friend had just been through treatment for breast cancer and having seen her experience, I thought I needed to get checked out.”

Lisa travelled to Berlin in September 2023 with friends and achieved a personal best time. When she returned, she had multiple tests and scans. “It was a very tough 10 days while I was waiting for the results,” she says. “The consultant confirmed that it was cancer but immediately reassured me it hadn’t spread elsewhere. So, it was a shock, but it helped to know what I was dealing with.”

Following diagnosis, Lisa had surgery. In December 2023, she also began a course of chemotherapy, with treatment taking place every three weeks. When the side effects wore off during the breaks between sessions, she joined friends for gentle runs. Miles were few and slow, but she says it helped “the healing endorphins flow”.

During her chemotherapy, Lisa attended an assessment with the Active Together programme – an exercise service funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, and designed by Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, to help people prepare for and recover from cancer treatment. She went on to attend fitness sessions that were scheduled around her treatment.

“I was really missing my exercise. I’d gone from feeling fit and healthy to feeling like it had all gone. I felt I was going to have to start all over again...I was hoping that Active Together would help me recondition my body in an appropriate way that built over time,” she says. “It gave me structure, it gave me consistency, and meant I was returning to fitness in a careful and safe way. But I’ve also got ‘me’ back.”

Lisa continued to have personal fitness and wellbeing sessions through the three weeks of radiotherapy that followed her chemotherapy. And in April 2024, still in the middle of treatment, she was inspired, once again, to sign up for the London Marathon.

She says: “I was sat on the sofa watching the event on TV and knowing what an amazing, unique experience it is, I decided to put myself in the ballot. I didn’t think I’d get in again...It will be an achievement to get to the start line. It will feel like I’ve come full circle and got back to doing what I love. And after all the benefit and good feeling I’ve got from Active Together, it will be amazing to raise money for Yorkshire Cancer Research so they can help others.”

Lisa is now busy balancing training for the marathon, which takes place on April 27, with having tablets, injections and treatment infusions to help prevent the cancer returning.

She says: “When I go out for a run now, I remind myself that it wasn’t that long ago that I was sat on the sofa not able to do it. Life’s too short to not make the most of it and enjoy it.”