The road to the London Marathon…

In 2015, I had an operation to remove my appendix, which had been quietly growing a cancer tumour.

Having learnt it had infiltrated my bowel, shortly after, I had a right hemicolectomy to remove the cancer that had spread.

I was fortunate - it was an incidental find caught early enough and now; I have yearly body scans to keep a careful eye on it!

***UPDATE FEB 2025***

After my last scan in December 2024, I have now been fully discharged and am 'cancer-free'. No more scans required. What a year to be running this event for @bowelcanceruk! Feeling very blessed.

So… the road to the London Marathon…

In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, I took up running.

I hadn’t done any fitness for many years due to multiple surgeries (I’ve had maybe 10 operations since my ‘big one’) and general ‘life/work’ getting in the way. But, when life forced us all to slow down and being in ‘lockdown’, I decided to try and get out running for both my physical and mental health.

I ran my first run on April 10th 2020 and moaned to my partner the whole time!

Determined to improve, I set myself a goal and signed up for the Knebworth Half Marathon in the November of that year. It was cancelled due to COVID! (Although I still ran it around my town instead!)

Since then, I’ve become a 'runner' and have completed 8 half marathons (including for Bowel Cancer UK in 2021), completed 2 Hyrox events, and run/hiked a full marathon distance for charity.

I retrained as a Zumba and Body Pump Instructor and now teach fitness classes every week. Fitness has given me back an energy for life and a goal to try and stay as fit and healthy as I can.

I wanted to run for Bowel Cancer UK, because now, I couldn’t be further from the poorly girl I was back then, so if you have any pennies to spare, I’d love to raise some money to help others fight this cancer.

I’ve got lots of fundraising ideas also in the planning and you can follow my journey on my Instagram page @reney1

Irene x

We’re the UK’s leading bowel cancer charity.

We fund targeted research, provide expert information and support to patients and their families, educate the public and professionals about the disease and campaign for early diagnosis and access to best treatment and care.

We’re here to stop people dying of bowel cancer.