❤️ BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR THEIR GENEROSITY ❤️

(Every pound given goes to the ICR - I’ve paid to put myself through pain 😂)

On September 25th I will be joining One more City founder, Christine O’Connell and 35 riders to raise money for the Institute of Cancer Research. We are pedalling our way from Pisa to Nice, approx 650km, 9000m of elevation over 4 days.

Having personally experienced breast cancer twice, secondary breast cancer has and still is lingering there in my mind …. So I decided this challenge is very well worth my support and hopefully yours please 🙏

Professor Vicky Sanz-Moreno’s lab at the ICR is exploring the structures that allow breast cancer cells to move and grow, especially when they spread to other parts of the body. Her team is gaining knowledge of how the inner structure of these cells helps them invade nearby tissue, survive in new environments, and resist treatments. Ultimately, they’re working towards discovering new ways to stop cancer from spreading.

Secondary breast cancer is cancer that has spread beyond the breast and nearby lymph nodes to other parts of the body. Despite the best available treatments, it remains the second leading cause of death for women with cancer.

Much of breast cancer awareness, campaigning and research are focused around prevention and detection in the case of primary cancer, when the disease is confirmed to be breast and lymph nodes. Early diagnosis provides the best chance of survival, as the disease is curable in most people at this stage. However, an estimated 20-30% of primary cancers spread to other organs, which is termed secondary cancer, and at this point, the cancer is no longer curable. Those diagnosed with secondary cancer will spend the rest of their foreshortened lives in some form of treatment.

The ethos of One More City is that the journey is never over; we are always progressing toward the next city, there are always more kilometres to do, more climbs to conquer and more challenges to face. This is akin to the reality of anyone living with cancer, especially secondary cancer, for whom the challenge is never over; there are alway more treatments to endure, more scans to face, more side effects to manage.

Christine O’Connell, who was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer in 2013, created One More City in 2017 when she and 3 friends rode from London to Paris in 24 hours to raise money for breast cancer support services. As she was training for One More City’s second fundraiser in 2018, Christine learned that her cancer had returned, and it had spread to her brain and bones. This is when her journey as a secondary breast cancer patient and advocate began. In the years since, Christine and her fellow One More City riders have led seven rides through seven countries, raising nearly £400,000 for secondary breast cancer research in the UK