Cancer heroine to run third London Marathon
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-04-14 10:08

Terminal cancer heroine Jane Tomlinson will run the London marathon for the third time. And just two weeks later she will embark on a mammoth challenge of cycling 2,500 miles from Rome to Leeds.

The 40-year-old mother of three from Rothwell, Leeds, is running the marathon in an attempt to increase the total amount of money she has raised for charity from ￡485,000 to half-a-million pounds.

Even though the NHS paediatric radiographer has already run the marathon twice, completed a triathlon, a half-ironman triathlon and cycled 1,060 miles across the UK since her terminal diagnosis, she is unable to resist running the gruelling race once more.

“I’m looking forward to it much more than last year,” she said.

“I hadn’t had the time to train and this year I have worked really hard to run this in a reasonable time. My goal is four hours and 45 minutes. That’s what I have been training for really hard and I will be devastated if I am too ill to run.”

The event will be much harder for her because of her deteriorating health and a recent throat infection, which has hampered her training. She has also recently finished an intensive course of the chemotherapy treatment Taxotere.

“We are trying to have an air of celebration about this,” her husband Mike said.

“Her achievements are matched by no one and we should be sad that this will be her last marathon but we know how lucky we are. She was due to die in spring 2001, started running May 2001 and for three consecutive years after that she’s run the London Marathon. Who would have believed that it was possible.”

“In London she’ll be in immense pain. I don’t think anyone can imagine how much she is suffering. I don’t want to run, I think it’s way to hard but I can’t tell you how much in awe I am of her. This is just astonishing.”

“No one has ever run a marathon in such adverse circumstances as Jane will on the 18th,” Mr Tomlinson added.

“As far as we can tell Jane is the only person ever to run a marathon on chemo and the only terminal ill person who started training after her prognosis.

“She will also be embarking on her gruelling biking challenge only two weeks after, cycling 2,500 miles from Italy to the UK.”

To Mrs Tomlinson the marathon however is just a taster.

“The bike ride is the challenge of the year,” she said. “The marathon is just a build up to the bike ride really and an opportunity to raise more cash for charity.”

So far some of the money raised by Jane’s appeal has helped to buy incubators for special care babies, gone towards cancer research and also provided a dialysis machine for a Leeds hospital.

The London Marathon will take place on April 18. Her bike ride will take place on May 3 from St Peter’s Square in Rome and is due to finish in Leeds on June 7.

Contributions to her appeal can be made online at: www.justgiving.com/Janesappeal.

Donations can also be sent to The Jane Tomlinson Appeal, Yorkshire Building Society, Commercial Street, Rothwell, Leeds LS26 0AW. Sort Code: 57 00 45. Account No: 5349471430.

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