Ten half marathons to mark tenth anniversary of diagnosis

Emma Hardaker, 47, from Woking discusses how she marked the tenth anniversary of being diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer by taking on the challenge of ten half marathons in ten days.

It started, as all crazy ideas do, with an impulsive act. Having hated running at school, as an adult I discovered the freedom, exhilaration, achievement and community that this sport brings, and over the years I had clocked up fourteen marathons (including the London Marathon twice) and thirty or so half marathons. My latest goal was to reach 100 lifetime half marathons, something I would only do if I started doing some multi-day events. And; how hard could ten half marathons in ten days be?, I thought to myself as my fingers hovered over the ‘Enter Now!’ button on the Phoenix Running website. It was November, I had plenty of time to train before the races in April, and anyway I could always walk it if I needed to.

There was another reason ten in ten was attractive – 2022 would see the ten year anniversary of my diagnosis with stage 3 bowel cancer. Here was an opportunity to do some fundraising for Bowel Cancer UK, one of the charities I turned to for reliable advice and support for me and my family as 2012 turned from light to darkness in the space of a word. If I was going to make an effort, this was worth making it for.

A bit about my cancer experience. In August 2012, I went from being an apparently fit and healthy (if a bit tired) full-time working parent, to a five-hour major surgery and chemotherapy patient. The signs were all there if anyone had put them together. I’d been experiencing blood in my poo for about a year, which the GP I saw at the time totally dismissed as being anything significant, so I didn’t think anything of it either. Then in early 2012 I seemed to be ill all the time with one thing and another, including the stomach upset that lasted for a week that finally drove me back to the GP, who thankfully this time referred me to a gastrointestinal consultant. Tests, tests, tests and more tests, including the first of many colonoscopies, confirmed two polyps in my bowel, one of which was cancerous.

The effect on the family was immediate and devastating. My husband and I had to work out how to explain to a five-year-old and a two-year-old just how sick mummy was. Teaching my five-year-old to dial an ambulance, just in case, remains one of the most devastating memories of that time. And the cure/management isn’t easy – six weeks recovery time from major stomach surgery, then the chemotherapy. I didn’t lose my hair (although it did inspire my haircut) but I did lose the feeling in my hands and feet and suffered from cognitive impairment, meaning I couldn’t process organisational tasks and, most distressingly for me, couldn’t always remember the right words for things. Then there was the sickness, the insomnia, the steroid side effects… the list goes on. And for years afterwards there are continuous check-ups and the constant anxiety of is it back?

It took me four years before every cold wasn’t the start of a recurrence which, given the five-year survival stats for Stage 3 bowel cancer in the UK are less than 50%, was a very real possibility. Somehow – somehow – in 2018 I got the wonderful news that the cancer was gone for good. The chemotherapy side effects are a thing of the past, too.

The calendar ticked round to 2022. I realised that if I was going to do this I had to shame myself into getting to the start line, so I announced what I was going to do at a department meeting at work. Then I set up the JustGiving page and turned to social media – within days the total had topped £1,000. Now there really was no turning back! With the competing commitments of family and work there wasn’t much training done, so I laced up my trainers on 9 April with a degree of trepidation. Could I really do this? The course at Walton-on-Thames was flat and familiar to me from previous events, and there were about 30 other crazy people lined up for day one who harboured the same ambition as me. Some of them were doing ten marathons, some of them ten ultramarathons, some of them were just along for the company and the well-stocked aid station, but they were to prove a huge amount of support in the tough bits of the day ahead. From them I knew not to get too confident and go fast early, so a steady pace was what I aimed for. I also knew to take the runs one at a time and not to think about the whole set, so that by the time we got to day five I was surprised at how quickly the time had gone.

Every day I posted on social media about my day and showing off my medal, and the money and the support poured in. Quickly the total passed £5,000 as friends, family and work colleagues gave generous donations. People I had never even met saw my story and donated, because the cause resonated strongly with them. Knowing that I owed it to my sponsors and supporters to finish the challenge was a real spur on the difficult days, of which there were a few. Day three is when I realised the scale of the challenge and started to seriously doubt myself. Day six is when I found the mental push really hard. Days nine and ten is when my hamstrings had finally started to give up and no amount of K-tape would help. Those were the days when putting one foot in front of the other was a challenge. There were good days too: two of my closest friends who are also running buddies came and ran with me for two of the days. My cousin, who hadn’t done a half marathon since she was 16, came for a day and we had a wonderful time chatting the miles away. Fellow runners who ran with me and shared their life stories and their running experiences distracted from the aches and spurred me on. It was with a great deal of satisfaction and relief that I crossed the finish line on Easter Monday. Since then the fundraising total has reached nearly £10,000, including Gift Aid. I’m so grateful to all my supporters and sponsors for enabling me to complete this challenge.

• Contribute to Emma's JustGiving here