English marathoner Jane Tomlinson dies after 7-year battle with cancer
Posted September 4th, 2007 at 3:20 PM by Martin Kennedy
Section: News & Results, Marathons
Jane Tomlinson, who defied terminal cancer for seven years by running marathons, entering triathlons and cycling vast distances while raising large sums for charity, has died, her family said Tuesday. Tomlinson, 43, died Monday night at St. Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds, her home town in central England.
She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990. Ten years later, she was told the disease had spread and was incurable, and that she would die within six months. She continued to work as a nurse and, despite the effects of chemotherapy and other treatment, she pursued a grueling exercise program.
She ran three times in the London marathon and was said to be the first terminal cancer patient to finish the race. She ran once in the New York Marathon and competed in an Ironman triathlon in Florida completing a 180-kilometer (112-mile) bike ride, a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) swim and a full marathon within 17 hours.
She biked the length of Britain from John O’Groats in the north to Lands End in the southwest in 2003, even while undergoing a course of chemotherapy, and from Rome to Leeds in 2004. Her last big bicycle trip covered 6,780 kilometers (4,213 miles) in a ride across the United States from San Francisco to New York City last year.
“I’m not taking part to say to people, ‘Look what I can achieve.’ I’m taking part because I want to,” she said before running in the 2003 London marathon. She raised 1.75 million pounds (¤2.6 million US$3.5 million) for charity, her family said.
“The weight of this burden has been immense on all of us, but primarily Jane. We hope that she is now at peace from the pain that has accompanied her for so long,” her family said in a statement.
She is survived by her husband, Mike; children Suzanne, Rebecca and Steven, and a granddaughter, Emily. Funeral plans were not immediately announced.
Via: pr-inside.com
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Tags: cancer, chemotherapy, death, died, england, ill, illness, ironman triathlon, jane tomlinson, London Marathon, marathoner, new york marathon, obituary, passed away, sick, terminal cancer
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September 4th, 2007 at 10:02 pm