On Sunday 12 April, Lisa Hale will line up among thousands of other runners for the hugely popular London Landmarks Half Marathon. Lisa, though, will look a little different \u2013 dressed as a giant womb to raise money and awareness for Target Ovarian Cancer. RW caught up with her to talk setting records and running in a weighted vest. <\/p>\n
\u2018I am running London Landmarks<\/a> in memory of my mum, who passed away in January 2024 from ovarian cancer. She was only supposed to have up to two years, but we ended up having her for six. It was a traumatic time in our lives. At some point, back in November, London Landmarks sent an email saying, \u201cIs anyone running in fancy dress? Is anyone looking to set a Guinness World Record?\u201d I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and then submitted an application to run the \u2018fastest female half marathon dressed as a body part\u2019. I have to run a time of two and a half hours.<\/p>\n \u2018The costume is big and quite heavy, so I\u2019ve been training in a 5kg weighted vest<\/a> to prepare myself. I tend to run three times a week, with one of those runs being long, one being fast and one being easy.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019ve run quite a few half marathons<\/a> over the years and have almost always finished in under two hours. However, if it\u2019s windy on the London Landmarks course, it\u2019s going to be hard because the costume is like a sail if it catches the wind.<\/p>\n \u2018Five of my friends\u2019 husbands\u2019 companies covered the costs of making the costume. It\u2019s massive \u2013 it\u2019s a whole womb! To be a Guinness World Record, the costumer had to be fully encased from head to knees and a hard structure away from the body. I\u2019ve given it the nickname \u2018Wonder Wombman\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018I ran the London Marathon<\/a> in 2023 and was so anxious about getting tripped up or losing my pace that I didn\u2019t really look around. There are photos of me running past Big Ben and I don\u2019t even remember it. So, Landmarks will give me the opportunity to actually enjoy all the iconic London sights along the way.<\/p>\n \u2018I sometimes don\u2019t give myself credit for being a decent runner. At 47, I ran the London Marathon in 4:15, which I was more than happy with. Almost every half marathon that I\u2019ve run has been in under two hours and I have a 23:41 parkrun PB<\/a>. I\u2019ve done lots of other challenges, too, like cycling from London to Paris, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and completing the the National Three Peaks and Yorkshire Three Peaks.<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m raising money for Target Ovarian Cancer<\/a>. It funds a lot of research and one of its major aims is to support early diagnosis, because it\u2019s one of the cancers where the symptoms can be easily missed or mistaken for other illnesses. I\u2019m actually having my ovaries out after the race to eliminate my increased genetic risk of getting ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n \u2018My original target was to raise \u00a3350. I did have a look last night \u2013 and it\u2019s now \u00a33,891. I would really like to get to \u00a34,000, if I could.<\/p>\n \u2018My main aim is to increase awareness of the symptoms and get people talking \u2013 maybe not even necessarily about ovarian cancer, but all cancers. As my mum was passing away, my dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After my dad passed away indirectly from bladder cancer, my fianc\u00e9 and a good friend of mine were both diagnosed with bladder cancer. They were on it early, so they\u2019re fine. But I\u2019m passionate about people knowing the symptoms and getting an early diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u2018In terms of the symptoms of ovarian cancer, one of them is consistent bloating \u2013 after every time you eat or bloating that just won\u2019t go away. Another is needing to go for a wee more often than you usually would. Abdominal pain, around or below your stomach, is another symptom, as is a loss of appetite. If you\u2019re in any doubt, don\u2019t take the risk \u2013 go and speak with your GP.\u2019<\/p>\n Lisa Hale is raising money for Target Ovarian Cancer \u2013 you can support her fundraising efforts here<\/a>. For more information about ovarian cancer, visit targetovariancancer.org.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday 12 April, Lisa Hale will line up among thousands of other runners for the hugely popular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[5339,5337,27,1317,5338],"class_list":{"0":"post-11119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-half-marathon","9":"tag-lisa-hale","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-london-marathon","12":"tag-ovarian-cancer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116380784564940884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}