{"id":618890,"date":"2025-12-07T23:26:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/618890\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T23:26:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T23:26:18","slug":"i-was-training-for-an-ultra-marathon-and-felt-a-groin-strain-10-days-later-i-had-terminal-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/618890\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I was training for an ultra-marathon and felt a groin strain – 10 days later I had terminal cancer’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI was as fit as a fiddle… It was a real shock to find out I had terminal cancer\u201dTony Collier was as ‘fit as a fiddle’ when he got his diagnosis – but he’s kept in shape during his treatment(Image: Tony Collier\/Running With Cancer)<\/p>\n

It was the \u2018special medal\u2019 which lured Tony Collier to go through hell and back again.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Tony, a 59-year-old accountant from Altrincham<\/a> completed his first ultra-marathon, a 56-mile endeavour which he finished in nine hours and 46 minutes. He swore he\u2019d never do it again, but the offer of the \u2018special medal\u2019 for runners who complete the same ultra two years in-a-row convinced him.<\/p>\n

The race was to be held in June, southern hemisphere winter, so by the time British spring sprang, Tony, now 60, was in full flow, training regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the fittest non-professional athlete you could see,\u201d he recalled. But on Monday, May 8, something didn\u2019t feel right. Tony thought he suffered a groin strain, booking in with a sports injury doctor for an MRI scan.<\/p>\n

By Tuesday evening, Tony was alone, driving home, \u2018in floods of tears\u2019. Ready to have \u2018a horrible conversation\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201c[My sports injury doctor] called me at seven o\u2019clock to say he was 99pc sure it was cancer,\u201d Tony told the Manchester Evening News.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 15 minutes from home and I had to drive home in floods of tears because I had to break the news to my wife\u2026 That was a horrible conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just 10 days later, a urologist confirmed Tony\u2019s diagnosis was terminal cancer, giving him \u2018two years to live\u2019. It turned out the groin strain was a stress fracture of the spine, caused by his prostate cancer, which began developing when Tony was 50.<\/p>\n

Tony Collier in hospital following his terminal cancer diagnosis in 2017(Image: Tony Collier\/Running Into Cancer)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was as fit as a fiddle,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a real shock to find out I had terminal cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the intervening decade, the cancer developed and spread so it became incurable. But it didn\u2019t have to be like that.<\/p>\n

Tony explained: \u201cIf I had known about my right to a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test from age 50, they would\u2019ve caught it earlier when it was curable.\u201d<\/p>\n

A PSA test is a \u00a328 tool available on the NHS<\/a> that measures the amount of a protein made by the prostate gland, which can be a marker for cancer.<\/p>\n

Now 68, Tony raises awareness of men\u2019s rights to a PSA test \u2014 and campaigns for mass prostate screening, something the UK National Screening Committee opted not to recommend last week.<\/p>\n

Tony believes the decision was based on out-dated thinking: \u201cHistorically, if a man went to the GP for a PSA test and it had a high reading, he would\u2019ve a trans-rectal biopsy that could lead to sepsis and death, [or] a man with an indolent cancer could then be overtreated.<\/p>\n

(Image: Tony Collier\/Running Into Cancer)<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that was 25 years ago. Now, if you have a PSA reading high enough, you go straight through MRI and there are some more targeted biopsies. In the old days screening did more harm than good, we think that\u2019s been turned on its head now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s decision was \u2018devastating\u2019, he added: \u201cI\u2019m really upset because we have campaigned hard. They\u2019ve agreed to screen men with BRCA one or two. That\u2019s only 30,000 men in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony will continue to fight on for mass screening and raise awareness for the PSA test, earning a standing ovation at Manchester Town Hall last week as councillors agreed to kick-start a new PSA test awareness campaign in the city, a move Coun Olusegun Ogunbambo said \u2018will save lives\u2019.<\/p>\n

The councillor added: \u201cWe want faster treatment for everyone. We want better outcomes for everyone in Manchester. That means living longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately for Tony, he is living longer than expected \u2014 now aged 68. He spends his time with his grandchildren, taking trips abroad, and running even more to fundraise, finishing his second ultra-marathon in 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI was as fit as a fiddle… It was a real shock to find out I had terminal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1204,105,6513,8828,211,285,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-618890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-fitness","11":"tag-manchester-council","12":"tag-nhs","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115680876079059042","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}