A cancer doctor has won a gruelling 268-mile ultramarathon after a picture from last year’s race exposed her cheating ex-boyfriend’s affair.
Dr Lucy Gossage, 45, who said she used to finish in last place in cross country when she was younger, ran in the dead of night through bitter snow storms for 87 hours, taking just three hours and 40 minutes of rest during the 2025 Spine Race.
The race goes along the Pennine Way, stretching from the Derbyshire Peak District to the Scottish Border, and has a cumulative elevation of 10,732m which is the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest.
Dr Gossage, who works full time as an NHS oncologist at Nottingham City Hospital, was raising money for Move Against Cancer, a charity she co-founded in 2018 to help cancer patients get active.
But it was not her only motivation, after she discovered a devastating personal heartbreak at the same race in January last year, when she finished in third place.
The 45-year-old had entered the 2024 Spine Race with her partner of three years and after completing the race, a friend shared pictures documenting their progress.
In what should have been a joyous moment quickly turned sour after a woman on social media sent Dr Gossage a message saying she had been dating him for several months without knowing he was in a relationship.
It quickly became apparent that the man she had spent three years of her life with had been leading a double life right in front of her eyes.
Dr Lucy Gossage, 45, pictured during the 2025 Spine Race ran for 87 hours in arctic conditions with just three hours and 40 minutes of rest
The NHS oncologist, pictured nearly 30 hours into the Spine Race, discovered last year that her then boyfriend of three years was living a double life
The cancer doctor was raising money for Move Against Cancer, a charity she co-founded in 2018 to help cancer patients get active
Now, she has said that re-running the same race is a way for her to ‘reclaim the memories of the Spine for myself’.
She told the Times: ‘In the days after the race last year it transpired that a lot of what he told me about his past was made up.
‘This was all coming out while I was sleep-deprived after the race. It was a really dramatic finale. It really did feel like my world had fallen in. It was almost like I was grieving for someone who never really existed.’
In total, Dr Gossage finished the 268-mile (430km) women’s Montane Winter Spine Race in 87 hours, 41 minutes and 38 seconds on Thursday evening.
The oncologist, from Nottingham, became a professional triathlete in 2014 despite claiming that she was never sporty when younger.
After spending hours in Cambridge laboratories researching for a PhD into kidney cancer, she went on to become a full-time Ironman competitor at the age of 34.
With 14 Ironman champion titles to her name, Dr Gossage told the BBC: ‘For me, doing things that scare you and seem impossible is what makes me feel alive.
‘It’s a race that takes you to places you’d never normally go in normal life. All you’re thinking about is survival.
‘I don’t know where that performance came from – it did surprise me. It’s not what I anticipated doing.’
The 2025 Spine Race takes place along the Pennine Way, stretching from the Derbyshire Peak District to the Scottish Border
Despite claiming that she was never sporty when she was younger, the 45-year-old astonishingly won the 268-mile race
Lucy Gossage of Great Britain finishes first and wins the Xtri World Tour during the Isklar Norseman Xtreme Triathlon on August 3, 2019 in Eidfjord, Norway
Dr Gossage trained by running to and from work every day at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, where she specialises in treating testicular cancer and sarcoma and encourages patients to run or walk
During the race, her brief rests consisted of sleeping in public loos and ‘the odd two-minute power nap lying down on the trail’.
The race itself is so gruelling that less than 50 percent of runners finish, with most dropping out midway when temperatures drop to -8C.
Dr Gossage added: ‘You have these amazing highs, but there were times where I just felt like it was impossible,’ describing how at one point after crossing Hadrian’s Wall she had broken down in tears.
‘At no point are you going that fast or that hard. It’s just the fact that you’re going for 87 hours.’
She also added that one of the hardest things was having to force food into your body when it really didn’t want it – but she did have a delicious sausage sandwich half way.
Dr Gossage trained by running to and from work every day at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, where she specialises in treating testicular cancer and sarcoma and encourages patients to run or walk.
