A St Annes woman with incurable breast cancer ran the Great Manchester 10k, raising £1,000 for Christie Hospital

47-year-old Esther Parkinson ran the race on 22 May 2022 in under one hour and 19 minutes, and even got a special mention at the finish line.

It’s the eighth year that the breast cancer patient ran the event, which was televised on the BBC.

She even got her ‘name in lights’ on the BBC Sport ticker.

The admin support worker at Blackpool Council is being treated for incurable breast cancer at the specialist hospital on Windslow Road, Manchester.

Running is her ‘way of saying thank you’ to the expert team that’s trying to cure her.

She said: “Iit doesn’t matter if you’re walking or running. I’m so motivated by the people cheering me on.”She loves talking to other runners to find out why they are doing it. “Last year was amazing because a woman stopped me a few yards before the finish line. She said ‘you really inspire me’ and we just started holding hands and shared the experience of crossing the finish line together. It was a really emotional moment.”

She said the treatment slowed her down but was determined to keep running.

Esther was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.

She lived cancer-free for eight years, but in 2021 she found out the cancer had come back.Esther travelled an hour and a half, sometimes weekly, for her treatment, which included six rounds of chemotherapy, 15 sessions of radiotherapy and two lots of surgery - including a mastectomy.

Esther lost her hair and felt exhausted from treatment, but was relieved when she was given the all-clear.

Then a lump on her neck alerted her that the cancer had returned, and spread to her spine and lymph nodes.

She is currently getting treatment to prevent the cancer from spreading further, and to help reduce the current tumours.

She said: “Without The Christie, I wouldn’t have access to the latest medicine that I have now, so running for them is my way of saying thank you.

“The first time round I wanted to fundraise for them because they saved my life and this time because they’re working hard in the fight for me to survive.”