Adventurer, activist and runner Lizzie Carr talks surviving cancer and protecting the environment

PHOTOS: JOE BRANS TON WORDS: CLAIRE CHAMBERLAIN

Imagine your life was going along exactly as expected: you went to university, studied hard, bagged yourself a job in the corporate world and fell in love with running along the way. And then everything changed.

That’s what happened to cover star Lizzie Carr, 32, from South London, when a stage-two cancer diagnosis became the catalyst that turned her from a high-flying city girl into a passionate environmentalist and adventurer.

“I was 26 at the time and I was just shocked by the diagnosis”, Lizzie remembers. “It completely blindsided me.” Yet despite the pain and fear that cancer brings, Lizzie viewed it as her wake-up call.

“I think in some ways, everyone at some point goes through a trauma that makes them re-evaluate and get a new perspective on things”, she says. “And cancer was mine: that was my trauma. It just hit me – what was important and what I value most: being with friends and family, making time to reconnect with them again, and spending more time outdoors in nature.”

NEW BEGINNINGS

Lizzie walked away from the security of her city job and, on finishing radiotherapy, went to stay with her father for a few weeks on the Isles of Scilly, to recuperate. Still drained from her ordeal and unable to do any high-impact exercise, including running, she needed something to focus on – but didn’t know what.