“MY SISTER’S TERMINAL ILLNESS INSPIRED ME TO BECOME A MARATHON RUNNER”

Despite only taking up running at 48, she’s done three marathons and six 100K walking e vents, set up two park runs and raised over £18,000 for charity. Lisa Jack son meets the woman the y call The Unstoppable Dawn Paul

INSPIRATION

My life changed completely in 2005 when my older sister Karen was diagnosed with multiple myeloma (bone marrow) cancer, aged just 54,” says Dawn Paul, 56, from Peacehaven in East Sussex. “For the next few years I pretended everything was OK, but then she started becoming increasingly ill. In April 2009, while tackling a marathon pile of ironing and watching the London Marathon on TV, I was having my usual thoughts about how brilliant it must be to run a marathon when it dawned on me that the only person stopping me doing so was me. I also wanted to support Karen, to almost share her pain, as she always tried to hide it right until the end.

“I taught myself to run by cycling a mile to a secluded field where nobody could see me and repeatedly running downhill for one minute, then walking back up again. Over several weeks, I built up to running for a whole song on my iPod. During that time, I also quit my 35-year, 30-a-day smoking habit. In October 2010, I ran my first 10K. It rained the whole time, but I didn’t care, as it felt so good to have done it. By then I’d already been rejected in the London Marathon ballot and instead decided to volunteer at the first-ever Brighton Marathon, something I’m still proud to be involved in eight years later. However, my marathon dream wasn’t over and, in 2011, I ran the Brighton Marathon in five hours and 50 minutes and had an absolute ball. I dressed as a hula girl and, at the finish, as I hugged my husband and children, I felt elated and thankful. And yet so very sad, as Karen, who’d planned to come and support me, was by then too ill to travel.