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Amy Stone runs London marathon alone after cancellation

A woman from Clapham has won plaudits after running the London marathon on her own after it was cancelled due to Covid-19 concerns.

Amy Stone, 31, had planned to run the 2020 London Marathon last year and fundraise for Macmillan Cancer Support in the process.

Yet the sudden onset of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK forced organisers to cancel the event and threw her plans into jeopardy.

Amy was not to be deterred, however, and decided to run the marathon several months later anyway, despite the cancellation.

The Clapham woman described her motivation after discovering how she and generations of her female family members were at high risk of contracting breast and ovarian cancer.

"After my Auntie Katie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, she decided to take a genetic test to see if she carried the BRCA1 gene.

"Over the next 2 years we all started to get tested. 5 out of 6 of us are carrying the mutated BRCA1 gene, including myself," Amy said.

Consequently, she and others are at an increased lifetime risk of breast cancer by as much as 90 per cent, and a heightened risk of ovarian cancer by up to 60 per cent.

Amy pointed out that in one photo featuring six "wonderful" female family members represented "two bouts of triple negative breast cancer, four double mastectomies, three ovarian removals and a mum who lost her fight with ovarian cancer at 58."

As such she has been forced to make difficult life choices in anticipation of a potentially difficult future, and roundly praised Macmillan for their support in this regard, underlining how the 2020 Marathon's cancellation wouldn't stop her from supporting the charity.

"I wasn’t prepared to give up – I had worked so hard and this race was never purely about running for me. It was about an amazing charity that has done so much for my family. And for the brave women who have climbed mountains and my nan who lost her life too young.

"So, on 4th October 2020 I ran around London completing my own Marathon and finishing my 26.2 miles at my home in Clapham Junction.