Cancer doctor wins 268-mile ultramarathon after discovering ex-boyfriend’s affair thanks to photo from previous race
A CANCER doctor has won an ultramarathon after discovering her ex-boyfriend's affair thanks to a photo from last year's race.
Dr Lucy Gossage, 45, finished the 268-mile women's Montane Winter Spine Race on Thursday evening in three-and-a-half days.
The oncologist and 14-time Ironman champion rested for just three hours and 40 minutes.
Lucy, from Nottingham, finished third in the same event last year alongside her partner of three years.
Do YOU know the boyfriend or the other woman? Contact: Jonathan.Rose@thesun.co.uk
A friend shared photos documenting their progress on social media.
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But a woman who saw them claimed she had been in a relationship with her then-boyfriend for several months.
Lucy said she was re-running the gruelling ultramarathon between Derbyshire and Scotland to "close that chapter".
She also set out to "reclaim the memories of the Spine for myself".
Lucy 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."
Lucy became a professional triathlete in 2014 and full-time Ironman competitor when she was 34.
She used to spend hours in Cambridge laboratories doing research for a PhD into kidney cancer.
Lucy was raising money for Move Against Cancer, a charity she co-founded in 2018 to help cancer patients be active.
During the race, her breaks included an hour's sleep in some public lavatories.
She also had "the odd two-minute power nap lying down on the trail".
Lucy told the BBC she had no plans to take on the event again.
She said: "I was a shell of myself [after the race]. I could barely dress myself when I got back.
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"It's something that takes you to a place that life would never usually take you."
The race along the Pennine Way included climbing hills the equivalent of Mount Everest.
