Keep Moving, Keep Fighting: the benefits of exercise in the fight against cancer

This week I am pleased to present a guest blog from a writer with a great message. Liz Davies is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer especially interested in health and wellness. She wants to make a difference in people’s lives because she sees how cancer has devastated so many people in this world. Liz also likes running, playing lacrosse, reading and playing with her dog, April. If you would like to contact her she can be reached at healthylizd@gmail.com.

Cancer can seem like an unbearable illness to deal with emotionally, mentally, and physically. Not only does it seem to isolate those who suffer from it, but it also saps the body of its energy. Because of this it seems as if the most comfortable way to deal with cancer is to take medication and rest. While at times these methods may seem like good options, it is incredibly important to exercise regularly. Exercise can rejuvenate the body and has even been shown to help slow down the spread of certain cancers such as breast cancer, lung cancer and even more rare forms of cancer like mesothelioma.

While exercising may seem like a difficult thing to start when diagnosed with cancer the benefits of even small amounts of exercise can produce extremely positive results. For example, a woman reported that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she began a walking regimen of only half a mile per day. At the beginning she felt worn out from the disease and treatments she was getting, but within one weeks time she noticed a difference in her overall demeanor and energy levels. She continued with the regimen and her treatment and as time went by she felt better and better. Not only was she helping her body fight the cancer at the moment, she was also shaping her health habits to possibly prevent other problems. During that year the treatments and exercise helped to reduce the cancer and eventually she was cancer free. The exercise did not stop there. She began working out at a local gym to improve her health further. This is just one example of many on how exercising has helped to treat some of the many symptoms of cancer.

One of the most important aspects of the story and of exercising in general is the will to start. It is important to understand the benefit of exercise, large or small, in fighting cancer. Talking to a physician or friends to help get a routine started is key, especially in the initial stages of the disease. Like in the story above, exercise will have an enormous impact on the fight against cancer.

Liz Davies

First one down!

Today was the annual Braunton 10 organised by the North Devon Road Runners. I ummed and ahhed about taking part this year, since I have done nothing resembling a consistent training plan for well over a year and am not exactly feeling prepared for distance running again yet. In fact, last year's Braunton 10 was probably the last time I ran over 8 miles! Still, it has become a tradition to take part in this race and there's nothing like traditions for making you want something you wouldn't otherwise, (without them we wouldn't have mince pies or creme eggs, for instance, and what a poorer world that'd be...). Plus I knew I'd be feeling guilty on Monday morning if I didn't at least try. I haven't missed a year of this race since moving to Devon so, in time-honoured spirit I forced myself out of my warm bed and took my place amongst the frozen faces and goose-pimpled limbs on the start line at the cold athletics track.

I'm glad I did, as it's a good route with plenty of examples of some of the things I love about running; silent, sheltered woods, sweeping views, space for meditative plodding, and lung-busting hills. OK, I don't really love hills, but I love the satisfaction of making it to the top and the feeling that you've really earned the breezy ride back down, and killer hills certainly help make it satisfyingly tough!

So the first race is down, and in not too shabby time either (91 minutes 30, if you're asking), so I feel a bit more ready for the next one. And I managed to fill plenty of the meditative plodding time I was referring to with working on a poem for my writing blog, which helped the ten miles pass more productively this year too! (Although, in the calm, warm and clean post-race environment I'm not so sure the world really wants my ode to sports bras, so I've posted an older one up today instead! Read it here)

New Year, New Marathon!?

It has been a long time since I posted on this site, and it would be fair to say that a major reason for that was being unable to work out how to top my epic coast path run! Since treading every inch along that stretch of coastline, every other run has felt rather insignificant and hardly blog-worthy. But now I have been inspired to attempt another marathon this year (my local AONB marathon in Woolacombe) and so will be starting the long old slog again.

That isn't to say I haven't been running in the meantime, or exploring. I have; in fact I've run in the Virginia mountains and the Outer Banks of NC (a popular place for runners it seems) and ventured to Morocco (where I did no running but 7-8 hours trekking a day which felt like a marathon....) and I've completed two full marathons since my Coast Path challenge (Windermere and the Eden Project, both in 2010), but I have also had the madness of publishing my first ebook (Secrets of the Spirits, read more and get a copy here!), changing my life, relationships and work completely and spending a year alternately dawdling in unrequited love and existing in a dreamworld whilst working on a confusing, possibly ill-advised and certainly over-ambitious new novel. It's been exhausting and painful, and at times cruelly beautiful, but I can't wear blinkers forever. So now I feel as if I am in need of a return to normality and structure, and a new marathon training regime may be the perfect antidote!

I'll give it a go anyway.



My novel available now on Amazon as an ebook for Kindle/PC/Laptop/iPhone etc: