Adele Roberts has completed seven marathons while recovering from bowel cancer and living with a stoma. Here, she reflects on why the toughest battles are often unseen.
Pursuing something big rarely comes without strain, surprise or transformation, according to Adele Roberts. After running seven major marathons while recovering from cancer and adapting to life with a stoma, the DJ and broadcaster has gained a perspective shaped not just by finish lines, but by the long road that led to each one.
Her story begins with what she calls the “best and worst” thing she’s ever done: the 2023 London Marathon. At the time, Adele was still “so ill and affected by the effects of chemotherapy”. She was adjusting to “scarred and damaged skin” and to life with her stoma.
But the race became a milestone in more ways than one. “I finished the marathon less than 18 months after having bowel cancer surgery,” she says, “and set a new Guinness World Record as the fastest female with an ileostomy to ever complete the London Marathon.”
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A reason to run
That achievement sparked something unexpected. “What if I tried to run all six?” she remembers thinking, referring to the Abbott World Marathon Majors — Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City and Tokyo, later expanded to include Sydney.
Taking it on would be gruelling, but Adele found purpose in the challenge. She ran to raise money for Cancer Research and the Attitude Foundation, discovering that this act of giving back offered her, as she puts it, “a reason to run”.
Completing seven marathons in two years — and holding the fastest aggregate time for a woman with a stoma to finish all the World Marathon Majors — required more than determination. It demanded a kind of momentum that began long before race day. “I just remember thinking I need to get back out of this bed as soon as possible,” she says of her recovery. “I wanted to keep moving forward.”
“After surgery, I couldn’t really change how it had affected my body,” she adds. “It’s transformed my body forever. I have a stoma now, I have a large piece of my bowel missing. But I won’t let it change me personally.”
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Step by step
Adele draws on a line from her book Personal Best: From Rock Bottom to the Top of the World: “It’s not what you go through in life, it’s who you become in the process.” And for her, that process unfolded in training as much as competition. “Training is where the hard work is done,” she says. “It’s the training when you actually learn the most.”
Her strategy was to shrink huge goals into manageable steps. “Take it day by day, bit by bit,” she says. “I didn’t think about all seven marathons at once. Break it down and try to make it to the next lamp post, just keep going to the next song.”
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Getting it done
To stay focused, Adele set incremental, achievable targets. “The first goal was to get to the start line. Once I got there, my goal was ‘just try and finish this marathon’,” she says.
Yet even the strongest mindset had limits. Kindness to herself became essential. “There were days when my biggest achievement was getting out of bed,” she says. “Sometimes it hurt so much when I was on chemotherapy that I could barely stand up. I could barely walk. Those are the battles that people don’t see.”
For anyone convinced they could never take on such distances, Adele offers reassurance. “If you’re reading this and you’re thinking ‘I couldn’t do a marathon’, that doesn’t matter. Life is the most important marathon.”
“When you carry on and don’t give up,” she says, “that’s the greatest medal — they’re the moments where you really win.”
Feature image: Adele Roberts
