For Charlie Degale, standing at the start line of the London Marathon is always emotional. This year’s was his sixth in a row. He had been there long before, in 2000, but back then he was just going for a quick time. It was the one in 2018 that was the real tearjerker.
‘I couldn’t believe that I was actually lining up. I cried,’ says the 59-year-old south Londoner. Before then, he was all about football, not running. In his spare time from his job as a physical trainer with the Metropolitan Police, he coached children to play the game. He got more serious about it around 2015, travelling to America to coach for two months at a camp there, starting an Open University degree in Sport, Fitness and Coaching, and setting up his own company to coach on Saturdays in London.
But soon after returning from America, he noticed some pain in his hip. Doctors confirmed that he needed a hip replacement. Simple enough, but blood tests prior to the operation were showing abnormal results. Further tests revealed that he had germ cell tumors in his chest area near his lungs – a rare form of cancer that is actually testicular, but the cells remain in a different part of the body during your development in the womb.
‘It was horrible, the uncertainty of it all,’ he says. ‘Then they called me out of the blue to tell me that the cancer was spreading, and that’s when it really hit home that my life was in the balance.’
His treatment was aggressive because this type of cancer spreads quickly – about eight months of chemotherapy followed by a major operation to remove anything remaining. Even today he finds it upsetting to talk about: ‘I can’t really articulate the real horror of it. Even speaking about it now takes me back to that period and sends shivers down my spine.’
Despite that, talking about cancer is something he wants to encourage, especially among other black men. He has become involved with the Black Women Rising project, which raises awareness about cancer in the BAME community, with him giving the male perspective. He has spoken for them in person and on a podcast, ‘Black Men Rising – The Untold Cancer Stories’.
‘Black men can find it difficult to be open about their emotions, especially going through an illness like cancer,’ he explains. ‘There’s an attitude of “I’m a man, I can deal with it, there’s nothing to worry about.” Then it gets serious, and it’s too late. Don’t be embarrassed or scared to go to the doctor, because going and getting an early diagnosis could save your life.’
Charlie had to get over his own embarrassment throughout his illness. One of his early symptoms was hardness and tenderness in his nipples, which he ended up asking his mum to check. ‘Later, when I was so sick I could barely stand, I had to get my mum to help me shower. I’ll never forget her doing that for me. Never.’
Even after his treatment was completed and he was officially in remission, his suffering wasn’t over. Having missed almost a year of work, he found it hard to adjust to returning, as well as mourning for friends he made on the cancer ward who had died. He fell into depression. ‘When you’re in the middle of treatment, you’re completely focused on that. Once it was over, I didn’t think it would be so hard to get back to normal. What was frustrating was that people expected me just to carry on where I left off. That was never going to happen.’
Three things helped him to cope: his Christian faith, keeping a regular journal, and a promise he made to himself: when he got better, he was going to run the marathon.
He was well enough to have the hip replacement in August 2017. He asked his doctor if he could start running and was told: ‘Yes, but no long distances.’ In January 2018, he tried 20 minutes on a treadmill. ‘It was not a pretty sight. It almost killed me! I couldn’t believe how hard it was.’
But he built up gradually from there, to a 10k, then a half marathon, and by April, there he was on that Greenwich start line, in tears. As he has in all of his marathons since then, he raised money for the charity Children With Cancer UK. He has done one dressed as a giant bell, and this year he had a bell to ring during the race. Bells are regularly rung in cancer wards to celebrate somebody ending their treatment.
As with his football coaching, now he wants to share what he gets out of running. He got that degree, and then attained Run Leader and Run Coach qualifications through England Athletics. Recently he added a Trail Leader qualification too. On Thursdays and Saturdays since late 2022 he has been coaching a small group called Run As One. ‘We meet for coffee afterwards too. We talk. It’s a group that is willing to support and listen.’
Since his illness, Charlie has found that there is another side to life as a runner: ‘Back in the day, it was all about how fast I could go, how hard I could push myself. Now, it’s about the love of running. I hope I get that across to people.’
