Pseudomyxoma Survivor

Running for Cathy

Tom Hall

Tom Hall

My Story

Cathy Davis, was a keen runner all her life - I'm running the London Marathon in her memory and to raise funds for PMP Survivor who did so much to help her for the last few years.

Cathy was diagnosed with PMP in 2021, in between the various COVID lockdowns. I still remember her saying on a family holiday that she was going to avoid the pizza we were having one day - maybe avoiding gluten might help some digestive issues she was having. It was not long after that she found her symptoms were actually Pseudomyxoma Peritonai. 

PMP

PMP is a a rare disease but a devastating one - a cancer that spreads through the lining that wraps all the organs in the abdomen. The treatment is severe - open surgery to scrape away the tumor followed by a hot wash of chemotherapy. It takes around 9-12 hours and the recovery is gruelling, weeks in hospital building up the strength to move, sit up, and walk again. Cathy had to go through this twice - despite recovering well from her first treatment and building up to walking around a parkrun within a few months and a 10k within a year, the cancer came back unexpectedly quickly.

PMP Survivor

In the time Cathy was recovering from her surgeries she got a lot of support from PMP Survivor. They provides buddies - one to one mentoring sessions with someone who has been through the diagnosis, the treatment and the recovery. It made a huge difference for her to be able talk things through with someone who knew what she was experiencing, and to take some weight off of us as a family by not having to . She hoped to be able to become a buddy herself but sadly never became well enough.

PMP Survivor also helps raise awareness of the disease and provide a source of information that is so valuable in the early days following a diagnosis, as well as building a community between patients, relatives, medical professionals and everyone else who's lives have been affected. They are run entirely by volunteers and so every donation makes a huge difference to allow them to keep on providing the support that is so gratefully received by those who need it.

In March 2025 Cathy lost her fight. She never stopped trying to get better or gave up hope, and she wanted to give back to some of the charities that supported her. So I'm training for this alongside Emma (my wife and Cathys eldest daughter), her sister Clare and her husband Trevor.

My running

I'm a relatively experienced runner with an inconsistent training history - after taking it up in my early 20s it took a back seat for much of the last 10 years as I focused on Archery. I like trying to run fast - middle distance and sprint finishes, but my physiology is much more that of an endurance runner, so I've always found it hard to get the best out of myself in longer races and before I started training for this I'd done nothing further than a half marathon.

So while I feel pretty confident in my ability to complete the distance one way or another, the challenge for me is to see how fit I can be and how much I can sustain the pace. Sub 4 hours is the initial target, but I know that in 2012?? Cathy (in her late 40s) ran the London Marathon in a seriously impressive time of 3:33:35 and I'm aspiring to get as close to that as possible.

The Training

Summer 2025 - Still very inconsistent training as I adapted from training full time in archery to starting a new job, while still trying to compete at international level. Between 10-40km per month.

Sept - Oct 2025 - I struggled with a skin infection here that meant I basically didn't run for about 3 weeks as I waited for it to heal. Still tried to take part in the European run archery champs and put in some good times off the back of feeling completely unprepared, but I was frustrated by it.

Nov - Dec 2025 - Finally things calmed down a bit and I started to get some consistency - more frequent runs, some track sessions and taking part in a few cross country races for Kenilworth Runners. Coming ~200th/250 at county/reigional level events and being put in the 'Veterans' (35+ category) has been a bit of a shock to the system for someone as competitively driven as I am, but it's been really helpful.

It's started to pay off as well - just before Xmas I did a time trial 5k attempting to beat 22 mins and got 21:22 - officially my fastest time since 2013, and across December I recorded 88.6km of total running - definitely the most I've ever done

January 2026 - Marathon training kicks off in ernest. Now that I've built a bit of a foundation its time for the distance to start going up - I've started pushing my long runs every other weekend out from 16 to 20 to 24km. I'm using them to figure out my kit and nutrition too, I'm pretty happy already I know what my favourite socks are! 124.4km completed - I'm now averaging per week what I used to do in a month. The long runs are tough and draining but I can feel the progress.

Febuary/March 2026 - This is where it got hard. I kept making progress intitally, with long runs out to 28km, but pretty soon I started getting serious pain in my right foot after the big runs - a week later it was still bugging me and then when I set out on a 12km loop it became aggravated just a few km in - powering through to run home only made it worse. I had to back off a lot and get some physio to work on it - not sure of the original cause but it seems like a bony stress injury in the foot that I could have turned into a stress fracture had I pushed it much further.

April 2026 - The momentum is slowly coming back - I've managed a few runs up to about 8-10km and the foot is improving. Theres not time to do anything too intensive - I'm just hoping the training I did manage to do before carries through, and I'll find a way to get around on the day.

Pseudomyxoma Survivor

Raising for:

Pseudomyxoma Survivor
84%

Funded

  • Target
    £2,000
  • Raised so far
    £1,690
  • Number of donors
    34

My Story

Cathy Davis, was a keen runner all her life - I'm running the London Marathon in her memory and to raise funds for PMP Survivor who did so much to help her for the last few years.

Cathy was diagnosed with PMP in 2021, in between the various COVID lockdowns. I still remember her saying on a family holiday that she was going to avoid the pizza we were having one day - maybe avoiding gluten might help some digestive issues she was having. It was not long after that she found her symptoms were actually Pseudomyxoma Peritonai. 

PMP

PMP is a a rare disease but a devastating one - a cancer that spreads through the lining that wraps all the organs in the abdomen. The treatment is severe - open surgery to scrape away the tumor followed by a hot wash of chemotherapy. It takes around 9-12 hours and the recovery is gruelling, weeks in hospital building up the strength to move, sit up, and walk again. Cathy had to go through this twice - despite recovering well from her first treatment and building up to walking around a parkrun within a few months and a 10k within a year, the cancer came back unexpectedly quickly.

PMP Survivor

In the time Cathy was recovering from her surgeries she got a lot of support from PMP Survivor. They provides buddies - one to one mentoring sessions with someone who has been through the diagnosis, the treatment and the recovery. It made a huge difference for her to be able talk things through with someone who knew what she was experiencing, and to take some weight off of us as a family by not having to . She hoped to be able to become a buddy herself but sadly never became well enough.

PMP Survivor also helps raise awareness of the disease and provide a source of information that is so valuable in the early days following a diagnosis, as well as building a community between patients, relatives, medical professionals and everyone else who's lives have been affected. They are run entirely by volunteers and so every donation makes a huge difference to allow them to keep on providing the support that is so gratefully received by those who need it.

In March 2025 Cathy lost her fight. She never stopped trying to get better or gave up hope, and she wanted to give back to some of the charities that supported her. So I'm training for this alongside Emma (my wife and Cathys eldest daughter), her sister Clare and her husband Trevor.

My running

I'm a relatively experienced runner with an inconsistent training history - after taking it up in my early 20s it took a back seat for much of the last 10 years as I focused on Archery. I like trying to run fast - middle distance and sprint finishes, but my physiology is much more that of an endurance runner, so I've always found it hard to get the best out of myself in longer races and before I started training for this I'd done nothing further than a half marathon.

So while I feel pretty confident in my ability to complete the distance one way or another, the challenge for me is to see how fit I can be and how much I can sustain the pace. Sub 4 hours is the initial target, but I know that in 2012?? Cathy (in her late 40s) ran the London Marathon in a seriously impressive time of 3:33:35 and I'm aspiring to get as close to that as possible.

The Training

Summer 2025 - Still very inconsistent training as I adapted from training full time in archery to starting a new job, while still trying to compete at international level. Between 10-40km per month.

Sept - Oct 2025 - I struggled with a skin infection here that meant I basically didn't run for about 3 weeks as I waited for it to heal. Still tried to take part in the European run archery champs and put in some good times off the back of feeling completely unprepared, but I was frustrated by it.

Nov - Dec 2025 - Finally things calmed down a bit and I started to get some consistency - more frequent runs, some track sessions and taking part in a few cross country races for Kenilworth Runners. Coming ~200th/250 at county/reigional level events and being put in the 'Veterans' (35+ category) has been a bit of a shock to the system for someone as competitively driven as I am, but it's been really helpful.

It's started to pay off as well - just before Xmas I did a time trial 5k attempting to beat 22 mins and got 21:22 - officially my fastest time since 2013, and across December I recorded 88.6km of total running - definitely the most I've ever done

January 2026 - Marathon training kicks off in ernest. Now that I've built a bit of a foundation its time for the distance to start going up - I've started pushing my long runs every other weekend out from 16 to 20 to 24km. I'm using them to figure out my kit and nutrition too, I'm pretty happy already I know what my favourite socks are! 124.4km completed - I'm now averaging per week what I used to do in a month. The long runs are tough and draining but I can feel the progress.

Febuary/March 2026 - This is where it got hard. I kept making progress intitally, with long runs out to 28km, but pretty soon I started getting serious pain in my right foot after the big runs - a week later it was still bugging me and then when I set out on a 12km loop it became aggravated just a few km in - powering through to run home only made it worse. I had to back off a lot and get some physio to work on it - not sure of the original cause but it seems like a bony stress injury in the foot that I could have turned into a stress fracture had I pushed it much further.

April 2026 - The momentum is slowly coming back - I've managed a few runs up to about 8-10km and the foot is improving. Theres not time to do anything too intensive - I'm just hoping the training I did manage to do before carries through, and I'll find a way to get around on the day.