About
Dr Lucy Gossage
I've spent fifteen years living two lives.
Two lives
By day I'm a consultant oncologist in Nottingham, specialising in testicular cancer and germ cell tumours, and joint head of the oncology service. The rest of the time, I run.
I came to sport late and by accident. My first triathlon was a dare, taken on while I was a junior doctor in 2006. Over the next decade I became one of the more successful professional long-distance triathletes in the world, winning 14 Iron-distance races — ten of them while still working as a doctor.
Since retiring from professional triathlon I've turned to ultra-running, where what draws me is adventure and self-exploration rather than performance. In January 2025 I won the Winter Spine Race: 268 miles, non-stop, the Peak District to Scotland. I also hold the female Fastest Known Time on the 630-mile South West Coast Path.
The two lives have never really been separate. Everything I've learned about what a body can do when you ask more of it than seems reasonable, I've carried back into clinic with me.
“If exercise were a pill, it would be given to everyone with a cancer diagnosis.”
Exercise during and after cancer treatment is one of the most powerful tools available to people living with the disease. It reduces fatigue, improves mood, improves quality of life and treatment tolerance, and lowers the risk of recurrence. Three or four brisk 30-minute walks a week can cut recurrence risk to a degree comparable with many of the drugs we prescribe.
And yet most of my patients arrive believing rest is best, or without the confidence or support to start. That gap is why I co-founded Move Against Cancer, and why I created 5K Your Way - a community that helps people living with and after cancer to be active, in whatever way works for them.
The Longest Lap is how I put that message in front of as many people as possible.