A woman is training to take part in the London Marathon less than a year after fighting breast cancer.

Lou Willcock prepares for the marathon

Before her diagnosis, Lou Willcock, 42, of Meads Close, in Drayton, near Abingdon, led an unhealthy lifestyle and never did any exercise.

But she started running in August last year, just a few weeks after her last dose of radiotherapy at the Churchill Hospital, in Headington, Oxford.

She said: "I was a smoker, I had a pretty stressful life and a poor diet, and I had never really done any exercise.

"But because of the breast cancer my life has completely changed.

"The reason I'm running is because I can and there are others who can't."

Marketing consultant Miss Willcock was told she had breast cancer a week before Christmas in 2002.

Within two weeks she had been given an operation to remove part of her left breast, before starting a 30-session regime of radiotherapy.

She said: "The first thing I thought after I was diagnosed was that I was going to die. You think the world has finished and you don't think about anything else. The first thing was instant terror."

Miss Willcock started running as soon as her radiotherapy finished in August - four months before doctors gave her the all-clear.

She wants to raise £3,000 for the World Cancer Research Fund by taking part in the 26-mile race on Sunday, April 18, and is training six days a week.

Her ambition has been praised by Churchill Hospital cancer specialist Dr Bernadette Lavery who said the London Marathon was a demanding task for someone recovering from the disease.

She said: "I've had several patients who've taken on fairly physical challenging feats, but taking on the London Marathon is a fair challenge.

"Going through any treatment for cancer can take a few months to get back to general fitness, so this patient is to be applauded."

She said patients varied in how long they recovered from radiotherapy, but the feeling of resuming control of their lives was "fantastic".