Endurance running makes you become like an animal, it is so raw

"It was awful and it was hard - but it wasn't like I didn't want to be there."

Lucy Gossage is an oncologist and former professional triathlete who has now carved out a niche in endurance running.

But after winning one of the world's toughest endurance races in 2025 and setting a new record for running the Pennine Way earlier this month, she is reflecting on what keeps her going.

"There are bits when you are 'oh I'm done with this' and then there are bits when you don't want it to end," she said.

Gossage, from Nottingham, said she was never "sporty" as a child and took on her first triathlon as the result of a dare while studying.

The 46-year-old turned professional at 34 and won 14 Ironman titles before retiring in 2018 to return to medicine. She now works at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

In 2024 she completed the Montane Winter Spine - a self-supporting race along the Pennine Way - with her partner, only to find he had been cheating on her.

Gossage returned to the race the next year, partly as an act of closure, and further enhanced her reputation by winning it.

She said at the time: "I've always needed to be out of my comfort zone to feel alive.

"It wasn't because I was the most talented. Nothing has ever come easy to me but I'm determined and stubborn. I've always had to work incredibly hard but I'm proud of that. I wouldn't enjoy something if it came too easy."

And on 8 September she became the first woman to run the Pennine way in less than three days, completing a 262-mile (422 km) route in 70 hours and 47 minutes.

She told BBC Nottingham: "It was madness. I just look back on it as such a fun... obviously there were some really tough patches... but it was just so fun.

"And having friends, some of my favourite people, there, uplifting me, doing almost everything for me, it was such a special three days.

"I think that is what I can relate to. The actual running so quickly kind of feels like it perhaps wasn't me, it feels so intangible."

And pushing herself so hard means handling extreme conditions and emotions.

"The tough parts are super tough," Gossage said. "There's a voice message that I left on the WhatsApp group on the final day when I was desperate for water and I was just crying and crying and I was in a hole.

"But those lows are part of what draws you in because you always find a way to get through them and then you get the high afterwards.

"You've got to be really excited by it and doing it because you really want to not because of some arbitrary record or other."

As well as her support team, Gossage was helped through the challenge by taking power naps of just two minutes.

She said: "I ran in and said 'I need a nap' and my friend went to the van to get the bed but by that time I was already asleep.

"Then two minutes later I was awake and I was 'right I'm off'.

"It really does work, I never would have believed it until I tried it."

Along with her sporting achievements and her career, Gossage is the co-founder of the charity Move Against Cancer.

To raise awareness of its work she is taking six months off work next year for what she is calling the "Longest Lap" - running the entire coastline of mainland Britain, a distance she estimates at roughly 6,000 miles (9650 km).

So if a three-day run pushed her to the limit, what drives her to take on such a huge challenge?

"It's a really weird thing, I enjoy 90% of it," Gossage said.

"There was a bit where I was really broken and I broke down, but even at that point, when I didn't want to be there, I didn't think that I couldn't finish, I was just letting something out.

"You become like an animal, it is so raw. It's three days and I haven't slept and I was on this moor and I was on my own, I had no phone reception and I had run out of water and I didn't have any painkillers.

"And I just cried and then I was just screaming and there was no one around and it was something about just letting it out.

"It was awful and it was hard but it wasn't like I didn't want to be there because I knew that was why I wanted to be there.

"Then half an hour later I had pulled myself together, I had a bottle of water and I was fine again.

"There are bits when you are 'Oh I'm done with this' and then there are bits when you don't want it to end."

Gossage, who grew up and works in Nottinghamshire, went to the same school as sprinter Amy Hunt, who made headlines by commenting on a controversy over the portrayal of woman in sport.

Actress Sydney Sweeney featured in a sports betting company advert naked but covering parts of her body with various pieces of sporting equipment.

After running a season's best in the 200m final at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest earlier this month, Hunt responded to the advert by saying: "This is what women in sport look like."

Gossage said: "I think what you look like is so irrelevant to sport.

"If anyone saw me finishing, I looked like a wild child, like I had come from another planet.

"I was so swollen and my hair was just everywhere but that's cool because it just means you are immersed in what you are doing and you are not thinking about what you look like and what you are wearing.

"I think that's what should be shown to kids at school - it doesn't matter what you look like, it is what you do."

Listen to BBC Radio Nottingham on Sounds and follow BBC Nottingham on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews@bbc.co.uk or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.