Andy Hood – From Beating Cancer to Conquering Ultra-Marathons

Why are you running with 100 people in November?

Very simply, for awareness around testicular cancer. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, and it came completely out of the blue. I had no obvious symptoms; I was still running and something had prompted me to check. I was 48 years old at the time when I found something wasn’t right and I had to have an operation and chemotherapy because it had spread, and I was very close to it being an awful lot more serious.

So, coming back to running and Club La Santa, I transitioned from marathons to ultradistances, and I decided I would use my cancer diagnosis as a positive experience in my life. I decided I wanted to do two things: I wanted to talk openly about it to encourage other men to be checking themselves on a regular basis and I wanted to support others who are going through the cancer journey as well.

In November, which is men’s health month, the Robin Cancer trust who do a lot of work around testicular and ovarian cancers, was running something called the ‘Big Ballsy Run’ to promote awareness of testicular cancer. I wanted to support them, but do this a little bit differently, and I set myself the challenge that I would run with 100 different people around the world. The idea behind it was that I would do a run with them, we’d grab a post-run selfie and upload that to social media to create awareness around testicular cancer, which had gone so much better than I expected!

What advice would you give any men reading this blog post?

Whoever reads this blog, if you’re a man, just check yourself as part of your monthly routine. If you’re unsure how to do so, pop onto my website where there are resources there, or you can Google it, it’s very simple to do. If something’s not quite right, go and seek some advice.

For all the ladies out there, please encourage the men in your life to be proactive! Give them a nudge and ask, “Have you checked yourself about this?”. Talk openly about it with family and friends. The age group for testicular cancer is around 15 to 45, with the most diagnosis coming at around age 33. Thankfully these conversations about cancer are becoming more normal now and we’re breaking down the barriers and that stigma. If I can prevent somebody succumbing to this cancer through my running then every step, every bit training I do, every man I do it for, makes it worth it.

We lose around about 65 men a year to testicular cancer, and a lot of that is because they don’t spot the early signs. I look at myself as a really good example. I was running right up to the day I was diagnosed, I had no external symptoms, I didn’t feel unwell and nothing could had prompted me to think “I’m not feeling great”. It was something I’d watched on television that had prompted me to check myself.

Have there been any particularly memorable moments during your runs this past month?

I had a really good run with a local rugby club. There were about 45 of them and I’ve never been made to feel more welcome in my life. I reached out to their coach because a lot of the team train at the same gym as I do, and I went along to one of their sessions, where we did some laps around the pitch. What was really lovely is that they all got into a huge huddle afterwards and they wanted to hear my story. They wanted to find out more about why I was doing this, what this meant, and the reception was fantastic. I had 45 young men there that were a target age group of testicular cancer, that were really engaged and were really grateful that I’d spent the time to go and talk about this and raise awareness. Some said, “I’d never thought about it before you’ve spoken about it”, so what a what a great impact that particular run had.

At Club La Santa I reached out and had some guests run with me, which was really lovely. I also reached out to Aurora the Green Team Manager and said, “Do any of the Green Team fancy a run?”. I thought three or four might turn up, but 18 of the Green Team turned up and it was a lovely evening. We ran down to La Santa Village and back, and around the track a couple of times. Again, at the end we had a bit of a huddle, and they wanted to find out a bit more about it, so I spoke very openly about it, and they were really grateful. The Green Team are amazing! Where they get their energy, goodness only knows.