5 minutes with London Marathon runners Tzuwen Hong and Lydia Daniels-Gatward

Lydia Daniels-Gatward (left) and Tzuwen Hong (right)

Tzuwen is involved in research that looks to optimise current protocol for islet transplantation, which might provide an opportunity for helping more people who live with type 1 diabetes. This was her 10^th marathon, and she completed it with a person best of 4 hours and 42 minutes (of which 25 minutes was spent hugging and taking selfies with friends who had come to support her).

Lydia’s research investigates sex differences in diabetes. She also finished with a personal best of 3 hours 23 minutes – a record by 7 minutes – allowing her to qualify for next year’s Boston Marathon.

How long have you been running?

Lydia: I've always done a bit of running but started upping my mileage during the pandemic... probably because there was nothing else to do!

Tzuwen: I feel like I’ve always been running. When I was a kid, running was part of my training for choir singing and playing the flute in an orchestra.

Why did you start?

Tzuwen: After training as a kid, I did some casual 10ks and half marathons with people from my lab when I was an undergrad in Taiwan (without much training, just for fun). I signed up for my first marathon when I enrolled on the PhD program in Japan. Part of me wanted to know how it feels when the energy metabolism changes (like switching from glucose to lipid metabolism) during an endurance sport, because that’s part of my PhD project (I study energy metabolism during fasting and feeding).

Lydia: I started to get more serious about my running last year when I did a lab placement in Canada. The running routes were really beautiful and it was a great way for me to make friends. The friends I made encouraged me to start participating in races.

Lydia: I started to get more serious about my running last year when I did a lab placement in Canada. The running routes were really beautiful and it was a great way for me to make friends. The friends I made encouraged me to start participating in races.

What do you enjoy about running? What are the benefits?

Lydia: Running gives me so many benefits besides the physical ones - it relieves my stress and gives me clarity of mind. For example, I trained for a marathon whilst writing my PhD thesis and truly believe it got me through that stressful period. My training runs were something to look forward to at the end of a long day writing and it was often during my runs that new ideas came to me! Running is also a great way to meet people, there are a whole host of running clubs for all abilities across London!

Tzuwen: I undertook my PhD in Tokyo, where the running atmosphere was already very good. I fell in love with marathon distance during my very first attempt (Nagoya Women’s Marathon). There’s something so unique about this sport, that everyone on the course is equal, and you only compete with yourself.

Running a marathon is never just about that 42k on the race day: If you train too little, you probably won’t make it to the finish line, but if you trained too much, you won’t make it to the start line, and I like the deep conversation with every part of my own body. I also enjoy being part of the community as there’s a commonality between runners: we are a bunch of resilient and persevering people who quite like challenges, who endure, embrace, and enjoy the inevitable pain along the way and make suffering optional.

For me running a marathon feels a bit like doing science.

Why did you decide to raise money for Diabetes UK?

Tzuwen: I’m a postdoctoral researcher in King’s Diabetes Department, and my work is mainly focused on Type 1 Diabetes. We are trying to find a way to optimise the current protocol for islet transplantation, which might provide an opportunity for helping more people who lives with T1D. As a researcher I know first-hand how expensive these experiments are, but I do believe together we can make real differences with them.

Lydia: I qualified for a 'good for age' place for the London marathon and decided to use this place to raise money for Diabetes UK. Diabetes UK funds my research which looks at sex differences in diabetes and many of my colleagues are also funded by them. They're a wonderful charity who do so much for people living with diabetes and I wanted to give back something.

Do you have any further running goals?

Lydia: I finished in enough time to qualify for the Boston marathon, so my next goal is Boston next year and to shave a couple of minutes off my personal best!

Tzuwen: I have many. For now I’d like to chop my time down to sub-4 hours. The London Marathon is my 10th full marathon and it’s the first time that I feel like this is possible. I’d like to do an Ironman Triathalon someday as well.