Why a life-changing diagnosis makes us want to climb mountains and run marathons
Kate Middleton, in remission since January 2025, hiked the three tallest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales. What this says about how humans respond to life-changing diagnoses.
After 18 months in remission from cancer, Kate Middleton recently summited the three tallest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales in less than 24 hours.
Amy Robach, formerly of “Good Morning America,” climbed Mount Kilimanjaro five years after her breast cancer diagnosis. Montgomery Lax, a former high school teacher from Austin, Texas, wants to become the first person with brain cancer to complete all of the Abbot World Marathon Majors, a series of eight high-profile races around the world.
When faced with a life-altering diagnosis, some people are drawn to conquering physical challenges in an effort to take back control, explore their capabilities and create meaning, experts say. Some ways these can be accomplished are through assimilation or accommodation, said Susan Orsillo, a clinical professor in Northeastern University’s Department of Applied Psychology.
The brain can register a life-changing diagnosis like cancer as an acute threat, leading to a stress response, Orsillo said.
The struggle with this diagnosis, not necessarily the diagnosis itself, can lead to positive psychological change, Orsillo said. That’s a psychological concept called “post-traumatic growth.”
It’s “the resilience that people are able to tap into,” Orsillo said. “It’s that process of coping with and responding to that traumatic event.”
For some people, that means chasing challenges, such as climbing mountains or running marathons, said Kristin Lafferty, executive director of Cancer Support Community Massachusetts. These changes can be positive or negative, she said, but they both manifest for the same purpose: control.
“You spend a significant amount of time being poked and prodded and undergoing procedures that were not of your choosing,” Lafferty said. “The sense of control is really important.”
That’s what it was for Lax, who faces a terminal diagnosis of oligodendroglioma, a rare brain cancer that under 24,000 people are diagnosed with each year, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“You can suffer in a way that’s positive to build something for yourself and control that suffering,” she told Northeastern Global News. While you may not be able to control “how much chemo sucks,” you can take charge of running 20 miles or riding a bike, she said. “It makes you feel better.”
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That was one of the reasons that Lax sought marathons. The 34-year-old had only run her first marathon six months before being diagnosed in April 2022 with the deadly condition. What followed was a series of chemotherapy treatments, surgeries and a “really bad breakup,” she said. But what endured was giving herself new challenges to accomplish.
“You want to control the things you can. When you do the things that not a lot of people do, you feel strong,” she said, acknowledging that there may be a bit of denial on her part. “You want to prove to yourself that you can do it, to prove to yourself that you’re not as sick as you might think you are.”
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Lax has since taken up full-time charity work, raising money for brain cancer research, as she aims to complete the Berlin Marathon in September and the London Marathon next year and potentially earn that Guiness World Record. Then, she may attempt Ironman races in North America, she said.
Orsillo said that there are two ways that someone facing a life-altering diagnosis can bridge the gap between getting the diagnosis and grappling with their pre-diagnosis worldview: assimilation or accommodation.
Assimilation, Orsillo said, is changing your perspective of or reframing the diagnosis, like knowing your body is still capable of accomplishing difficult challenges. Accommodation is understanding your current worldview, or accepting that health can be influenced by things outside of your control.
Not everyone responds to a life-altering diagnosis the same way, Orsillo emphasized. Some get overwhelmed, don’t attempt to create meaning out of the experience, or think that if they weren’t able to prevent the diagnosis, there’s no point in trying to be physically fit.
For others, these types of challenges can help a person not only reclaim control of their body, but also help rediscover their physical capabilities, focus mindfully on an activity, improve stress and redefine their identity, she said.
“These behaviors tell us that humans are focused on and benefit from post-traumatic growth and meaning making, or the human desire to search for or make meaning of their lives,” she said.
Middleton, the Princess of Wales, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2024 and underwent abdominal surgery and chemotherapy, wrote in a social media post that she sought the Three Peaks Challenge “not simply as a physical endeavour but as a chance to explore life beyond diagnosis and to give something back.”
Robach said on “Good Morning America” at the time she “chose to celebrate my survival and I decided to embark on a different kind of journey and to face fear of a different kind.”
Gia DiDonato-Sroczenski, 49-year-old runner from Webster, Massachusetts, has completed 50 marathons since 2013. For her, it’s like therapy. Following a stage 0 breast cancer diagnosis, the earliest possible form of cancer, she decided to move forward with a double mastectomy – but not before she ran the 2025 Boston Marathon so as not to lose her streak, she told Northeastern Global News. Now she’s at 14 Boston Marathons in a row.
A diagnosis can “make you realize what you had and never to take things for granted,” she said. After surgery, she wasn’t able to run or do strenuous cardio exercise for weeks.
While she continues to run as she would before her diagnosis, now raising money for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, DiDonato-Sroczenski said overcoming a diagnosis can make someone want to pursue and overcome other challenges.
“It’s a wake-up call when things happen,” she said. “Now is the time … to push yourself to be the best version of yourself you can be.”
