Marathon Runner with Double Mastectomy Races Topless to ‘Normalize Mastectomy’ — and Is Now a Guinness Record Holder (Exclusive)

• Louise Butcher, 51, runs topless marathons to help ‘normalize mastectomy’ without reconstruction
• A resident of North Devon, England holds the title of “Fastest Double Mastectomy Marathon Runner” in Guinness Book of World Records
• The mum-of-two says running topless is “empowering” and makes her appreciate how her body has managed to recover

Louise Butcher is the fastest marathon runner with a double mastectomy, according to Guinness Book of World Records. And it’s a record that can’t wait for someone to break it.

“What I wanted to do was normalize the mastectomy,” the marathoner from North Devon, England, tells PEOPLE. “Records are there to be broken, so [Guinness] achieved the record that I will be the fastest woman with a double mastectomy.”

“That’s what I wanted — that women might want to win,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s just part of normalizing having a mastectomy and not having smaller breasts.”

Louise Butcher is running topless marathons to “normalise her mastectomy”.

Courtesy of Louise Butcher

The decision to run topless came after Butcher, 51, noticed the “negativity” surrounding mastectomy flap closure surgery without reconstruction.

People talked about “losing your femininity, losing your sense of self, being a woman and it just didn’t seem like there was anything positive about it.”

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But for Butcher, who ran the London Marathon topless this year, it “felt quite freeing” to run topless, without breasts “banging around and I really liked being flat”.

Plus, she tells PEOPLE, “There were benefits, to be honest: Not wearing bras when it was hot. I didn’t sweat. And I thought, ‘I’d really like to show the positive side of it.’ ”

“Especially the fact that you’re alive, you know. You’re alive. You’re not dead.”

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In Butcher’s case, she had an aggressive cancer that didn’t even show up on a routine mammogram she had just a few weeks before she found the “tiny little lump” during a self-exam two years ago.

Her doctor sent the mom of two to a breast clinic for an ultrasound, and “that’s when they found five mysterious areas that looked a little abnormal,” Butcher, then 49, tells PEOPLE. “They did a biopsy there and two weeks later they told me I had lobular cancer.”

As the Mayo Clinic explains, lobular cancer starts in the milk ducts—and is “less likely than other forms of breast cancer to cause a firm or clear breast lump.”

“The areas they found were tiny, but when I removed the breast, it was five inches,” Butcher tells PEOPLE about how quickly the cancer grew.

Louise Butcher runs topless to “normalise mastectomy”.

Courtesy of Louise Butcher

She went through a grieving process that lasted six months, telling PEOPLE, “I was sad to accept the body I had.” But how she overcame it was “because of running. Running made me accept it more.”

Butcher, who originally took up running before her surgeries as a way to cope with anxiety, has started running again – tackling marathons for the first time.

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“I had to kind of evolve into something else without them,” she says of life without breasts. “When I started running topless, it made me embrace it even more because of the way I empowered and accepted myself and showed others who I was.”

“It made me embrace it even more because I wasn’t hiding,” she tells PEOPLE.

She said the decision to run the London Marathon topless in April 2024 came after “I thought I’d like to see someone out there living life – as a full woman – without them. You’re just showing you’re strong. I knew I was running another marathon [and thought], ‘Maybe I should do it topless to be a guinea pig to see why there is so much negativity and where the stigma comes from.’ ”

– And that’s why I did it.

The reactions, she says, were “more positive than I thought [they would be].”

And now, Butcher is looking forward to continuing to run topless marathons and helping others with their self-image, sharing that her favorite comments are that “I’ve changed someone’s mindset or the way they feel about themselves. It’s so rewarding.”

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Now, two years after the surgery, Butcher tells PEOPLE that cancer “really teaches you…that your body is always going to try to heal and it’s always going to try to keep you alive.”

“You become more aware of what your body does, rather than what it looks like,” she says. “Now I respect my body more than before.”

Plus, she tells PEOPLE, “My breasts have never fit like this.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education