Chemotherapy left her feet too swollen for shoes but this single mum kept running: 'It saved my life'

Cassandra Hie started running to cope with her divorce, then kept going through breast cancer and chemotherapy. Now 53, the single mum is a competitive runner and Hyrox athlete with more than 10 top-three finishes since her cancer diagnosis.

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02 Nov 2026 07:14AM

Her feet were too swollen to fit into running shoes so she ran without them – bare feet pounding on hard pavement along the Kallang Park Connector.

In 2019, Cassandra Hie was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer, and the drugs caused the swelling. They also made her feel very sick.

“There’d be days when I couldn’t even open my eyes. I’d just lie in bed. But the moment I could get up, I’d run,” she said.

Hie had another unusual running ritual. She would draw on her eyebrows before each 6km to 10km run. The chemotherapy had not only taken her hair, but her lashes and brows too.

“Sometimes, I’d come back from my run with only one eyebrow. I looked like an alien,” she said.

So, Hie began to run with a brow pencil in her pocket, checking her brows and touching up in the middle of a long run. “I just wanted to feel normal,” she told CNA Women.

“If I didn’t run, I’d have nausea, I’d want to vomit. When I went for a run, all these symptoms disappeared,” she said.

WHEN HER RUNNING JOURNEY BEGAN

A single mum raising two kids without maintenance from her ex-husband or family support, Hie could not afford to be brought down by cancer.

“My family is back in Indonesia, so I’m the only one my two kids have here,” said the 53-year-old Indonesian-born Singapore citizen. “They need me, so there’s no way I can show weakness to them.”

In fact, her running journey began in 2015 during her year-long divorce. Then, her son and daughter were just nine and seven, and she was a marketing manager. Life as a single parent and working mum going through a divorce was “hectic and stressful”.

“At that point, I had quite a negative outlook. I was looking after every single aspect of family life, and I wasn’t looking after my health. I was losing myself,” she recalled.

Wanting to lose some weight, she chose running because it was convenient and cheap. She decided to jog 20 minutes, three times a week around her estate.

For someone who had never run before, “it often felt like the longest 20 minutes”.

A long-time friend invited her for a 10km run at MacRitchie Reservoir. Hie said no but decided to try 5km instead. It was horrible, but she kept trying, and each time, it got a little easier.

Shortly after, the same friend invited her for a 50km hospice charity run at MacRitchie Reservoir. Somehow, Hie said yes.

The run took 11 hours. “I almost died,” she laughed. But she finished, and “that was the beginning of everything”.

It was strangely affirming for someone whose life had been derailed to discover she could do what she set her mind to. And the endorphins from the run made all her troubles go away, she said.

Every morning, the single mum would go for a run before waking her children for school.

“At 4am, the roads were empty… there was no one, just a few taxi drivers. I could see small animals running past me. I felt free,” she said.

On weekends, she would do trail runs at MacRitchie Reservoir.

“It’s a kind of meditation. The pebbles you step on, the rustle of leaves, the smell of the earth, the rhythm of your own footsteps – all these things calm you down,” she said.

Running 100km a week, Hie survived a stressful year of divorce. She began enrolling for races for the fun of it and even came in third in a 10km race.

After a running injury in 2017, Hie trained in sports massage to learn proper post-run recovery techniques. The following year, she left marketing to become a clinical massage therapist at Ufit.

A LAST RACE BEFORE TREATMENT

One morning in April 2019, Hie came back from a run with a slight discomfort in her chest. She was diagnosed with Stage Two breast cancer.

“When they told me I needed surgery to remove my right breast, the first thing I said was, can the surgery wait?” she recalled.

Hie had several races planned, including a sponsored 250km race in South Africa. Her doctor strongly advised against delaying surgery, so she settled for one last race in May – the 55km Vietnam Jungle Marathon.

Halfway into the race, she feared she might not finish and texted her daughter. Unaware that Hie had cancer, her daughter replied: “That is not the Mama I know.”

That message gave Hie the strength to finish the race. She made every checkpoint just five minutes before the cutoff time.

“After that, I texted my girl. I did it. I finished it,” she said.

With that hard-fought victory behind her, she went for the 10-hour surgery in June – doctors removed her right breast and 23 lymph nodes, and reconstructed her breast with tissue from her abdomen. Hie told her children about her cancer around a week before her surgery.

On the third night after her surgery, an artery on her right breast burst.

“My breast was big and swollen. It was so painful. I remember the doctor telling the nurse, ‘Don’t let her sleep. Keep on talking to her.’ I could hear, but I couldn’t talk. I was fighting for air. I was fighting for my life,” she said.

Hie was wheeled in for emergency surgery and survived the ordeal.

RUNNING THROUGH CHEMOTHERAPY

Hie’s doctor told her that she would never be able to run long distances again. But in July, three weeks after discharge from hospital, she was back at MacRitchie Reservoir for a 10km loop, walking half the way.

Even when chemotherapy began in August, Hie did not stop. She ran through all five months of the treatment, and that gave her strength.

Though Hie could no longer carry on as a massage therapist during this period, she switched to a part-time marketing role, working full office hours except on her chemotherapy days.

She glued on false lashes and drew on brows for work. But after she removed everything at the end of the day, Hie would hide in her bedroom.

“My kids would come into the room at night. We didn’t have to talk. They would just be there. No words needed,” she shared.

CANCER IS AN ULTRAMARATHON

Since her cancer journey, Hie has finished among the top three in more than 10 competitions. She was first in her age category in Hyrox Taipei in 2026. She came in third female overall in the 35km Tham Ngob Trail race in Thailand in 2026. And she was the first female overall in the 50km Jagoi Ultra 2025 race in Sarawak, Malaysia.

She is also back at Ufit as a clinical massage therapist and is passionate about helping others with their sports journey.

Cancer treatment has taken a toll on her body. Her menopause started at 47, and she still experiences stiffness and pain everywhere.

Working out helps. “The more I train, the stronger I get. I’m turning my pain into power,” she said.

“Running saved my life. It helped me to get through all those years of divorce and cancer,” she reflected. “The pain I felt, I transferred to my legs and let it go into the mountains.

“Cancer is like an ultra [marathon]. It was the longest ultra race I’ve ever had,” she added.

Relapse is never far from Hie’s mind. But she approaches her cancer journey and physical races in the same spirit.

“When I’m tired, I tell myself, just continue. Just walk. It will pass. There will be a second wind, and suddenly, you won’t feel tired anymore,” she said.

CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.