The Active Girl's SUN & SWEΑΤ Guide

Exercising outdoors requires a little extra effort when it comes to protection. It's worth it, though. You can level up your SPF game and still enjoy open-air workouts.

- MELANIE RUD

When a friend spotted the red lump on Georgie Rutherford's left arm in May 2019, the 34-year-old professional triathlete brushed off her pal's concern-and forgot it was even there. But four months later, on vacation, Rutherford's brothers brought up the bump again. Worried it looked "big and angry," they urged her to seek medical attention.

From the get-go, doctors assured her it was nothing more than a benign collection of visible blood vessels, so it took another several months for Rutherford to finally have the lump biopsied and receive the news: "It was stage 2C melanoma," she says. "I went numb. How could this have gone from harmless blood vessels to cancer so quickly?"

During those months, Rutherford's melanoma had progressed-and in the February 2020 diagnosis, doctors said there was a 60 percent chance of her cancer coming back after surgery. It's a terrifying and all-too-common story: Skin cancer remains the most common cancer in the U.S. and worldwide, and while melanoma (its deadliest form) makes up only 1 percent of those cases, women under the age of 49 are more likely to develop melanoma than any other cancer except for breast and thyroid.

Still, the diagnosis didn't make sense to Rutherford. Though fair-skinned with blonde hair, she had no family history of skin cancer. Plus, she was fit and energetic. "I assumed people with cancer felt sick in some way," she says.

RUNNING THE RISK

Rutherford didn't feel off-far from it. She'd only just retired from her athletic career at the time of her diagnosis. But, having competed as a triathlete from the ages of 18 to 35-first at the University of Bath in the U.K. and later at the international level-she had often spent six to nine hours a week training outside, more focused on her workouts than on her sun-protection habits.