Richard Keating Artist

Running Drawing

In the autumn of 2025, out of the blue, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The prognosis was good and early into my treatment I decided to run as a way of combating both the cancer and the side effects of the hormone treatment. In January I signed up to running the equivalent of a marathon to raise money for cancer research. I also decided to draw as I ran. Thank you to those who donated ; we raised £916.00.

After the fundraising, I continued drawing and running throughout my radiotherapy. Below are the drawings and a poem by Jon Seagrave who was the Poet in Residence at the oncology unit at Cheltenham General Hospital. The treatment has worked and I heard in April that my PSA test showed me to be cancer free. Very Grateful.

My images made over these months start with images from Walking The Land’s First Friday Walk.

  • November 2025

    First Friday Walk. Bone Scan Cheltenham General Hospital and Norton Wood, Nailsworth.

    ‘Between Worlds, Between Times, Between Mediums’

    thanks for the prompt Tamsin Grainger.

    A radioactive in-between-times walk

    I was walking both inside and outside. This was in itself a metaphor for passing between worlds. The inside was mainly in hospital where my own inside, my bones were being scanned. I was very aware of the portals that are a part of passing between worlds – between states of being, between times, between being and maybe not being.

    After I’d been injected with radioactive isotopes, I had a lot of time to wait around – waiting is itself being between things and between times. Walking changes waiting to doing, to being. So in-between times Helen and I took a mildly radioactive First Friday Walk outside.

    This in-between-times walk was about changed states – particularly inside and outside the hospital, particularly the wonder of autumnal changes and eventually returning inside to the hospital and a still meditation inside me. I think of changes as a series of in-between states and processes. Temporary encounters with an ongoing series of remembered and shared moments and experiences of our time on earth. Our time walking the land.

    January 2026.

    Running the equivalent of a Marathon to raise funds for Prostate Cancer research.

    1/01/26

    05/01

    7/01/26

    13/01/26

    13/01/26

    13/01/26

    15/01/26

    18/01/26

    18/01/26

    18/01/26

    18/01/26

    20/01/26

    27;01/26

    27/01/26

    29/01/26

    31/01/26

    Park Run, Eastville, Bristol

    March 2026

    Radiotherapy Running: I had 20 days of radiotherapy in Cheltenham Oncology Unit; five days a week. Although it was hard to find the time to run I wanted to keep running as a part of my treatment. I was aware of the radio waves attacking my body and attempted to replicate this in my drawings.

    19/03/26

    21/03/26

    24/03/26

    Images developed as a part of making a thank you card for the radiography staff

    A Poem by Jon Seagrave.

    what.3.words:

    deep.encounters.poem

    for.richard.keating

    it’s.a.process:

    the.tree.unfolds

    as.we.unfold-

    rooted.in.place,

    evolving.in.cycles.

    we.make.marks-

    yours.with.line,

    mine.with.words

    searching.out.ways

    to.honour.duration.

    what.3.words?

    some.important,ones:

    people.places.nature.

    art.love.running.

    just.keep.going.

    By Jon Seagrave, poet-in-residence, Cheltenham Hospital Oncology Department, Mar 2026