SHE was in her hotel room in London resting when I called. Jane Tomlinson, a woman for whom the word inspirational was surely invented, was giving interviews to the media not long after she had completed the Full Ironman Triathlon in Florida.

The 2.4 mile swim in the sea followed by the 112 mile bike ride and 26.2 mile marathon had been "a little scary", she admitted, even for Jane.

She sounded tired on the phone at first, hesitant, but she soon picked up when memories of the triathlon came flooding back - the sheer grit (and painkillers) she had needed to carry her exhausted body to the end.

"I kept breaking it down," she said. "I said 'I'll see how I feel when I get out of the sea' then I'd get on the bike and think 'this is awful, should I stop?'. But then I'd carry on and think I'll do another ten miles and see how I feel. Once you've gone so far, there's no way, unless you really can't put one foot in front of the other, that I would stop."

And even though during our interview two years ago, Jane said the only marathon participating she would be doing that year would be to watch the London version on television, it wasn't long before she found herself a fresh challenge.

It appeared to be what drove her on. Each of her challenges proved to be a triumph of human spirit, defying the doctors and sticking two fingers up at the cancer which had first invaded her breasts when she was only 26.

Jane, from Rothwell, Leeds, had a mastectomy and chemotherapy in her 20s to combat breast cancer. She was married to Mike and had two daughters, Suzanne and Rebecca. After her successful treatment, she trained as a paediatric radiographer and gave birth to a son, Steven.

Then the cancer came back. By 2000, it had begun invading her bones and lungs. She was told to start thinking of the present, not the future and given a prognosis - six months to live.

"I felt myself thrown against a brick wall," she admitted. "There was no way forward, this was how my life would end. My breath felt punched out of me by the shock."

She told me she had imagined herself a few months after the prognosis, lying gaunt and pale in bed, her eyes sunken and her cheekbones protruding, razor-like in her elfin features. Understandably, she didn't like what she saw. "It terrified me," she said.

So, she decided to set herself some goals. She'd never run marathons before, or even done any long-distance running, but she set her sights on the London Marathon in 2002 and started training.

After the marathon, she needed a new challenge, so she cycled from John O'Groats to Land's End. Then she embarked on a 2,500 mile tandem cycle ride from Rome to Leeds with her brother, Luke Goward. "I was just so relieved to have completed the journey and not to have let everyone down," she said later.

But what sounded like her most torturous experience was the 4,200-mile Ride Across America she put herself through in August last year.

"If I'd known when we were planning the ride that I'd have been this unwell with my disease, I wouldn't have even contemplated it," she said when she was half way through - and you knew if she admitted to feeling so ill then she must have felt absolutely terrible.

There were days when she could barely walk or stand. Jane would get up at 3am and inject herself with morphine before setting off at 5am and cycling for 12 hours, husband Mike later revealed. She had also faced repeated attacks by dogs on the journey, strong winds and temperatures of 120F.

"There were at least seven or eight occasions where I asked her to pack it in," said Mike afterwards. "She ignored me like a good wife should and she's been proved right. I'm astonished that she's here."

I asked her why she insisted on the challenges. Didn't she want to spend every single minute with her family back home? But she was resolutely philosophical. "My eldest daughter is at university and if I were to sit at home doing nothing then should she be sitting here with me?" she said simply. "That's not the way we live our lives. I have to balance what I do with my family, but I don't think that detracts from who I am as a mum.

"I am a charity fundraiser who people know well and when I go home and shut the door, I'm just Jane Tomlinson - a mum, a wife and a daughter."

By last October, she was also a grandmother, Suzanne having given birth to daughter Emily. The couple were always open about her illness with their children, feeling that they had most confidence when they knew exactly what was happening. She continued to work as a radiographer at Leeds General Infirmary and endure several more bouts of chemotherapy after the cancer spread to the bones in her lower back, her hips and her pelvis.

Over the years, Jane raised £1.75m for cancer charities. She was given the Sports Personality of the Year's Helen Rollason award in 2002; an MBE the following year and a Woman of the Year award in London last October.

But she was defined most by the challenges she set herself. Every time she came back from another exhausting trip, it sounded like it would be her last. A few months later, there would be another announcement. One of the reasons, she said, was to give hope to others.

"I want to show somebody who might have a similar prognosis that you can set yourself goals, that it doesn't matter if it seems a bit impossible," she said. "Set yourself a goal and aim for it and get on with it."

And she did. She certainly did.