Musician Kiran Gandhi decided to run the London marathon without a tampon. The drummer, who has previously worked with singer M.I.A., wanted to rise awareness about women who have no access to sanitary products and encourage women not be embarrassed about periods. The musician during the marathon (image: Kiran Gandhi website). She wrote on her website: “I RAN THE WHOLE MARATHON WITH MY PERIOD BLOOD RUNNING DOWN MY LEGS. “I got my flow the night before and it was a total disaster but I didn’t want to clean it up. It would have been way too uncomfortable to worry about a tampon for 26.2 miles. I thought, if there’s one person society won’t f**k with, it’s a marathon runner. “If there’s one way to transcend oppression, it’s to run a marathon in whatever way you want. On the marathon course, sexism can be beaten. Where the stigma of a woman’s period is irrelevant, and we can re-write the rules as we choose. Where a woman’s comfort supersedes that of the observer. “I ran with blood dripping down my legs for sisters who don’t have access to tampons and sisters who, despite cramping and pain, hide it away and pretend like it doesn’t exist. I ran to say, it does exist, and we overcome it every day. “The marathon was radical and absurd and bloody in ways I couldn’t have imagined until the day of the race.” Posing for pictures after the event (image: Kiran Gandhi website). Kiran also helped to raise over $6,000 for Breast Cancer Care by taking part in the event.