Until recently 26-year-old Kiran Gandhi was probably best known for drumming with M.I.A. but a story about her decision to run the London marathon ‘free bleeding’ during her period has made her a bit of a feminist sensation.

Kiran, who grew up in New York, told Cosmopolitan that until the marathon she hadn’t run during her period before as she suffers severe stomach pain, so when she realised she was due on race day she wasn’t sure what to do.

This was her first marathon and, after a year of training, she wasn’t about to drop out. She thought a tampon would prove uncomfortable over 26.2 miles so she decided to ‘run free’. The decision was both for her own comfort and to make a statement about the stigma of periods.

On her blog, the Harvard Buisness School graduate writes:

“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.”

Kiran who ran with her friends to raise money for Breast Cancer Care, finished the marathon in four hours 49 minutes and 11 seconds.