Rob's take on it was he just put it down to bad luck'

Lindsey Burrow, wife of the rugby league legend who spent the last five years of his life raising awareness of MND, tells Emma John the game will always be a part of her family's life

- Emma John

This weekend Lindsey Burrow will run the London Marathon. Two weeks later, she will run the Leeds Marathon. And she's not even what she'd call a good runner. "I think coming from Yorkshire and having that Yorkshire grit," she says, with a smile, "I'm just quite stubborn."

Burrow has always found getting out for a run good for her mental state and in the nine months since she lost her husband, it has become vital. "It's just given me that headspace to go out and focus on something positive," she says, speaking on Zoom from her Pontefract home. "And the marathons have given me a goal."

It was at the start of last June that Rob Burrow, the Leeds rugby league legend, died with motor neurone disease. He was 41 and had spent the five years since his diagnosis raising awareness of MND and fundraising for a cure. His positivity and determination in facing the condition that would trap him, speechless and immobile, in a wasting body, was a reflection of both his on- and off-pitch persona.

Burrow has no doubt that his rugby league journey played its part. "Sport had such a massive impact on Rob and his mentality," she says. "He was often told he was never going to make it as a rugby player, he was too small, he didn't fit the mould. Standing up to players that were two or three times his weight, his size, but not showing that he was tired, not showing that he was fatigued or possibly injured - that was the bravery that sport instilled in him."