‘Rob will be with me throughout London Marathon’

When Lindsey Burrow runs the London Marathon on Sunday, she says her late husband Rob “will be with me throughout.”

Mother-of-three Burrow, 42, is raising money in honor of former rugby league great Rob Burrow, who passed away in June of this year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2019.

Two weeks later, she will continue raising money for the Leeds Hospitals Charity and the Rhinos Foundation.

He will be with me the entire time as I run, telling me, “Come on run faster, you can do this,” Burrow told BBC Yorkshire.

“I’ll definitely be thinking of Rob and the MND community as I put on my trainers.” In order to make Rob proud, I am ultimately running the race.

Two years after retiring from a stellar 17-year career with the Leeds Rhinos, where he almost 500 appearances and won 13 awards, Rob received his MND diagnosis.

As Rob battled the disease himself, they managed to raise more than £1 million for MND charities with the assistance of former team-mate and close friend Kevin Sinfield. In the 2024 New Year’s Eve honors, both men received CBEs.

Pancreatic Cancer UK is the 45th edition of the London Marathon’s official charity of the year.

The most fatal common cancer is pancreatic cancer; more than half of those diagnosed in the UK pass away in three months.

The charity, which wants to raise £2 million to provide crucial early detection tests, will be running and raising money for the cause.

On the banks of the River Thames in London earlier in April, 797 pairs of running shoes were displayed. The donated items included those from pancreatic cancer patients, supporters, and families.

Jo Curtis, who lost her husband Stewart to pancreatic cancer, will be one of the candidates for Sunday. Stewart, who had been preparing for the marathon when he was diagnosed, underwent successful surgery, but the cancer returned a year later.

“We can’t have gone through this without there being a positive outcome,” said one of the most important things I’ve learned. What can I do, I kept asking myself. I had the thought, “I can do the marathon for him,” Curtis told BBC Sport.

“Stubborn to a fault… just dad, a lot of grit and determination.”

As his daughters Grace, Georgie-Lee, and Dannie prepare to run alongside him in his 17th and final London Marathon, they describe their father in that manner.

Despite having been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at the age of 10, the 67-year-old from West Bromwich first ran the London Marathon in 2002 and has since embarked on numerous extraordinary physical challenges to raise money for charity.

Heeley completed the first blind person to complete seven marathons across seven continents in seven days in 2008. He ran the length of the UK in 10 days, from John O’Groats to Land’s End, in 2011.

“I inquired, “Why me?” What have I done to merit this? Then I took a little journey and said, “You know what kid, life is for living.” Heeley told BBC Sport, “Let’s go out there and enjoy it.”

“Don’t worry about what you can’t do,” the message is. Give your efforts a focus on what you can and will accomplish.

After losing her father, former BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull, to the disease in 2022, Flora Turnbull will continue to raise awareness of the condition.

Following his efforts to raise awareness of the disease, the NHS’s referral rate for prostate cancer reached a record high a year after Bill’s passing.

His diagnosis and actor Stephen Fry’s willingness to discuss prostate cancer were identified by NHS England as the “turnbull and Fry effect.”

Turnbull, 33, said: “We as a family were overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and thanks from people across the country, especially those men who were inspired to learn more about their own prostate cancer risk and speak to their GP. We as a family were inspired by the outpouring of love and thanks from people across the country.