Kevin Sinfield: ‘The longer this marathon takes, the more time I get to spend with Rob’

S troll up the hill from Headingley Stadium, the place with which Kevin Sinfield became synonymous, and you cannot miss an enormous mural of the rugby league legend. Its pride of place in the centre of the community epitomises the impact he had on the city of Leeds during his playing career and on Sunday it is only fitting that 12,000 people will run past that mural in the inaugural Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon.

It was November 2020, in the dark days of lockdown, when Sinfield first came up with the idea of raising money not only to support his former Leeds Rhinos teammate, but everyone affected by motor neurone disease. Burrow had been diagnosed with the condition a year earlier.

Sinfield ran seven marathons in seven days, raising millions, and followed that up with two more herculean challenges: a 24-hour run from Leicester to Leeds and, most recently, a staggering seven ultra-marathons in as many days. “But once we’d done the first one, I always knew I wanted to help create something we could all share,” Sinfield tells the Observer.

There were initially 7,777 places available in Sunday’s race, a homage to the No 7 shirt Burrow wore with pride for the Rhinos. But the event sold out within weeks, with the public captivated by Burrow’s courage and Sinfield’s fundraising efforts. Now more than 12,000 will run, with 40% of the entrants in their first marathon.

Sinfield is not just running it, either: he is pushing Burrow all the way round in a custom-made wheelchair. That is 26.2 miles of unimaginable strength from both but, perhaps more important, it conveys the friendship between the pair.

“It’s the time together I’m looking forward to,” he says. “We had some really funny moments during the Leeds 10k when we did a trial