“This is a sponsored run,” said Kevin Sinfield of what seems to most people an unimaginable, surely superhuman challenge – running seven ultramarathons in seven days. “In my own mind this is a run for a mate, with other mates.”
Sinfield, one of the greatest players in rugby league history, has just completed day two of what will be about 275 miles of running to raise money for motor neurone disease (MND) charities.
It is his third mad challenge in as many years. In 2020 Sinfield ran seven marathons in seven days to raise money and awareness in honour of his friend and former teammate Rob Burrow, who is now in the grip of the disease.
Sinfield sees it as natural – obvious, almost – that he would try to help. “Just because you’ve finished playing, doesn’t mean you stop being that teammate. You try to help,” he told the Guardian.
“All Rob’s former teammates have played their part and done their own bit. This is an extension of that. I’m just trying to do my little bit too.”
Burrow wore the number seven shirt for Leeds and the initial plan was to raise £777,777. In the first year, more than £2.5m was raised. The following year Sinfield ran 101 miles in 24 hours, bringing the total he has raised for the cause to more than £5m.
This year’s challenge is also dedicated to other sportsmen who have succumbed to MND. They are described by Sinfield as a “band of brothers” and include the former Scotland rugby union player Doddie Weir, the ex-Liverpool and Bolton footballer Stephen Darby and the recently diagnosed former Gloucester and Leicester rugby union player Ed Slater.
On Monday Sinfield ran from Melrose in the Scottish Borders to the picturesque Northumberland village of Otterburn.
He was mostly on the A68 and was often accompanied by music. So in Scotland it was Flower of Scotland “and quite a lot of Proclaimers”. Crossing the border into England, Sinfield’s team played Jerusalem followed by Land of Hope and Glory.
Burrow texted Sinfield 15km before he finished, saying well done for finishing day two. He was of course “taking the mickey”, but that’s the way his sense of humour works, said Sinfield.
The two men met when Sinfield was 14 and Burrow 12 and they were part of the Leeds academy. They became friends in the Rhinos first team and clearly have an incredible bond.
“There’s things that we’ve done together in training and on a rugby field that … we’ve had to go to some dark places together. I trust him implicitly. I’ve got so much respect for him and he’s a great friend.”
He says the challenge is to raise cash and also awareness. “The funding that the disease could have had and should have had” didn’t happen in years gone by, said Sinfield. That’s changed, “but for years and years this tragic and horrible disease has ripped through families”.
As Sinfield talks to the Guardian, there isn’t a hint of fatigue. He is an hour early at Otterburn Castle and it is as if he has walked there from the corner shop. Anyone who wants a selfie – and there are dozens – gets one.
Is it fun, or is it torture? “It’s probably a bit of both,” Sinfield said. “I miss home – I think all the team do – so in our downtime it is important that we enjoy it. We’ve got a meal together tonight; we’ll watch the rugby and spend some time together. It is important to me that the team enjoy being here. I want this week to be the best week of their lives. I don’t know whether that is possible.”
What is true is that it’s not normal to put your body through what Sinfield is putting his through. He ran the last few miles of day two with the multiple world record-breaking athlete and BBC commentator Steve Cram, who said it was an extraordinary physical and mental challenge.
“It is phenomenal what he is doing, really. I once did one ultra event and I didn’t do anything for about a week after. It is about recovery, and Kevin has a body which allows him to do something like this … I am just full of admiration for him.”
Oldham-born Sinfieldspent most of his professional career at Leeds Rhinos, where he became captain aged 22. He also captained England, but recently revealed on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that he did little to no research into the psychology of the role.
He understood rugby lads, he said, including not booking them in to five-star hotels because they would soon all “have dressing gowns and slippers on, like they think they’re on holiday. So you can’t do that for a game prep. You put them in three-star and they moan.” The result is four-star, with decent biscuits.
Sinfield started his challenge at Scotland’s Murrayfield ground in Edinburgh on Sunday morning and aims to finish on Saturday at Old Trafford in Manchester during half-time of the men’s Rugby League World Cup final.
The money Sinfield raises will be shared by the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Leeds Hospitals Charity, the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation, My Name’5 Doddie Foundation and MND Scotland.
Donations to Sinfield’s appeal can be made here.
