'Do you fancy pushing me around a marathon?'

A man who is living with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) takes on the London and Leeds marathon in the next three weeks with the help of former colleagues and friends from the Royal Navy.

Jon Over, a dad of two girls and a former navy engineer was diagnosed with MND in April 2025 at the age of 42.

"I'll be honest, it's exhausting, MND is a day-by-day condition and some days I physically can't do it," he said via his eye-gaze machine, which uses his own voice previously recorded.

Since his diagnosis, he started 'the biggest challenge of my life' and decided to run the Leeds and London marathon - over 52 miles in three weeks.

"Leeds was a must because of the inspiration of Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield. But I've always dreamed of doing the London Marathon, so we decided to do both.

He is being pushed around the course by a team of friends and former Royal Navy colleagues, including 45-year-old Alastair Crawford from Somerset.

"When Alistair heard about my diagnosis, he came over to see me. I said to him, when I can't walk anymore, do you fancy pushing me around a marathon?

In typical Al fashion, he turned up the next week with a spreadsheet of races, and that was that." Jon explained.

Alistair met Jon working together in the Royal Navy in a small team of air crew and engineers, being deployed together to the Middle East back in 2013.

"We've been friends ever since, you know, life takes you in different directions, kind of brings you back together." Alistair reminisces.

Alistair and Jon have been training this year only a dozen times alongside other friends and colleagues who will be running the race with them.

"The team jokes a lot sometimes that Jon's sitting there in the chair whilst being pushed around." Alistair says.

"There's a lot of humor around that, but I know it takes a huge amount out of him, it's a lot of effort, and we've gotten very close."

The first race is the London Marathon this weekend.

"I describe this to the team now, the marathons are the cherry on top of the cake." Alistair says.

"I say to Jon, every day that I hit the start line of a race or a training session, I think of him. I literally carry him with me every day I'm out there. Because he's an inspiration."

"I know it will be emotional" Jon says

"But I've got an amazing team around me, and incredible support from friends and family".

And ahead of the race, Jon had some words of wisdom for anyone thinking of taking on a challenge:

"Running two marathons in two weeks might be a bit extreme, but whatever the challenge is, you shouldn't let something like MND define what you can or can't do.

MND is a disease that affects the nerves known as motor neurones. These nerves are found in the brain and spinal cord and they help tell your muscles what to do.

There is currently no cure for the disease and it impacts 5,000 adults in the UK at any one time, according to the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

There is a 1 in 300 chance of getting the disease with symptoms varying from muscle weakness, speech or communication struggle, twitching and more.

Since his diagnosis, Jon has lost the use of his voice and legs and now uses a wheelchair.

He has had a lot of support, from the MNDA and Challenging MND who supplied him with a racing chair.

And as a proud gunners fan, Arsenal got in touch and put him on their team sheet with the number 26.

"The number is for 26 miles - a marathon" Jon explained with pride.

He will be taking part in the London Marathon on April 26th and the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon on 10th May 2026.