Kathy Weir: Taking to the road to keep Doddie's legacy alive

"It's taken a while, but it feels like I'm in a good place", Kathy Weir says.

When her rugby legend husband Doddie died in 2022 from motor neurone disease (MND) she felt the loss was "very public" due to the illness, his high profile from rugby and his fundraising.

But she now feels ready to "step up and do her bit" for the charity he created, and which continues to search for a cure.

Kathy, 55, has been training for a 750-mile endurance bike ride. Over four days, hundreds of people will cycle from the Scottish Borders through England, Wales and Ireland, raising money for the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation.

Well-known sporting figures including former Scotland captain Rob Wainright, world-record breaking cyclist Mark Beaumont, and former British and Irish Lions centre Gordon D'Arcy are taking part in this year's challenge.

And Kathy will be alongside them as part of an all-female relay team.

Kathy said: "It was very public for us, the whole thing. After he died it's easy to say you are fine when you are not quite as fine.

"So it's taken a while and I do think I'm in a good place at last."

Ahead of the cycle, Kathy has been preparing at the family farm in the Scottish Borders with sons Hamish, Angus and Ben.

Being on the farm, a place he loved, was Doddie's dream. And it was there that the former rugby international first realised there was something wrong with his health.

"He was out on the farm and he felt he had a weakness in his hand," she says. "It sort of never fixed and he started googling and that's when we started down the road of motor neurone disease."

Their three boys all have fun, fond stories of their father on the farm. Ben remembers helping fix a hundred fence posts by hand when his dad had forgotten batteries for the drill.

After pointing out their first lamb of the season, Angus said it was the wrong type of animal for his dad and how he was "more taken with the cows than the sheep."

Hamish recounts being dragged out of bed at seven in the morning to be sent to the shed to nail things on. He describes it as an idyllic childhood.

The family are close. The boys laugh with their mum while Kathy talks of the 200 miles her team will have to cycle every day during the challenge.

When asked whether humour is important to her family, she said it comes from Doddie.

"That was the way he lived. There was no point in crying because it didn't get you anywhere. That was sort of his philosophy in life."

Smiling, Hamish recalls how everyone has an interaction with his dad and a story to tell.

"Some of them I'm not sure I should be hearing if I'm totally honest. It sounds as if he caused a bit of mischief back in the day."

This positive outlook was, he adds, "my dad's legacy and will be until we find a cure."

Kathy agrees. She thinks that, in being so open about his illness, Doddie hopefully helped others with MND.

"He made it that you are not alone," she says.

The foundation Doddie set up has now raised more than £20 million to fund research into treatments and a cure for MND.

Kathy thinks there will be highs and lows during the long four-day cycle through rugby's four home nations. But thinking of Doddie and everything he achieved will, she says, give her strength.

"I don't think anyone can do what he did," she says.

But she hopes by doing this trip she too can raise awareness of the disease "and show people who are suffering with MND that we are still here and we are still doing what we can to try and help."