Shrewsbury son's marathon push with wheelchair-bound dad

But when he takes to the 13.1-mile Shrewsbury Half Marathon course on Sunday he will not just be pushing his physical boundaries – he will be pushing his father in a wheelchair.

Sam, who teaches at Oakmeadow Primary School in Bayston Hill, has been in training for several months and will be supported in his mission to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA) by his friends and family. But his biggest supporter will be his father Jeff.

Sam said: “I will be pushing my dad – who is now wheelchair-bound – around in his chair for the whole 13.1 miles, including up Wyle Cop and the hills around Kingsland. Members of staff from school as well as my friends and family will be joining us to run a few miles of the route and to help push if needed.

“My dad’s chair will have MNDA balloons on to make it a festive experience and we will also have some banners. It’s going to be a carnival experience, really.

“I am doing it to raise awareness of Motor Neurone Disease. I ran the London Marathon earlier this year and raised £14,900 for the charity. It was a real family effort but I thought ‘I’m not going to stop at that’, so here I am doing the Shrewsbury Half Marathon.

“I know it is going to be hard but I have done it in the past – not with a wheelchair – and I am a regular with the Shropshire Shufflers.”

Jeff added: “As a retired ex-PE teacher I used to enjoy an active lifestyle, but now having been diagnosed with MND in December 2017 things have moved on and I’m confined to my wheelchair.

“Fortunately, I have a very supportive family. Still, it was a surprise to learn I was going to take part in this year’s Shrewsbury Half-Marathon on Sunday. The Shrewsbury NHS Team are wonderful, too, but I thought they were having come up a ‘wonder cure’.

"Then I heard of the family’s plan. The four grown up Ostermeyer children – Sam, Kerry and Hannah, who live locally, and Lucy, who lives in Sydney, Australia – are all going to push me in my manual wheelchair around this year’s half-marathon course.

“Well, I used to run things like this, now I would take part in style. I shall be carrying a bucket, so when you see us, somewhere near the back I imagine, just drop some coppers into it in aid of the MND Association.”