As someone who’s suffered from mental health challenges in the past, I’m very passionate about bring attention the need for us men to better look out for ourselves and for one another. That means more men talking about stuff that really matters, even if these conversations don’t always come easy. I speak from first-hand experience here, back in 2009 when I first partook in Movember, I was enduring my own mental health crisis at the time, struggling to process and accept the challenges that I had endured throughout my childhood. I, like many men, felt that speaking up about this would be a sign of weakness and therefore elected to suffer in silence for way too long. The day I decided to seek out help and begun to have some real conversations was the first step toward building the amazing life that I have today. If I can encourage just 1 real conversation this month, then the blisters and sore legs from the 199kms of running will be worth it! So, you might be wondering, why 6.63kms a day (or 199kms for the month)? Well, did you know that unfortunately, we lose an average of 6.63 men every day to suicide across Australia, that equates to just over 46 a week or just over 199 a month (ABS 2024). In the latest ABS (2024) report, male suicides are almost DOUBLE that of our national road toll (2,419 vs 1,290 deaths). Furthermore, men are still around 3 times more likely to die by suicide than females (approx. 75.3% of all suicides). As such, this Movember I’ll again be attempting to run every day the same amount of kms as the national male suicide rate. So, for this year the target will be a 6.75km run EVERY day for the entire month. That’s 1km for every father, every brother, every partner, every friend that is lost to suicide in November, that’s 199kms in 30 days. Remember lads, together we truly can make a difference! Lets work together to change these statistics for the better ❤