‘One conversation can save a life’
Zeak Kelly is pledging to run a marathon every day in April to bring awareness of and raise money for suicide prevention and Lifeline Aotearoa.
The 31-year-old builder at Mayhem Construction first came up with the idea in October 2023.
He was into crossfit and never thought to get into running until the club he was training at did a Move for Movember challenge.
“I was in a place where I was struggling a little bit mentally around October last year and I saw that for Movember they were doing a Move for Movember and it was like do 60km over the 30 days of November.”
Kelly ended up doing a 60km run in just one day, raising $6000 for Movember and men's mental health.
Now he is aiming to raise money for Lifeline Aotearoa and hoping this personal challenge will inspire others to chat with their loved ones and friends about how they are really doing. Having done the 60km in one day, Kelly felt empowered. Not only did it give him purpose and something to focus on, having a goal in mind made him feel like he wasn’t just “floating through life”.
“I’ve struggled with my mental health and having suicidal thoughts and depression … I want to do this, I know that [running] has helped me with those things.”
Kelly said he wanted the focus of the achievement of 30 marathons in 30 days to be about normalisation of talk about suicide.
It was crucial to have conversations with loved ones, especially men, he said.
Kelly said these conversations can be “really confronting” but having suicidal thoughts was more common than many people realised.
“We lose over 700,000 people a year, like around the world, to suicide.”
The statistics and his own mental health journey have spurred this challenge.
Though it’ll be a “huge mental and physical challenge”, Kelly is excited. He’ll continue working throughout the challenge, splitting each day between six hours of work and a 42.2km run. “In the last sort of six months of running, I’ve learned so much about myself and how far I can push myself.”
Training has consisted of running two to three half marathons and then at least one full marathon a week.
When asked what his plans were for recovery, Kelly said his housemate ran Enhanced Nutrition, so would help with that side of things. A sauna and ice bath at home would also aid in good recovery protocols, he said.
Friends, workmates and family are keen to join Kelly during the weekends and he is raising money for Lifeline through a give a little page.
At its heart, 30 marathons in 30 days is Kelly’s way to get the community to check in with their whanau.
“One conversation can save a life.”