South-west runners hitting pavement for Run Against Violence

The annual Run Against Violence Virtual Team Challenge started on August 30 and finishes on September 17. The virtual route is from Broken Hill to Sydney.

The important cause raises awareness about domestic violence.

Participants can choose how many kilometres they want to do in their local area for each day of the challenge and upload it online.

The south-west trio are keen to smash out 200kms each toward the challenge which is undertaken around the world. That's an average of about 11kms each day.

Mentha is her team's captain and encouraged Hovey and Nevill to get involved.

"We've got a team of 10 of us, three of us are in Victoria, I've got one in Queensland and the rest are in New South Wales and we combine all our kilometres," she said.

They are all part of a Facebook group of runners.

"It's just a group of like-minded runners and we've just always been friends and we go to different events to catch up," Mentha said.

"And last year one of the ladies in the group said we should do this (RAV) and this year we've got 40 of us doing it, so we've got three teams."

Some runners are contributing 200kms to the team's total while others are covering a shorter distance.

The south-west participants haven't met all their running teammates in-person.

"With what everyone has set as a goal, we should get 1400 kilometres, we need 1300," Mentha said.

"So we'll probably end up with more but a few have dropped behind their goal pace a bit so we might need a few others to step up and do some extra kilometres."

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They virtually stop in different places along the route.

"On Friday night, we virtually arrived in Orange (NSW) and we were joking we were having an overnight stay there," she said.

Mentha and Hovey participated in the 5km Warrnambool parkrun at Lake Pertobe on Saturday morning which contributed to their total.

Hovey just completed the 14,080km Run Down Under virtual event and Mentha is also undertaking that challenge.

Mentha has been getting up early to run about 8kms each day. She also tends to go for a lunchtime walk and walk her dog.

She estimates running will make up about three quarters of her 200km RAV goal.

She's a keen distance runner and completed the 2016 Sydney Marathon as well as having done about 25 half-marathons.

In 2020, Mentha achieved her target of running 2020kms as well as doing one half-marathon a month.

"This year the goal is 2021 kilometres," she said.

RAV is a not-for-profit organisation run by volunteers.

According to its website, its mission is to "create a healthy relationship culture within our local communities and to remove the stigma and social barriers that often stop people from talking about their experiences with family violence and asking for help when it is needed".

It was started by a group of runners on the back of the 2014 White Ribbon Ultra Marathon.

Kirrily Dear completed a 12-day, 860km solo run in regional NSW to raise awareness about domestic violence.

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