Jack: I think you've gotta give back. Basically I think it's important.

You hear of these sort of stories and it seems to always be the one that you'd never pick.

Pat: It's really sad 'cause it's such a final thing.

Jack: You wouldn't even think to have that sort of conversation with him because he was just such an upbeat guy, like you'd never ever pick it. And I just thought if I had 20 minutes with him, I probably could have made a change; but I didn't.

I just thought "Why not get in contact with the Beyond Blue guys?" – who are an amazing team by the way – and let's make it as big as we can.

Alex: And that's Jack in a nutshell.

Steve: Jack was the ring leader, I guess, wasn't he? 

Alex: With Jack, as soon as the idea starts, it just grows and grows and grows. He contacted everyone that he knew, that'd be interested; he just opened the web out and people jumped on, just straightaway.

Steve: When you've got a personal connection like we did with Jack and Jack had to this terrible situation it's just a great excuse to motivate yourself and do something great, and be able to feel like we're contributing and helping such a great cause.

Alex: We gathered up the seven unfittest individuals we could find.

Steve: None of us had ever run anywhere near 21K before. So it was...

Pat: I'd done a few marathons.

[laughter] 

Everyone else though...

Jack: It started with a $1000 goal initially, which is what Beyond Blue gave us, and just slowly people just started catching on.

Warwick: With seven blokes it's seven different friendship groups, so we all tried to tap into the people we know to try and get some healthy donations.

Alex: We hit the initial target really quickly so then we had to boost the target again so we could hit another one.

Warwick: Doing the half marathon was rewarding, but to also give back to a charity like Beyond Blue, ah, of course it's rewarding, you know?

Jack: What we've really achieved from it, is the conversations being started and we've contributed something – which is why we're sitting here doing something like this today.

Steve: Men just don't open up conversation like that and just even the fact we're raising money for it we've actually said "Oh, yeah I got depressed once" or "I get anxiety". It just opens up that shell of conversation. I think that's the most important thing.

Jack: That's what makes Beyond Blue an amazing organisation is because there are people employed in there who are looking to contribute to something better. You genuinely feel that coming from the people you're dealing with.