The pair raised over $8500 for ‘Movember’
Photo courtesy of Kai Dorin and Nicholas Sakamoto.
A pair of UVic students completed the longest run of their lives thus far in support of men’s mental health awareness this past month.
On Nov. 30, Kai Dorin, a third year student studying political science, and Nicholas Sakamoto, third year studying kinesiology, ran together from UVic to Nanaimo fundraising support for men’s mental health awareness for “Movember.”
Dorin created an Instagram page, @126formovember, to promote the run and fundraiser.
Their route began at the UVic campus fountain at 5:30 a.m., and they ran 24 kilometres to the Brentwood Bay ferry terminal, using the ferry instead of running over the Malahat.
Once they arrived at Mill Bay, they ran the remaining 102 kilometres along various residential roads and trails before connecting to the Parkway Trail up to Woodgrove Centre, Nanaimo. The total distance of 126 kilometres is equivalent to running three marathons, covering 19 hours.
The two ran together for the entire duration and had a support vehicle following them, which is needed for a section of the Trans-Canada highway, where they require safety support to passing traffic, per consultation with local RCMP.
“We knew we would take some planning, but I think it’s taken a whole lot more than we thought,” said Dorin. “We’re not racing there. We’re just trying to finish it.”
Both have done long distance running and endurance sports before, including marathons and triathlons, but for each of them the run will be their longest personal record yet.
“Physically it’s demanding, of course,” said Dorin. “We’re moving out of pace where we’d be in a marathon. It’s definitely mind over matter. Thankfully it really helps that we have each other for this.”
The two met each other as first year students in UVic residence. The idea of the run came to Sakamoto originally in the summer of 2025, and he reached out to Dorin who eagerly joined.
“I thought of it originally back in mid-June, [when] it’s men’s mental health month.… By August I had a more concrete plan for Movember.”
Their original fundraising goal was set at $2 500. At the time of publication, the pair’s fundraising page had collected over $8 500.
Movember Canada is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes awareness of men’s mental health, as well as physical diseases such as testicular and prostate cancer.
“I think a lot of our [male] friends probably struggle with it, but they won’t talk about it, because it’s a stigma,” said Dorin. “We’ve both had our struggles over the past and especially during COVID, that was a hard time for everyone.”
“We both really got into running then, and that really helped us. So I think since then, we’ve been on this trajectory. This was almost bound to happen.”
A 2025 national survey by the Canadian Men’s Health Foundation and Intensions Consulting among 2 000 men, 67 per cent reported never seeking out professional mental health services. The same survey found 64 per cent report moderate to high levels of stress, and 23 per cent are at risk of moderate to severe depression, of which both rates are up 4 per cent from since 2024
Of the estimated 4 000 suicide deaths in Canada each year, men account for nearly three of every four, according to Canadian Mental Health Association.
“A man dies every minute by suicide globally,” said Dorin. “That’s just staggering.”
In a Statistics Canada 2020 survey, 22.8 per cent of men reported their mental health as poor or fair. Statistics Canada also found suicide to be the second leading cause of death for men under the age of 50.
“[We’re] trying to let people know that it’s okay to talk about these issues and do what we can to reduce the stigma,” said Sakamoto.
