We have all been inspired by Linzi's story. She is our daily inspiration to get moving and be in charge of our own destinies, health and wellbeing... This is her story ........ 

“I’m running 100km for my Mum. Our story is inspirational. I was born into a very dysfunctional home. We sometimes assume domestic violence is physical. I was left without my mother at 11.  My mother wasn’t allowed her own bank
account even though she worked, she wasn’t allowed to read Cosmopolitan and I grew up in a home where ‘women's lib’ was shirked and any woman with a voice was
labeled a dyke. 

She wasn’t allowed to see her family, and had very few friends, as he would invariably come onto them. He always said she allowed his many affairs. She was scared of him. His controlling ways bled into his parenting too. 

Inciting anxiety into a child takes a long time to shake. Women's Refuge was in its infancy in 1984.
Having been told we would all be killed if she took us away, she left without me, and tried to save her own sanity and life, believing at the time I would be safe, she regrets this to this day.  

She went on to get a degree and work
with the police force and then onto a teenage detention center. 

Four years later I joined her, but the damage was done.  

Had it been just isolated to my mother I would have assumed all he said about her was true. Every relationship has had control and financial gain for him. Back in the 80s; The judge at the court case expressed he was “sick to death of these women that were ‘finding themselves’” and awarded the property to him, even though she had bought the house with him.

The patriarchy bleeds into most lives.

So when I’m struggling and as the weather turns, I want my total love for her to keep me going. I won’t wish it was different. It's made me who I am. I am free. We are free. I am her voice, her strength, I am the one blowing this whistle now.”

We are doing this for women and their families everywhere to ensure in a small way that the work of Refuge goes on.