Every weekend, we pick the best stories published in Goodmorning Runlovers, the newsletter edited by Andrea Corradin that you can read in less than a minute. It arrives in your inbox every day Monday through Friday, by 8:30 a.m.
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One day, a 61-year-old farmer appears at the start of the extremely tough “Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon”: in dungarees, boots and no teeth. With his simple ways, he is a complete outsider compared to the young professional athletes, who laugh at him. No one can imagine how this story will end, but Cliff is determined to try.
In 1983, one of the world’s toughest races was inaugurated in Australia: the “Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon.” An 875-kilometer race. There are 150 entrants at the start. Mostly young endurance athletes. Also appearing at the start that morning is a bizarre 61-year-old man named Cliff Young. He is a potato farmer. He wears denim overalls and farm boots. To tell the whole story, he also shows up without teeth. The dentures bothered him. He says he wants to run it. Many athletes laugh, looking at him. It looks like a joke. But his entry is accepted by the organization. He can compete. A reporter, intrigued, asks him what he expects from such a tough race. “You see, I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or tractors, and every time the storms came, I had to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres. Sometimes I had to run those sheep for two or three days to round them up. But I always got them back. I think I can run this race.” At the start everyone speeds along at a good pace, leaving Cliff at the back. He proceeds quietly, slow but steady. All the professional athletes in the race are aware that, to run those distances, they would have to run for about 18 hours a day, and sleep the remaining 6. Cliff had never had a coach. He didn’t follow running schedules. But he had a huge advantage that no one was aware of. He was used to being on the move on his legs for days, without sleep. And his strategy was one: keep running. Even while his rivals slept, at night. This strategy allowed him to catch up on their frantic pace. Until, on the last night, he passes in the lead. And the next day he reaches the finish line first, winning it in 5 days, 14 hours and 11 minutes. Ten hours ahead of the second, setting a new record. Did you understand old Cliff? He didn’t even know about the $10,000 prize for winning, and because he was as humble in life as he was in running, he decided to donate $2,000 to each of the five athletes who finished the race with him. Without keeping anything for himself. With that victory, and that gesture, he became something of an Australian legend. All over the country his story is told. A new long-distance running technique, the “Young-shuffle,” is born. From then on the Sydney to Melbourne is run in the absence of sleep. In short, he left an indelible mark with his feat. Reminding everyone that the greatest feats are achieved one step at a time, without stopping, and without too much talk. Most importantly, that those who seem to start strong sometimes don’t even make it to the finish line.