Australia watched in awe as Cliff Young shuffled his way from Sydney to Melbourne. His simple persistence is still inspiring.
– or Cliffy as he affectionately came to be known by an entire country – barely lift his legs, his arms limp by his side in a pair of parachute tracksuit pants with holes cut into them for ventilation, my eight-year-old self was shook to the core. The younger runners started off fast and got miles ahead, but bit by bit, hour by hour, he just kept running as they fell behind. And he didn’t stop.
Before the race, Cliff was just a farmer who no one knew. He was a man who believed he could do it when so many thought he was mad for trying. After the race, a gumboot was erected in his hometown of Beech Forest, in the Otways, to commemorate his hero’s journey. I wonder if people travel to Beech Forest to see the gumboot and pay respect to the man who showed us that you could be a 61-year-old potato farmer and smash world records.
But my running got interrupted. Firstly, by my 20s and pubs and watching bands late into the night. Then, by an illness that meant that my body was sick and didn’t have a chance of doing what I yearned for it to do. I would literally dream about running and about that feeling that you get just after you stop. And that runner’s high that they all talk about.
Bit by bit, kilometre by kilometre, just like he must have done on that enormous run, I edged my way back to life. I found my way back to feeling my body again in a way that wasn’t related to illness or surgeries or pain or lost time living. It was in my body, slow and awkward, that I got to again feel my muscles hurt, my breath caught in my chest and my face turn a bright red.
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