In 1983 a 61-year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young lined up for the Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon, about 875 kilometers, against some of the best ultramarathon runners in the world. He wore long pants and seemed to shuffle more than run, a style he built up running around his farm, sometimes in rubber boots because of the rain. Plenty of Australians laughed at him. The runners had an understanding that they’d sleep until dawn, but on the first night his team set the alarm wrong and Cliff woke just after 2 a.m. and kept going. He finished in 5 days, 14 hours, and 4 minutes, about 50 kilometers ahead of the next runner, and became a national folk hero.
