The Tortoise and the Hare
There’s nothing wrong with combining your love of travel with a fondness for exercise, but according to those in the know at Jaunted some people take it to the extreme. While my own plans yesterday included solsticing with friends, this little tale of triumph for that resourceful breed who follow a different drummer seriously moved me. Their pursuit of choice: multi-day, hundred-kilometer-plus races, popularly known as Ultramarathoning. The very word itself exhausts me.
Take the Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc, for example. The 150-kilometer race is considered one of the toughest in the world, with an elevation gain of 8,500 meters, but there are still a few freakishly tough runners who can complete it in 20 hours. If that seems too easy for you, register to race in 4 Deserts, a series of ultramarathons across the Gobi Desert in China, Sahara Desert in Egypt, Atacama Desert in Chile, and the “Last Desert” in Antarctica.
You don’t have to be an elite runner to do well in these races. This is where the seriously touching story of Cliff Young, a potato farmer from Australia comes in. At 61, the aptly named Mr. Young happened to be terrifically fit due to his penchant for herding sheep without the aid of a dog, but when he entered the famed Sydney-to-Melbourne ultramarathon, a five-day, 543.7 mile grueling competition attempted only by less than 30-year-old- world-class athletes, he was roundly dismissed as a dreamer and a fool.
The rules went as follows: In order to compete and finish in five days, one had to run about 18 hours a day and sleep the remaining 6 hours. As a first-time competitor, dear Mr. Young didn’t know that! In what is now the stuff of legend, he annihilated the competition. And he did it with a slow, loping pace while wearing a pair of big, clunky “gumboots,” as they call rubber boots in Australia and elsewhere. His secret? No sleeping, of course. While other athletes took their six-hour rest stops over the five-day ordeal, Mr. Young ran through the night, personifying the story of the tortoise and the hare.
If Dara Torres can snag three silver medals at 41, a spry 61-year-old potato farmer can certainly outrun those young whipper snappers.
