Cliff Young, 61: The Potato Farmer Who Won the Sydney–Melbourne Ultra

01Cliff Young 1983: An “Old Man” on the Hume Highway

On April 27, 1983, about a dozen runners set off from the Westfield shopping center in Parramatta, near Sydney. Destination: Doncaster, near Melbourne, about 875 km along the Hume Highway. For sponsor Westfield, it was above all a marketing exercise, ABC recalls. On the start line: ultra names like Tony Rafferty, George Perdon and New Zealand's Siggy Bauer. And Cliff Young, 61, who grows potatoes in Beech Forest, in the state of Victoria.

Westfield is nervous. Martin Noonan, who came up with the idea of the race, tells ABC what he was told at the time: “We're not going to have some old geriatric die on the Hume Highway during our race.” Noonan takes him for a run of nearly three hours. Young stays on his heels, and gets his start.

02The Gumboots: Legend or Fact?

The legend says: rubber gumboots among the brand-name running shoes. In Beech Forest, a giant boot-shaped monument keeps the story alive, and its plaque claims he started the race wearing them. What is certain: he did sometimes run in gumboots in the rain of the Otway Ranges.

In the race itself, the detailed accounts talk about running shoes. He wears out ten pairs, according to race historian Phil Essam. In Julietta Jameson's biography, his shoes fall apart and a new pair is sent up from Melbourne. His driver, Ken Redford, remembers long trousers, snipped with scissors so he wouldn't cook. Gumboots in the race itself: no solid proof.

03The Night He Got Up Too Early

The favorites plan to sleep several hours a night. On the first night, a mistake by his crew wakes Young far too early: an alarm set wrongly by the masseur according to ABC, a crew member who hadn't put his contact lenses in according to Essam. He sets off again in the dark. By morning, he is in the lead. ABC calls it a tactic that was “perhaps unintentional, some might say underhand, but extremely effective.”

After that, he hardly stops. “From then on, he barely slept the entire run,” says journalist Neil Kearney, a friend.

04The “Young Shuffle”

His stride is not elegant: a dragging trot, torso leaning forward, one shoulder drooping, Jameson writes. He injured the shoulder in a fall early in the race. But the “Cliff Young shuffle” is economical, and many runners still consider it effective over long distances. Near Albury, when he is told he is tiring, he tells a journalist: “I'm determined not to let anybody go past me,” Jameson reports.

055 Days 15 Hr 4 Min

He completes the course in 5 days 15 hr 4 min. He arrives around 1:30 a.m. in Doncaster, in front of thousands of people. Second-placed George Perdon crosses the line more than nine hours after him.

06The Prize: The Legend of the Check

The winner pockets $10,000. Legend has it that he didn't know there was a prize and gave it all away. According to Phil Essam, it is simpler than that: before the start, Young and his training partner Joe Record had promised to split the money if either of them won. Record drops out, Young keeps his word, and plans to share his half between his crew and other runners. By his own count, he said, he would be left with about five dollars. Ken Redford confirms it: he insisted on sharing with his crew.