Now, Cliff was a really good and honest man.
He liked to paddle his own canoe.
He used to often say, I'll paddle my own canoe and I don't owe anyone.
I'll never owe anyone and always pay my own way.
He never did anything to hurt or upset and he always spoke well of everyone.
Even when others would say someone was a down and out or something, he wouldn't say
anything
bad about them, that's a very good example to other children to live your life like
that.
He showed great determination, particularly in this famous marathon.
As a kid, he was always running.
It was the only mode of transport that they had back then.
He was the only boy and the oldest boy, so he always had the job of running and
getting
the cows and they were spread out over a paddock.
He ran to school, ran home to a school, ran to dodge the rain, so he ran a lot.
We'd always see him at least jogging but never walking.
When he was 61, he showed up in Sydney, Australia for a race that's 850 kilometres
and everyone there is like 20 to 30-year-old.
It's an extreme race, a six and a half day race
and they're all dressed in a Nike, Puma, A6, Reebok running gear.
They're all looking young and fit and he's a 61-year-old guy wearing Oshkosh
overalls,
a T-shirt, a baseball cap, construction boots and galoshes because he thought it
might rain.
Someone started talking to him, oh man, what are you doing here?
I'm running the race.
You ever run a race before?
Nope.
You're starting with a six and a half day race.
Yep.
Why?
When it's free on the schedule, I always wanted to run a race.
What makes you think you can do this?
Have you ever run a marathon?
Nope.
Have you had any training or work for the coach?
No.
Well, I'm a farmer and I have to chase my animals around because I don't have a
tractor
or a horse.
I heard them sometimes when storms are coming in, so I have to run over and get the
cows
and I might be out there for 24 hours.
I think I can run.
When the race started, the runners all took off, we were really fast, and there's
Cliff
shuffling along at a slow jog, but Cliff had an advantage that nobody knew.
Cliff had never had a coach, never talked to an elite runner or understood anything
about
long distance running.
He'd never read a book on running or read runners' world, and so he didn't know
you're supposed
to run for 18 hours and sleep for six.
So that night, everyone was so far ahead of him they were already in bed, which he
didn't
know.
Therefore, he just ran right past them, suddenly he was well out in front and the
whole
nation sort of flocked to him and wheeled him to keep going.
Anyway, a lot of people went to Melbourne to see him come in, me included, and his
mum
was amazed that this little boy who grew up in the bush could be so popular in
Melbourne
and could achieve so much with just pure guts and determination.
Cliff ran nonstop for five and a half days without sleeping, won the race and broke
the record
by 12 hours at 61 years of age.
A little known fact about Cliff is his interest in poetry.
He had a school exercise book and it was probably half full of Cliff's poems, some
of them
very interesting.
I haven't read all of them, but I've read quite a few, and they're interesting
poems,
you know?
They could pass as Banjo Patterson's, some of them.
