You like what I like

Because I think you like what I like, I want to show you a new favorite person I like and here's his picture:

There are a lot of things I like about this fella named Cliff. First, he's from Australia and all girls like a man with an accent. He was raised on a sheep ranch so we know he's not afraid of a little hard work.  What I really like about Cliff is that when he was 61 (I don't like him LIKE THAT) he entered what I like to call a foot race.  He showed up to the registration for a 543 mile foot race... WAIT - let's do some explaining here. It turns out that there ARE really people (and it's been verified that they are not robots) called elite runners who think it's a good idea to run ridiculously long distances in ridiculously short amount of time and we could talk all day about how a person gets into that, but that's not the point.  See, there are a lot of things I don't like about running, but I do know a lot of folks who love it and I understand why, really, I do, but the worst part of running to me has always been that I get so lonesome (I don't want to run WITH you either, so let's just move past you trying to get me addicted to your running) out there putting one foot forward after another. What you need to focus on here is our 61 year old farmer friend named Cliff who showed up in overalls and workboots to run the 543 mile foot race with the full understanding of what it was he was agreeing to undertake.  All smiles and nods he quickly takes the last position in the race with a laughable running shuffle.  As you can imagine, all the jokes and disbelief that most underdogs face applied to Cliff in the beginning of this race.  I was hooked on the story immediately for this reason.

Most runners in that race run about 18 hours and then sleep for 6 and then run for another 18 and sleep for 6 and just keep doing that until they stumble across the finish line 543 miles away. And not many of them actually get there.  This was in 1983 and at that time the record was over 6 days.  So the runners wake up on day 2 and old Cliffie is a little closer to the pack because GUESS WHAT?  HE DIDN'T SLEEP.   When you live and work on a 2000 acre sheep ranch sometimes you have to herd the sheep yourself for a few days at a time and that means you don't get to sleep.  So he just keeps running and running and not sleeping and (can you see what's coming?) GUESS WHO DAMN WINS THE RACE?

Yep. The 61 year old Cliff Young in overalls and boots who never entered a race before beats the record by 2 days. Turns out he didn't know there was a $10,000 prize so he gave it to the five guys behind him. I guess he thought they looked like they could use a pick me up after all that running and losing.

Now I love an underdog story as much as you do and we can talk about that and we can also talk about perseverance and the value of determination if you want. I like to be reminded of both of those things, but what I really found myself focused on after I first heard of him was how lonesome he must have been running through those nights.  I tried to imagine the depth of loneliness and determination he must have felt.  I wondered if he felt a sort of cosmic abandonment during that time.  I thought for a few days about Cliff and considered what it must have felt like to be that exhausted and all alone out there with full knowledge that no one at the race even believed he'd finish. I imagine he must have thought a lot about God and about his life and the people he loved or the people he'd not thought much of lately (because you've got a LOT of time to think when you are running for 5 days straight) and maybe about the regrets he had and the things he'd like to learn. I bet he missed someone too and I bet he was lonesome putting one tired boot in front of the other for so long.

I'm not sure why I spent so much time thinking of that word "lonesome" and about Cliff's foot race.  I did some more research because I was so intrigued. I discovered an article where someone did ask Mr. Young how he did it. He didn't mention any of the things I thought he would.  He didn't talk about pondering God and his regrets and the exhaustion of spirit that accompanies that kind of undertaking.  He just said he pretended that he was herding sheep. So while the underdog story is still a good one and perseverance is still something to investigate,  I guess my new lesson to myself is that sometimes we think people would do or think what we would do or think, but it turns out they don't. Cliff Young died in 2003 at age 83 and he never mentioned that he was lonesome.