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When the rest of the field woke up the one morning and saw the tiny shadow of a 61 year-old man shuffling along a few dozen miles down the road ahead of them, they realized they were in trouble. Cliff Young, an overalls-clad sexagenarian potato farmer who had previously been diagnosed with arthritis in most of his leg joints (he claimed he'd "ran it out… like running the rust off an old car") was beating the best athletes in the world – men more than half his age – in a sport that was exclusively dependent upon pushing the human body to the limits of its physical ability.

Surviving in hot chocolate and cups of water, Cliff Young shuffled down the highway for five days, fifteen hours, and four minutes straight. The media hype surrounding his ridiculous tortoise-and-the-hare bullshit was so intense that when Young jogged to the finish line in Melbourne he was greeted by TV cameras and a screaming horde of cheering fans.

He'd broken the all-time record for the Westfield Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon. By two days. When he got the check for ten thousand dollars, he told the organizers he wasn't actually aware there was a prize for winning. Then he said he felt bad that he should get the prize money when everyone else worked just as hard as him, so he divided the ten grand equally among all the participants in the race.

Cliff Young became a celebrity in Australia overnight. Six-Day races were named after him. He married a 23 year-old Aussie babe with daddy issues (they divorced five years later… shocking, I know). Athletic trainers started studying his running style, eventually deciding that while it looked ridiculous, the "Young Shuffle" was actually one of the most efficient ways to travel while conserving the most energy – three other athletes used the technique to win the race in subsequent years.

Young continued running, setting six outdoor world endurance records despite the notable handicap of being basically old as hell. At the age of 63 he ran 150 miles in a 24 hour period. In 1997 he tried to circumnavigate Australia to raise money for disadvantaged homeless orphans, but the 76 year-old had to drop out after just 6250 kilometers (3,800 miles, or roughly the distance from Key West, FL to Whistler, BC) when his only crew member (a trainer who, by the way, was making this trip in a car) passed out from illness. In 2000, at age 79, he became the oldest man to finish a six-day Ultramarathon, and he did it while he was dying of cancer. He passed away in November 2003, at the age of 81, still running his family farm. He had run over 20,000 kilometers during his racing career. It is said that never kept any of his prize money, instead donating it to charities or giving it to friends as gifts.

He competed without his false teeth because they rattled when he ran.