The Ultramarathon Shuffle: How a 61-Year-Old Potato Farmer Won a 544-Mile Race

1 Cor 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

In 1983, a slow, scrawny 61-year-old Australian potato farmer named Cliff Young entered the first Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon. The distance was 544 miles. You read that right – 544 miles. Check the map below. The prize was $10,000.

 From the outset, it seemed highly unlikely that Young would even cross the finish line, let alone in first place. Rather than wearing light, cool, sleek running clothes, he showed up in work boots and overalls. For the race itself, he put on a cotton t-shirt and long pants. He explained that he dressed this way to lessen his risks of skin cancer. The other runners, who were much younger and dressed in the latest Nike, Reebok, and Adidas running gear, made fun of him. The race officials were worried that Cliff might die of a heart attack.

To make matters worse, Cliff Young didn’t actually run in the race. Instead, he had a strange, slow running stride resembling a shuffle. So, when the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon began, Young quickly fell behind and seemed on track to finish last, if at all.

But everything changed the first night of the race. In fact, by dawn on the second day, Young had a massive lead.

Young’s trainer, Wally Zeuschner, was part of the reason. Because of his poor eyesight, Zeuschner mistakenly set the alarm for 2 a.m., several hours earlier than the planned wakeup call. When the alarm rang, Young leaped up and started out. It took the groggy racer some time to realize that it was still dark. However, that was just the beginning.

By running while the others slept, Young took the lead the first night and maintained it for the remainder of the race. The next day he ran nonstop for 23 hours, pausing to sleep for only one hour. Running with virtually no sleep for the entire race, Cliff crossed the finish line 10 hours ahead of the next finisher. He had covered 544 miles in 5 days, 15 hours, and 4 minutes— the equivalent of almost four marathons a day— shattering the previous race record by more than two days. His style became officially known as the "Cliff Young Shuffle," and it has been imitated by other athletes in their own marathon runs.

Of course, that kind of long-range stamina did not come simply from Young’s trainer, but from Young’s own life experiences. Before the race began, he explained in an interview, “I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or tractors. And the whole time I was growing up, whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres. Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d always catch them.”

“I believe I can run this race.”And so he did. Imagine his relief!

By the way, Young had already decided that he would share the $10,000 prize money with his fellow runners. In that way, though he wanted to win, he wanted all his "competitors" to share the victory.

You may be curious about Young’s diet. An avid vegetarian, Young explained how eating grains and fruit powered his runs. “The secret to a long life is preserved pears and jogging,” Young told the Sydney Morning Herald. “It sure beats having a drink in the pub.”

Young also had advice for fellow older runners. “Get out of your wheelchairs and start doing a few laps, if you can,” he told the New Vegetarian and Natural Health magazine. “If you don’t get any exercise, your joints start seizing up like a rusty engine.”

Source: https://allthatsinteresting.com/cliff-young

So, how's your race progressing? Are you winning? Running to win the Christian race means …

Faith is more important than appearance, age, weight, muscles, height, or speed!

Direction is more significant than acceleration!

Remembering the cloud of witnesses, laying aside sin and weights, keeping our eyes on Jesus and his race, and persevering until the end. Heb 12:1-3

Following the rules of the race. 1 Cor 9:24-27; 2 Tim 2:5

Refusing to let others hinder us or cut in on us. Gal 5:7

Fighting the good fight, keeping the faith, and finishing the course. 2 Tim 4:7-8

Forgetting what lies behind, and pressing forward to what lies ahead. Phil 3:12-14

Determining to finish, even at the cost of our lives. Acts 20:24

 

 

 

 

Galatians 6 - Doing Good, for Christ and the Cross

Here are the slides from our study of Galatians 6. At some point I hope to post the slides from the first four chapters of Galatians. For other posts in this series, check the label, "Galatians - No Other Gospel!"

 

 

 

 

Galatians 5 - Living by the Spirit, not by the Flesh

Here are the slides from our recent study. At some point I hope to post the slides from the first four chapters of Galatians. Check the label, "Galatians - No Other Gospel!"

Of Apes and Men: Are You Pulling My Tail?

While checking the forecast on accuweather.com, I was surprised to find, on a weather site no less, an article entitled, “Why don’t humans have tails? Scientists find answers in an unlikely place.” (The article, posted 3/25/2024, was written by Mindy Weisberger of CNN. I have posted the link below.)

Frankly, I had never asked this question! I thought I knew the answer! Was I missing something? Maybe a tail? I was curious.

One’s verdict regarding the Genesis account brings inevitable consequences. Other questions and answers inevitably follow. Based on the Genesis record, which I (and many scientists) hold to be true, it’s super easy to explain and understand why human beings do not have tails.

We never had tails! God made man as a separate creation, from the dust of the earth. Man is not a glorified, improved, evolved ape. Period.

However, those who deny the Genesis account desperately seek to find another mechanism by which life as we know it came to be. As a result, there are countless unanswerable questions which emerge.

Where are our tails, friends?

Great apes have tails. Human beings do not. This is a problem for the evolutionist, who had presupposed that apes’ tails evolved because tails were beneficial mutations. (The article cited below will acknowledge this.) Therefore, apes with tails would have survived due to this added resource, while those that did not would have perished. Survival of the fittest, you know.

So how did evolution become de-evolution? Why don’t human beings have tails?

This is a huge challenge. Unbelieving scientists have spent countless hours, time, and money to discover the answers to this crisis. According to the article’s title, they found “answers” – real answers, not ideas, theories, or possibilities. How? By going to “an unlikely place.” Hmmm … That has you wondering where they went, how they got there, and how they could be sure that these were the actual answers.

At the top of the web page there is a photo of monkeys. The caption reads, “Tails are useful in many ways, but — unlike these vervet monkeys pictured in Lake Mburo National Park in Uganda — humans’ closest primate relatives lost the appendages about 25 million years ago.” There is no footnote or source cited to prove this statement.

The reason for the loss of our tails is said to be a case of “gene jumping.” “Jumping genes” are genetic sequences capable of switching their location in the genome and triggering or undoing mutations.

The article states in part:

Tails are useful for balance, propulsion, communication and defense against biting insects. However, humans and our closest primate relatives — the great apes — said farewell to tails about 25 million years ago, when the group split from Old World monkeys (Again, no evidence of this claim is provided. It’s a “given” to the writer of this CNN article.). The loss has long been associated with our transition to bipedalism, but little was known about the genetic factors that triggered primate taillessness.

Now, scientists have traced our tail loss to a short sequence of genetic code that is abundant in our genome but had been dismissed for decades as junk DNA, a sequence that seemingly serves no biological purpose. They identified the snippet, known as an Alu element, in the regulatory code of a gene associated with tail length called TBXT. Alu is also part of a class known as jumping genes, which are genetic sequences capable of switching their location in the genome and triggering or undoing mutations.

Study coauthor Itai Yanai is a professor with the Institute for Systems Genetics and Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. This “expert” admitted that this “jumping-gene answer” was “astounding.” He said, “I think it’s astounding that one Alu element — one small, little thing — can lead to the loss of a whole appendage like the tail.”

Astounding indeed! And how did a “jumping gene” – just one – in one of our “primate ancestors” – just one – lead to the loss of tails in all – yes, all – great apes and human beings from that point forward?

Another admission – a very honest one – came from the lead study author Bo Xia, a research fellow in the Gene Regulation Observatory and principal investigator at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Xia said, “The more I study the genome, the more I realize how little we know about it,” Xia said.

In our current social and cultural climate, unproved humanistic assumptions about origins are stated and affirmed in biology, chemistry, genetics, paleontology, and a host of other sciences. We who believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word of God must continue to ask …

“Are you pulling my tail?”

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/why-dont-humans-have-tails-scientists-find-answers-in-an-unlikely-place/1634668