Today is June 19 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you remind yourself that your way of doing something is right for you?”
At 61 years of age, Cliff Young, an Australian potato farmer with a desire to run a long-distance race, decided to enter the Sydney to Melbourne Ultra Marathon, an 875 kilometre (544 mile) race in 1983.
The race organizers, worried about his health, asked if he'd ever run a long-distance race before. He said no. They asked him what made him think he could run this race and he said, "I'm a farmer. Once I spent three days running non-stop with no sleep, rounding up my sheep before a major storm came in, so I think I can do this."
They didn't want to let him enter, but finally acquiesced, and when everyone took running fast, Cliff ran slowly.
Young didn't know he was supposed to run for 16 hours and sleep for 8, and repeat that process to the end, so when everyone went to sleep he was so far behind no one was awake to tell him to go to bed, and they were up and gone before he got there.
This went on for two days, but on the third day, while everyone was sleeping, Cliff ran by them again, with no one telling him to sleep.
He claimed afterwards that during the race, he imagined he was running after sheep and trying to outrun a storm. The Westfield run took him five days, 15 hours and four minutes, almost two days faster than the previous record for any run between Sydney and Melbourne.
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche noted "You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist."
Young ran the ultramarathon the way that was right for him. How often do you remind yourself that your way of doing something is right for you?
This Navigate the Chaos post is part of the Stand category that includes the following entries: