Australia is about to be obsessed with Nedd Brockmann again as insane map emerges
Two years after he won the hearts of Australia, one man is attempting a completely bonkers new challenge that will blow your mind.
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Strap yourselves in Australia, today is the day Nedd Brockmann embarks on another bonkers running quest to break a world record.
Two years ago, Brockmann captured the hearts of the nation on his bid to run across Australia faster than anyone had done before.
He averaged more than 80km per day on the near-4000km run that began in Perth and ended at Bondi Beach where the electrician from central west NSW was welcomed by thousands of supporters.
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Brockmann ran from Perth to Sydney in 46 days, an incredible effort for a man without an athletic background.
He fell short of the record but became an overnight sensation as Aussies followed along his journey — Brockmann’s Instagram posts and Strava maps became appointment viewing during Covid times.
In the two years since, Brockmann has been busy. The 25-year-old wrote a book called Showing Up, started his own chocolate milk brand and his sponsor Puma flew him to America to help in the development of their latest generation of high tech running shoes.
In the meantime, he’s kept on running.
On his first run, Brockmann raised $1.4 million for the homelessness charity We Are Mobilise.
Now Brockmann has a new running world record in his sights and even more audacious fundraising goal.
On Thursday, he sets off on a mission to attempt to break the world record for the fastest time to cover 1000 miles (1600km) on foot.
The current Guinness World Record stands at 10 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes and 36 seconds, set by Greek ultra marathon runner Yiannis Kouros in 1988.
That’s difficult enough, but Brockmann is adding a unique twist to the challenge. He will be doing his run around the track at Sydney Olympic Park’s athletics centre.
The venue that usually hosts school carnivals will witness a crazed man with a blond mullet running around in circles for 10 wild days. To break the record, Brockmann will need to run 403 laps of the Olympic park track per day.
A mini support village will be set up trackside to ensure Brockmann is fed, hydrated and motivated — and to help him recover as much as possible.
The start of a new challenge means Australia is about to become obsessed with Brockmann’s socials again.
In July he did a run of 160km around the running track. It took him 14 hours and produced a gloriously simple, thick orange oval shaped map on Strava.
If he can do that — run around four marathons per day, for 10 days in a row — he will make history.
Brockmann could be running for up to 20 hours per day and barely sleeping, something he got used to during his run across Australia.
“When I finally slumped onto the mattress, all I could feel was the pain of my battered limbs,” he writes in his new book Fire Up! (Simon & Schuster) out October 2.
“The confined space and my various cramps and muscular twinges meant that I couldn’t get comfortable in any position.”
Brockmann wants Australians to fully embrace his mantra of “live, give and get uncomfortable” by participating in ‘Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge’ from October 20-29.
It’s part of his mission to raise a mammoth $10 million dollars for people experiencing homelessness in Australia.
Whether it’s exercising, cooking a meal, learning a language, doing a good deed — whatever it may be — Brockmann wants Aussies to get out of their comfort zone.
“My whole world doesn’t revolve around my 100km time or my marathon time,” he told the Good Weekend Talks podcast earlier this year.
“Running is just the means in order to make change, raise awareness and get people uncomfortable.”
These challenges could be seen as extreme torture tests, as Brockmann explained in the documentary RUNN, available to stream on Kayo Sports.
“It felt like three f***ing kitchen knives going into my shin,” he recalled of the pain of running with multiple injuries.
“That’s the most pain I’ve ever been in.”
In his new book Fire Up! Brockmann reflects on the sheer insanity of the running challenges he sets himself.
“It’s not a good sign that this first hour of my day is proving far harder than expected,” he writes about the opening days of his run from Perth in 2022.
“In fact, truth be told, it’s excruciating.
“Having run a hundred kilometres yesterday, I’ve started out today with legs so stiff that I’m moving with all the grace of a shuffling corpse.
“Naively, I’d thought these early stages of the run would be straightforward.
“Sure, I knew that attempting to tackle this sort of distance was always going to be bloody tough. I knew this was an extreme challenge that would push my mind and body to the limit. Pain, I was grimly aware, was an inescapable part of the deal.
“Yet I’d assumed the first days would be fairly comfortable nonetheless...Unfortunately, that now looks like a rookie mistake.”
So does Nedd Brockmann actually like running?
“There’s an element of it being quite freeing, in that it’s quite pure,” he told the Good Weekend Talks podcast.
“A lot of people paint me as this tradie-mulleted-runner, whereas I just use (running) as a tool to feel the euphoric feeling I get from finishing.
“I am a runner in that I do run, but it doesn’t define who I am. It’s just part of my day to day that allows me to get uncomfortable and push myself.
“I think it’s similar to fighting — if you take it back years and years there’s nothing more primal than fighting. I think running is similar. We have two legs, arms — running in its purest sense I love.
“When you can remove the music and the watch, and go and run and get the heart rate up.
“I prefer to run alone. It’s my time to think...anything over 100km I’m answering all the big questions.”
Brockmann’s world record attempt will be streamed exclusively on TikTok Live.
Fans can watch by following @nedd.brockmann where they can share messages of support and donate directly to We Are Mobilise through the livestream.
Follow Nedd Brockmann on Instagram and Strava. Donate to his cause and sign up to Nedd’s Uncomfortable challenge here.
Paralympic legend ‘confident’ of breaking 50km treadmill world record
Another man attempting to break a Guinness World Record this week is Australian Paralympic basketball legend turned ultra runner Troy Sachs.
The 48-year-old won two Paralympic gold medals with Australia’s wheelchair basketball team, the Rollers, at Atlanta 1996 and Beijing 2008.
On Friday October 11 at the Aus Fitness Expo at Sydney’s ICC Darling Harbour, Sachs will attempt to break the 50km treadmill world speed record for amputees.
“The current record in 5 hours and 50 minutes, that’s the target,” Sachs told news.com.au.
“I wouldn’t be jumping on a stage on front of 25,000 people and partnering with the Aus Fitness Expo if I didn’t think I could break it.
“The running paces will vary. If I hold 6min40sec kilometres, I will end up getting 5 hours and 45 minutes.
“I’m very confident I’ll get the record. It’s not going to be easy but I’m confident I can get there.”
Like Brockmann running around a track, running on a treadmill poses its own difficulties.
“The challenge for me will definitely be sticking on the treadmill for that five-and-a-quarter hours, which is where I want to try and head,” Sachs said.
“Running with an artificial running blade or leg, it poses problems because of the pounding within the stump.
“Staying on the treadmill will be a challenge, because if I lose focus of where my foot is — my running blade is carbon fibre so it’s a loaded spring — it can shoot you off in different directions if you’re not placing your foot.”
An exercise therapist, Sachs has thrown himself into the world of ultra endurance events after helping a client train for a 100km run.
“I love the solitude and the training it takes to complete long distance runs like this,” he said.
“But running on a treadmill is a different beast.
“What I like about it is it’s an individual sport yet you can swept up in it by a group of individuals all trying to get the same distance.
“I just find it’s very therapeutic. Coming from the cut-throat world of wheelchair basketball, with the physically and it’s winning on a scoreboard.
“My mental shift happened in running, where winning is not about coming first, winning gold.
“Winning is about getting to the end with a certain time and then the challenge of putting your training programs together.
“For me, the ‘runner’s high’ comes with finishing a distance, enjoying the journey because you need to put the work in otherwise you’re not going to make the distance.
“I’d never run or done anything like that. I’m sort of one of the old guard that didn’t have the equipment that individuals with disabilities have now.
“The prosthetic legs and aids that we have now, are absolutely phenomenal and they allow people to do these sorts of things, whereas back in the 80s prosthetics were very basic with limited technology.”
He wants to “inspire the Australian public to get out and be active because our whole population is not active”.
Sachs wants to raise awareness and funds for the Ree Foundation, “to provide opportunities for people with disabilities to be physically active with their able bodied counterparts”.
“It all ties in with what the foundation is about,” he said.
“My mentality is to participate, to do your best and push your own limits.”
The Ree Foundation runs programs for sports including rockclimbing, canoeing, pickleball, and wheelchair basketball — “sports that people can participate in with their able bodied friends, family and siblings”.
Sachs said the “social mainstreaming of accessibility is not about toilets or parking spaces — it’s about having a person with a disability not getting a second look”.
“So when I walk down the street people aren’t shocked by my artificial leg or shocked if I’m in a wheelchair,” he said.
“We also need alternates to Paralympic sport. Not everyone with a disability has the skill, desire or physical attributes to be a Paralympian. But participating in movement is your human right.”
Support Troy Sachs by donating to the Ree Foundation here.
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