Kevin Milne: The Dead Cow Gully Backyard Marathon

The Dead Cow Gully Backyard Marathon in Queensland is not for the faint of heart. 

Billed as a race with no finish line, the Backyard Ultra format has no predefined length or time, but requires runners to complete a 6.7km loop every hour. 

Kevin Milne was following the race, and thinks it's a good thing he didn’t manage to get his entry in on time.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be Kevin mill Is here to kick us off
for our Saturday again.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Kevin, thank you Jack. How many millions did you say?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Eighty eighty two?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Is?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I think is a sort of a rough estimate.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Yeah. Yeah, he probably your fine mind into working out
how you might be able to spend that over on
a wedding.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
I mean you would have to buy half a city. Yeah,
I mean I presume that, I presume he's he's I
think he's booked out some hotels and accommodation for his
for his guests, So I don't think the guests will
be paying for their own accommodation. There's a bit of
that I can't I can't imagine he'll just be op
shopping his suit. But yeah, I mean, yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
The.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Catering, I don't know. It is it does it? When
you when you put it like that, it is. Yeah.
I can imagine it would be quite tricky to actually
spend that.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's absolutely obscene in my anyway, you've been you've.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Been turning your attention to something that I don't think
would have been up besils Early this week you've been
thinking about Dead Cow Gully.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
I've always wanted to compete in the backyard ultramarathon at
Dead Cow Gully, eleven k north of Nanango in Queensland.
You may have heard of it. It's a last man
standing race with no finish line. Runners must complete a
six point seven killing me to loop every hour. They

(01:38):
can nap between loops. If they run the loop faster
than in an hour, the race is over when there's
just one runner left. And I wanted that runner to
be me Jack, but I didn't get my entry in
on time anyway, without me, a field of two hundred
and sixty three runners set off at seven am last Saturday,

(02:03):
Love Saturday and before we were talking a week ago,
and the final two runners were still running on Thursday.
One of them was a key we Sam Harvey. He
got injured early in the race, which meant instead of
getting a ten minute sleep between loops, he was running
slower loops and not getting any sleep at all. By Thursday,

(02:24):
Sam and a Nossie called Phil Gore were the last
two standing. They had run almost eight hundred kilometers and
five days. That's Auckland dwellings. By this stage, Sam Harvey
had already broken the New Zealand record for the distance,
and whoever was going to run the longest was now

(02:44):
sure to break the world record. But after completing one
hundred and eighteen loops six point seven kay eaight the key,
we lost the ability to run. He stumbled down the
course before collapsing to the ground, delirious and in pain.
Yozzi went on to complete the one hundred and nineteenth lap,

(03:06):
winning the race and taking the world record. They say,
don't they, Jack Ands, for coming second is worse than
coming last. Surely that can't be truer that in the
Dead Cow Gully Backyard Ultramarathon, which I mustn't miss next year.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah. Yeah, well look there's no better time, Kevin, surely
than to get in your race entry right now while
we're all on there listening to you. You could do
it right now.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
I think that the senior event actually which seems extraordinary.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
It is just remarkable, isn't it what our species is
actually capable of doing. I mean, I personally do not
see the attraction in the ultramarrathon, but it is like
to think the distance from Auckland to Wellington, that is
just absurd that people are able to do that. It

(04:02):
reminds me every year in New York they have this
thing called the Self Transcendence Race, which is I think
it's about five thousand kilometers they race, but they just
race around one city block or like a sports field basically,
so that the topography never changes. It's just the same thing.
But it's not six point seven kilometers long. It's just

(04:22):
you know, yeah, a few hundred meters long, and they
just go round and round and round and round for
weeks on end. They can have we naps and sleeping things,
but they just go round around for weeks on end.
And as the name the Self Transcendent Race suggests, it's
all about self transcendence. But yeah, I don't know. I
think maybe I'm just happy not to transcend.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
The energy of these people are not turned to something
just slightly more useful, like going out and mowing some
old persons lawns, well people's lawns.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
In a week, you could you could, I prefer to
direct my ir at billionaires than these people. I mean,
imagine imagine doing something like that. Though you know, good
traveling eight hundred kilometers six point seven k's every hour,
there surely can be few challenges that come up in
life that you wouldn't feel somewhat equipped for. Right if
you can get through that, if you can play the

(05:14):
mental game to drive yourself forth five days in when
you're desperately tired, I mean, imagine what you you know,
Imagine that the things that you could achieve.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
I just to run, Jack. You used to always dream
of fitting the tape at the end. But there is
no tape and you don't know whether the person running
next you could run forever. And I think that must
be deeply depressing.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, yeah, well said. Hey, thanks so much, Givin. Appreciate
your time this morning, and thank you so much for
you for.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
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