Kouros Keeps It Humming Along

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday May 19, 1989

By PETER FITZSIMONS

"He can't POSSIBLY be this far south ... ," snorted the Herald driver, "... not unless he's on roller skates."

He was, and he wasn't.

Just as our little Broadway posse was despairing of ever roping in the Greek ultra-marathon runner Yiannis Kouros, up ahead in the gloom we spied by the side of the road what looked to be a small runaway ferris wheel, ambling slowly forward.

Sure enough, squarely in the middle of all the flashing lights, was the man himself, motoring south at the "That's Incredible |" rate of 13 km/h.

And it really was incredible. Knowing that he had started at 11 o'clock the night before, we had done our calculations and figured him to be probably just south of Campbelltown. Instead, we found that Mittagong had already fallen to his scything run, and Marulan was about to go. "Woddaguy," we thought.

"We're from the Herald |" I gushed out the car window to his support van. "Big deal. Nick off."

Persistence paid off though, and 10 minutes later I was running alongside arguably the only person on the planet capable of running from Sydney to Melbourne in five days and a bit.

"Running" being definitely the operative word.

This was no Cliff Young shuffle or Tony Rafferty trundle. Kouros clips along at a pace worthy of a suburban jogger. And so we went. Up hill, down dale, through the Southern Tablelands of NSW. The first rays of the sun hit us, cars honked and drivers yelled encouragement. Behind us the support vehicle blared out the top 40 of the Greek hit parade while, unbelievably, Yiannis hummed along.

Alerted by the din, somnolent cows occasionally lifted their heads, snorted, and then rolled their eyes in that infuriatingly superior fashion of theirs.

But did we care what they thought? Hah | Yiannis and I left them to eat our dust.

Soon a silent figure from behind ran up beside us to give Kouros a water bottle, while I composed my first Deeply Probing Journalistic Question.

Though I feared a language problem, there was none. The four words he spoke to me were in perfect English.

Thus, to my first DPJQ - "Are you tired?" - he replied, "Yes, I am tired."

You would never have known it. Though he had now been running non-stop for over seven hours, a blowfly could have died of thirst from the meagre pickings of moisture on his forehead. With his torso absolutely straight and arms almost motionless, practically the only energy his body was expending was from the waist down where oak-tree thighs drove his piston-like legs rhythmically forward. Minimum movement, maximum efficiency.

I, by contrast, was starting to suffer.

While there was still time I managed to gasp out my second DPJQ: "What do you think about when you run?"

With an impatient flick of his hand and some Greek, I was made to understand that whatever he was thinking about, it certainly wasn't me or my puerile questions, and that was that. End of interview.

Up hill and down dale. But where, oh where, were the dales?

By now a cow could have watered off my own forehead, let alone a blowfly, and my heart was palpitating to the beat of some wild African wail.

From hours of reading running literature I knew what was happening. I had hit "The Wall". Muscle meltdown. Deek had been there. Monaghetti knew it like the back of his hand. And now I was there.

Instead of gritting my teeth and pushing through it, though, I made what I now view to be a singularly heroic decision. I knew that if I got through The Wall and came through the other side, I would still be the worse for it and would inevitably slow the Greek down.

I couldn't do it to him. Way better that he push on to Melbourne on his Pat Malone and leave me to take my chances.

Thus, carefully, so as not to alarm him, I said, perhaps a little deliriously, "I am going outside and should be some time".

Whereupon I gurgled and cartwheeled off into the nearest roadside ditch.

Yiannis sailed on.

Even as you read.