Nedd Brockmann’s incredible run left him shocked at how hard it was, but it was the price he was willing to pay

It’s been two weeks since the world was enthralled by the astonishing achievement of Australian Nedd Brockmann.

The former sparky-turned unlikely endurance runner put his body on the line by running 1,000 miles, or 1,600km, in 12 days 13 hours and 45 seconds.

Incredibly, he did so by running around the track at the Sydney Olympic Park athletic centre in Homebush — a barely-comprehensible 3,760 laps.

If that sounds hard, then it was.

“I had no fun on this one,” Brockmann told the ABC Sport Daily podcast.

“Like, at least I had a bit of fun on the Oz run [from Perth to Sydney in 2022]. 

“This one was just not fun at all, and I’m yet to even process what the hell just happened. I’m still in shock.”

To the surprise of nobody, Brockmann’s body is now paying the price for his efforts: “It’s Pete Murray, seen better days.”

However, the 25-year-old said that he was well on the road to recovery now.

“It’s the price I was willing to pay,” Brockmann said.

“Whatever happened, happened. I’m OK. I’m finally sleeping properly … but that was always part of it.”

The extraordinary toll running for this amount of time takes would give most people pause for thought.

Not Brockmann, for whom the rewards are well worth the risk.

“Well, a) there’s good surgeons,” Brockmann said with only the slightest hint of mischievousness in his voice. 

“And b) the life I live and the intensity in which I go about it pales into comparison to not spending my life doing the hard thing, and motivating and inspiring people and raising money.

“If I get to 60 [years old] and I’ve done all the things I wanted to to, I’d prefer that then have the longevity to get to 90.

“The trade off for maybe bad knees or bad ankles or a pretty cooked mental state is the fact that I’ve done these pretty wild things and we’re over $7 million raised over the last two-and-a-half years for a charity [Mobilise] that does incredible work with homelessness.

In 2022, Brockmann burst into the public’s consciousness by running the width of Australia, from Cottesloe Beach in Perth to Bondi in Sydney, a coast-to-coast challenge of epic proportions. 

That run, in which he traversed the 3,800km in just 47 days, raised over $2.5 million for Mobilise, helping the charity deliver a scholarship program for those experiencing homelessness.

This second challenge was a part of Brockmann’s contribution for Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge, where people are urged to choose a challenge that makes them uncomfortable and stick with it for 10 days straight.

The original aim was for Brockmann to complete the 1,600km distance inside 10 days, which would have been a world record, and something he was on track for before his body simply started breaking down.

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“I got to day five and hit 800k[m], so I wasn’t off it then. [But] I had a chest infection, my toes were infected, I hadn’t slept for five days and I’m laying in bed, indecisive, not knowing what the hell to do,” he admitted.

“I wanted to sleep but I was a bit like a wounded dog, I still need to get this record and that is obviously at the expense of your health and your well being, and there’s people around me watching me fall into this almost unreturnable abyss.

“It kind of, at that moment, it was scary hitting 800ks.”

With all the challenges Brockmann was facing, he still carried on. That’s just what he does.

“I’d set this massive goal, but I think the thing about it is … for me it’s about showing people you can reach for the stars but, in never giving up … I think there’s something way more powerful than any breaking of a record,” he said.

“I always pride myself on my ability to keep showing up and I’m forever proud that I still got 12 days and 13 hours — it wasn’t a small feat. 

“I’m the fastest person ever to run 1,000 miles since I’ve been alive. 

“I’m forever grateful for how that it ended up. And yeah, I think it happened the way it was meant to.”

Breaking records and achieving incredible feats of endurance has made Brockmann a household name, a minor celebrity for a nation that loves nothing more than relatable heroes — particularly ones with an easily identifiable mullet.

Brockmann said the fame that has accompanied his two endurance feats has been difficult to handle at times, an uncertain and double-edged by-product of his fundraising efforts.

“That wasn’t the reason I took this run on,” Brockmann said of being recognised.

“I never intended to become a, I guess, somewhat of a household name. It’s not something you can ever get used to. 

“I never take the words of positivity [from people] as gospel, because there’s also a lot of negativity in people.”

That negativity can impact even the strongest-willed individuals, meaning Brockmann has had to turn to others for advice on how to handle it.

“You can have 99 people tell you you’re great and then one person tell you they can’t stand you … and that’s the one we’re hardwired to listen to,” he said.

“You’re never gonna have everyone that loves you. That’s life. You don’t like everyone, so why would everyone like you? But if you can be yourself, those people who do love you will love you so viciously and ferociously that it doesn’t matter.

“Anyone who’s doing less than you are the ones who are commenting or saying bad things about you, so if you just view it as, well this person is sad and miserable and it’s not my problem, it’s a direct reflection of them, then life’s pretty sweet.

“I’m just glad I’ve got to this point where I can see it for that and not think it’s an attack on me, because it’s just not.”

It is still too soon after his extraordinary feat in Sydney for Brockmann to have given any thought as to what his his next challenge may be.

That’s understandable — Brockmann admitted that by training for these endurance events he has to be “incredibly selfish” and that it is hard for him to build and even maintain relationships when he has such tunnel vision towards a goal.

Perhaps, having completed two extraordinary feats, there are no more mountains to summit.

But if Brockmann does lace the trainers back up — once his feet have shrunk back down to normal size that is — it wont be to chase the high of completing such a goal.

It will be to raise more money for worthy causes. 

“I think the euphoria comes from the internal, it doesn’t come from external validation,” Brockmann said.

“I have more euphoria seeing $4 million getting raised on that website than I could of any athletic endeavour I ever do.

“Even this, the 1,000 mile, the lack of euphoria was what was stunning because of how much pain I was in, I genuinely thought I’d finish and just be ecstatic, but I was in shock. I just spent three hours staring at my feet when I finished because I was just so perplexed at how hard it was. 

“But even now I’m sitting back going, ‘how the hell did I do that? Like, wow.’ 

“That’s the cool part.”