Bleached blonde mullet flying, legs pumping, almost soaring with the news helicopters buzzing overhead, Nedd Brockmann was near the finishing line. There were people everywhere, dangling out of cars, pumping their fists, urging him on as police held back the traffic.
The crowds were a blur until, suddenly, Nedd caught sight of some familiar dreadlocks near Sydney’s Central Station. It was his homeless mate, Dave, whose plight first inspired the young electrician’s epic 2022 charity run from coast to coast across Australia. A “goosebumps” moment.
“Dave was just sitting where I’d met him three years before,” smiles Nedd, whose marathon effort raised $2.6 million to help put a roof over people’s heads. “We locked eyes and kind of saluted each other while I continued down the road that changed my life.
“It was quite symbolic, because that stretch of Eddy Avenue was where I’d made a connection with people who were homeless, just chatting and handing out coffee on my way to TAFE. I had to return to where it all started, to keep my feet on the ground and remind myself what it was all about – making a difference.”
Now, after 46-and-a-half days and around 4,000 kilometres, the end was at last in sight down the hill at Bondi Beach. He hadn’t broken the existing world record, due to crippling injury, but he had become the fastest ever Australian to complete the spectacular feat of endurance.
Nedd is farmer’s son
It was October 17, ’22, and Nedd had hit celebrity big time. The down-to-earth farmer’s son never set out to be famous, yet his name was on everybody’s lips, making international headlines. Not bad going for a tradie fuelled by meat pies, a passion for equality and bloody-minded determination to complete the job he’d started.
Today, aged 26, Nedd is an inspirational public speaker and author of two books, Showing Up and Fire Up. And now he is also NSW Young Australian of the Year. Looking forward, he is already planning his next big challenge. Looking back, he still shakes his head in disbelief.
“I can’t believe it,” he writes in Showing Up. “Who shuts down Bondi Beach? The Queen? Justin Bieber? But a kid from Bedgerabong? You’d never believe it. People are dashing in from everywhere. It seems to be no longer a question of if you want to go down and watch this character; it’s a case of, Get me there! Everyone’s lined up for me on the esplanade, chanting my name as though it’s a war cry.”
The humble, big-hearted tradie
Surely that must have been one gigantic ego buzz.
Not at all, says Nedd, who felt like an imposter when waiting fans went wild, swarming along the beachfront.
“It was amazing because it showed how many people were touched by the run and felt a part of it…” He pauses for thought.
“I wouldn’t want them to think I didn’t care, but none of that made it any more special. I really couldn’t give a rat’s if 10 people showed up, or 10,000, because I never did it for that reason. It was for bigger reasons, for inspiration, knowing I was giving and just seeing what I could do, regardless of what anyone thought of me.”
No risk of getting big-headed then?
“You know, my family are always going to keep my feet on the ground,” he grins. ”I’m still the same person – nothing different just because I ran across the country. We’re all equal; exactly the same. We all end up in the same ground.”
Still, there must be something singular about Nedd – and not just the idiosyncratic spelling of his name, which honours the family’s German heritage. After all, not every country kid from Forbes, in central west NSW, ends up running (sometimes shuffling) from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.
Where is Nedd Brockmann from?
Nedd was fiercely independent from his earliest days. Growing up a “responsible non-conformist” under the guidance of parents Ian and Kylie, on a farm outside Forbes, Nedd was already feeding himself unaided at 14 months old.
Aged six, he refused to “blubber” on a potholed drive to hospital, despite his severely broken and bleeding arm. “I could have complained and cried as much as I wanted to. But I didn’t,” he writes in Showing Up. “I wouldn’t have been able to explain it then, but my mind was already focused on feeding my body positive messages.”
At 11, he crashed the birthday motorbike he’d been given to help round up livestock. His front wheel hit a heap of wire on the ground, became horribly tangled and tossed him into a patch of khaki weed.
Other boys might have gone for adult help. Nedd simply marched to the shed, grabbed a pair of pliers and “unleashed my fury”, freeing the bike before riding off again. Meanwhile, his mum watched from the kitchen, frankly amazed.
Roaming the farm with big brother Logan and little sister Mabel – swimming in the dam, catching yabbies – Nedd enjoyed the priceless gift of freedom. Watching his father work dawn to dusk, enduring drought and hardship, he learned invaluable lessons about hard graft and resilience.
Nedd “showed up every day”
Admittedly not the smartest at school, nor the most gifted athlete, he was nevertheless determined to give everything his best shot, from tough exams to bruising games of rugby.
“What most people don’t realise is that I’m just a bloke who’s built a life on the principle of showing up every day,” Nedd explains. “Testing my limits and pushing myself is a ritual, something I hold sacred. These tests of willpower lift me up in the morning and force me to become present. They are tests that make me a better person.”
The biggest test of all, it turns out, proved to be distance running. Taking a gap year after school to assist his dad on the family property, he discovered the dawn magic of taxing his body way beyond its comfort zone.
Nedd started a pharmacy degree in Canberra, grew terrified of a dull and sedentary future, dropped out. Relocating to the big smoke of Sydney, he enrolled to train as an electrician at TAFE. And that was how, serendipitously, he discovered his mission to help people experiencing homelessness.
A mission to help people experiencing homelessness
Every Tuesday on the way to class, he would pass people sleeping rough around Central Station, trying to keep warm, their pitifully few belongings stacked in milk crates and shabby hold-alls. One day, he stopped to talk and met his mate, Dave. It proved to be a life-changing experience.
“To sit with our society’s most forlorn and hear their stories is to realise how little we know,” Nedd says passionately. “News reports reduce homelessness to statistics referenced in the same breath as alcoholism and drug use.
“We ignore the fact that anyone’s personal circumstances can change abruptly, and we prefer to blame the victim for bad choices and personal failures. We tend not to consider other possibilities, like an escape from domestic violence, sudden unemployment, unpayable medical bills, eviction.
“I have a safety net. If it all went to crap for me, I’d still have a bed, food, the opportunity of a job. Why can I have that when other people can’t? Why the inequality? That’s what frustrates me. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same chance of a good life. Homelessness is the great inequality.”
50 marathons in 50 days
Burning with the desire to help, Nedd came up with a plan combining his crusading zeal and love of fitness. Waking up one morning after a 100km run, in the blink of an eye he decided to complete 50 marathons in 50 days, raising money for people experiencing homelesness. What’s more, he vowed to do it while simultaneously working full-time as an apprentice sparkie.
As news of his endeavour spread on social media, other people came to jog along beside him in Sydney’s Centennial Park. And while he was running, he hatched a plan to run across the country to raise funds for a homelesness charity.
However, first Nedd had to undergo surgery to treat a damaged iliotibial (IT) band on his right leg, take time out to recover and complete months of rehab. It was like treading water, getting nowhere fast as his frustration built.
But Nedd did recover, and finally, on 1 September, 2022, he was off with a small support crew – including both his parents – aiming to run 100km daily to cross Australia in just 43 days.
None of them really knew what it would take to fuel the enterprise. Nor did they understand the devastating physical and mental toll this fresh challenge would exact.Nobody could have predicted the agonising road that lay ahead, fraught with injury, anguish, danger, despair and dedication.
As Nedd recalls, “We were not a well-oiled machine. It was a bloody crapshoot in which each of us just made our best guess at things.”
The day Nedd reached breaking point
On day 16, somewhere east of Madura on the Nullarbor’s scorching flatlands, he reached the brink of breaking point. The pain from an injured shin was intolerable. Road trains thundered past, too close, too fast. Sleep had deserted him for days. He was hungry, slightly feral, focused on one goal to the point of obsession.
Staring at defeat, he didn’t like the prospect. And he hated the fact that he was unloading on his nearest and dearest. Eventually, only his mother’s wisdom made him see they were all in this race together, as a team.
“I remember that day just being foul,” Nedd admits. “I thought I was getting nothing out of anyone, but they were just stepping on eggshells around me. Lucky there are no airports on the Nullarbor or I’m sure they would all have flown away.”
Nedd is grabbing each day
Home in Sydney, impossible achievement was inevitably followed by the low of wondering what came next. But rest assured, Nedd already has another goal in mind.
“It’s a sobering thought. If I keep pushing myself the way I have been, I’ll be lucky to make it to 55,” he confides. “The pursuit of challenges that blow people’s minds, that redefine what we think of as possible, is not a recipe for a long life.
“But here’s the thing: I’m not interested in preserving my body for those twilight years. I’d prefer to live large in my prime than get to 90 and think, ‘great, I’m still walking’.
“I know that I’m my best self when I’m nudging my limits, when I’m as tired as hell but still willing to go again, with a purpose behind my actions. I want to make great memories and help get people off the streets.
“What it comes down to is grabbing each day and making the most of it.”
