Nice Guys Finish Last: Get on board with Mackenzie Burgoyne’s record-breaking Bibbulmun Track run attempt

“See if you can beat me to the end.” An eight-lane, 100m track had been freshly painted onto the turf at our local park and the 11-year-old was up for the challenge. I wasn’t. Two knee operations, a dodgy back, and, well, the general physical malaise that comes with middle age, has robbed my step of any spring. But I gave it a crack anyway, sounding (and looking) like a walrus with bronchitis. A week’s worth of swollen knees was throbbing proof that my body is less a temple and more a kebab house at a low-rent casino. Mackenzie Burgoyne is cut from very different cloth. This bloke and I are about as different as two organisms can be whilst still belonging to the same species. He’s a physical specimen and a natural runner. He is also a perennial loser. They’re his words, not mine. Macka, as he is known, seems to always come second. As a personal trainer he is very good at getting other people to achieve their fitness goals but he’s been unable to do the same for himself. It’s a bit like how a painter’s house often looks shabby and a mechanic’s car runs rough. The 29-year-old narrowly missed out on becoming a professional soccer player in the US and failed to summit Argentina’s Aconcagua. He thought he’d broken the podium hoodoo when he set the fastest time for running the Cape-to-Cape Track in the South West. His record stood for less than a month. Always second for Macka. I’d take second in anything in a heartbeat. Then again, I’m a “51 per cent is one per cent too much” kind of guy. I aspire to minimum viable product; Macka doesn’t. Not taking gold has been grinding his gears and in a couple of weeks he is going to try to redeem himself in spectacular (and to my mind foolish) style by running the entire length of the Bibbulmun Track. He wants to break the world record, which is a shade under 11 days. To put that in context, experienced hikers struggle to walk the trail — which extends 1000-odd km from Albany to Kalamunda — in under six weeks. I’d be lucky to do it in six months. And that accomplishment would require a team of Sherpas carrying me through most of the Wheatbelt. Macka doesn’t want to just break the record; he wants to smash it. He is aiming to complete the 1000km in just eight days. To do that he needs to run about 17 hours each day, completing the equivalent of three marathons in any 24-hour window. I feel I need a Voltaren just writing about it. To heap more pressure on himself, Macka has arranged to have his expedition filmed for a documentary which will (hopefully) be a triumph of the human spirit and one man’s determination to get up off the mat regardless of how badly he’s just been beaten. Or, it could immortalise him as a loser. A huge production team is going to document every second of Macka’s attempt to produce a documentary that will be called Nice Guys Finish Last. They’ll be running next to him as he takes off from Albany, and riding bikes in front of and behind him the whole way. If he trips (which he will, for the trail is not designed for runners), they’ll get it on film. If he weeps in frustration (I’d be doing that before I got to Mount Barker) they’ll be recording the sound of his cries. Producer Honny Palayuken reckons that win, lose or bail-out injured, Nice Guys Finish Last will be a cracking tale. After reading his synopsis, I’m inclined to agree. “If Macka succeeds, the documentary captures what that victory truly means, whether it brings fulfilments, affirms self-worth, or underlines the cost of chasing greatness,” Honny says. “If he fails, we follow the emotional fallout and the potential for unexpected growth, as he confronts his fears, his limitations and perhaps finding peace in letting go. “In either outcome, we have a compelling story about a man who either proves he’s more than his failures, or ultimately the sum of them. “Will he be the underdog who breaks the record? Or will the record break him? This is the kind of story I’d be tuning in for.” There is some business method behind Honny and Macka’s madness. Sports documentaries are very much in vogue. Stories about extreme physical feats — think Free Solo (a maniac attempts to climb the sheer face of Yosemite’s El Capitan without rope) and Facing Monster (a maniac attempts to surf the world’s heaviest and most dangerous waves) — are audience hits. I enjoy watching these shows while testing the limits of my own human endurance by drinking a six-pack and eating an entire family-sized meatlovers pizza by myself. We all need goals. If Nice Guys Finish Last does get some traction internationally it will be a hell of a tourism win because it will showcase the Bibbulmun Track, which winds its way through some truly spectacular scenery. At least it looks like it does in pictures I have seen; I couldn’t think of anything worse than walking the bloody thing, let alone run it.