Man runs 2400 miles across Australia to raise $1.85 million for homeless charity

Now that he's finally home, Nedd Brockmann is feeling the full impact of his latest accomplishment. The 23-year-old pushed himself to the limit over the course of 46 days and 12 hours as he ran nearly 4,000 kilometers (2485 miles) across Australia to raise money for the homeless charity We Are Mobilise. "I'm feeling great, I'm just excited to be finally home, I'm feeling pretty exhausted obviously—as I would," Brockmann told ABC News Breakfast the morning after he arrived at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Monday to be welcomed by thousands of fans as he completed his incredible 3953 kilometer (2456 mile) journey.

"I'm chuffed, I'm elated, I'm tired, I'm everything. Just happy to be home," Brockmann said. "I love challenging my body and my mind to see how far I can actually go and see the capabilities of the human body. And in turn, using that to raise awareness for the issue of homelessness, which is something I want to help. And, yeah, it's more just, you know, seeing what I can actually do and pushing those barriers. I feel I have kind of, probably done that." This is not the first time Brockmann has pushed himself to raise money for charity. Back in 2020, he ran 50 marathons in 50 days and raised more than $100,000 for the Red Cross.

The cross-continent marathon has taken an immense physical toll on Brockmann. "It's funny, a lot of people ask what percentage is physical and mental — it's 100 percent physical and 100 percent mental," he said. "I started off, I didn't tell anyone, with some pretty sore knees and the pain was quite ferocious, but no one died from sore knees and I kept on trucking. By day eight, the knee pain went away and I got severe tendonitis in my shin muscle and it basically, I walked for two days, walked a marathon for one day, and the next, and said, 'we have to sort this out.' So, I drove a 28-hour round trip to Whyalla to get an MRI to get a cortisone injection times two to then come back and run 700k that next week."

"Yeah, it's been a whirlwind and it is just incredible what the body can withstand when the mind doesn't give in," the athlete added. "[The] blisters were no good, the feet just from the lack of grass and dirt, I was running on [tarmac] every single day, so just the smashing of the tar on the underneath of your feet, the fat pads are just copping it. Each night I could hardly walk to the bathroom to go to the toilet. So much pain, but as I said, I'm so glad to be done and get off them... Even my biceps, it's hard to straighten my arms because of the pain [from] just holding them up in the flex position all the time. All these things you don't think about." Since leaving Cottesloe Beach in Western Australia a little over a month ago to run across the continent, Brockmann has become a social media sensation with thousands cheering him on in his endeavor. This includes Australian of the Year and tennis champion Dylan Alcott, who said Brockmann "has real Australian of the Year vibes about him."

"[The support], it's great. But as I have always said, I'm an intrinsically motivated person," Brockman said. "All these external motivators, they're great but they don't get you through the Nullarbor when you're injured and everything is just in pain. I'm just grateful to have that support from everyone but, as I said, without that intrinsic motivation you won't get halfway through. To have that support from everybody like Dylan Alcott and Hamish Blake and Matty J and all these guys, it was monumental in helping me to get me across the line and [the crowd] at Bondi especially was out of this world."