SUNDAY’S King of the Mountain will be the 40th running of the event and, remarkably, Kevyn Davis will be competing in his 39th.
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The Falls Creek stalwart has only missed one of the legendary races, simply known as “The King” and that was only through injury.
“I missed 2003, I think it was. I’d had surgery on my knee and there was no way I would be recovered in time to run,” he said.
“It near killed me not being able to run it. But I was an official instead.”
Kevyn’s first King was in 1976. He described it as an arduous event.
So why does he keep doing it?
“Why do mountain climbers climb mountains? Why do golfers play golf? Why do fishermen go fishing?” he said.
“You just do it and each to their own.
“Running is not for everyone, I’ve been lucky I was born scrawny. I’m the last of 12 kids, we all have good hearts, but cancer is rampant and I think that’s why I keep running.
“It’s a great sport – even though it is very individual, there is still a great camaraderie.
“You do get to see some incredible things. The other day I was running up around Budgong, all by myself, in the middle of nowhere and I came across six lyrebirds.
“You are only 15 minutes away from Nowra by car but it is so quiet and peaceful. It’s just magic.
“All runners do it for their own reasons – the elite do it to win, all us mediocre runners do it to finish.
“It’s a bit of your own personal satisfaction and achievement. The King is a challenge, that’s what I like about it. If you were looking to design a better course you couldn’t find anything better than this.
“The thrill you get out of having a good run or a good race result is incredible.
“It must be just like being on drugs – it’s a dead set high. You feel pumped up and feel like you could do it all again. They call it runners’ high.
“It’s hard to put into words how you feel about running. You see people running, their faces are contorted in pain and you wonder why?
“I just think why not?
“If I see a road, I like to know where it goes. Rather than drive it, I will run it.”
Deformity could not stop Kevyn from competing
THE fact Kevyn Davis can run at all is amazing.
Born with a deformed foot, with doctors removing his big toe and part of his foot as a baby, his parents were told he would never play sport, let alone run.
“The doctor apparently said he hoped I would be academic because I would never be able to run,” he said.
“I guess I showed him. I’m almost 70 and I’m still doing it.
“I wasn’t big enough for football, not strong enough for tennis and didn’t really like cricket – so running was it.”
And that deformity is part of the reason Kevyn runs on grass and soft tracks in bare feet.
“I just seem to run out of shoes, which is why I sort of shuffle when I run,” he said.
“I do have balance problems, by my shadow I think I waddle a bit like a duck.
“I compare myself to Cliff Young, although a lot of the younger guys in the club probably don’t even know who he is.
“And because I don’t have such a high knee action I don’t seem to have had as many knee problems and have been able to run for longer than most other runners I know.”
Although he has never featured among the major placegetters in the King, he proudly says he has finished all 38 he has started.
“There have been times I have struggled, including the year after my knee operation when it locked up on me halfway up the mountain but after a break I managed to shuffle on and finish.”
His best time is two hours 14 minutes, the same year that multiple Australian title holder and representative Rob McDonald won the race and set the course record of one hour 51 minutes.
“I must have been in Rob’s slipstream that year, about 10km behind him. I had him covered though, I was just about to surge and that must have worried him, that’s why he kicked on. He was worried about my blistering finishing burst,” he laughed.
Olympian Dave Power won the first event, which was part of the NSW distance championships, staged as a one-off race in 1966.
That was over a different course and he did a 1.51 as well.
“Even though we’ve had some great runners, including Commonwealth Games gold medallist Andrew Lloyd, only about four have ever broken the two-hour mark,” he said.
“Last year it took me three hours 18 minutes. As you get older it gets tougher and I haven’t had a good run with injuries, especially the last couple of months, so Sunday’s event will be tough.”