Moment 184: I Was Kidnapped Whilst Running The Entire Length Of Africa: Russ Cook

Steven Bartlett (0:00)

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Russ Cook (0:57)

Hi there, no, it's not Steven. So who is it? Well, I'm pretty into running, and I've just come back from a little jog across Africa. Yep, it's me, Russ Cook, AKA the HARDEST GEEZER. At 22, I became the first person to run from Asia to London. And earlier this year, I became the first person to run the length of Africa, 10,000 miles across 16 countries in 352 days. I ran 386 consecutive marathons through mountains and desert, survived armed robberies and even escaped kidnap. But the craziest part, after all those miles, I realized what I've been running from and had to face it head on. Now I'm buzzing to say I've teamed up with Steven and Flight Books to turn all of that into my first book, HARDEST GEEZER, Mind Over Miles. It's for anyone facing their fears, questioning their path or trying to break free from what's been holding them back, because that was me too. If you're ready to embrace discomfort, grab your copy at the link below.

Steven Bartlett (1:47)

Day 102, when I say Day 102, does it bring back any memories?

Russ Cook (1:51)

Mm, a couple, yeah, a couple.

Steven Bartlett (1:55)

Congo.

Russ Cook (1:55)

Congo, DRC. Yeah, that was one hell of an experience, that.

Steven Bartlett (2:00)

You described this as probably the hardest part of the whole trip.

Russ Cook (2:03)

Probably the hardest part of my whole life.

Steven Bartlett (2:05)

Really? You've not talked about this much in detail either, for some reason.

Russ Cook (2:10)

So we made a YouTube series online, which kind of followed the whole thing. It's the only YouTube video that I didn't release.

Because it was quite, I mean, it was quite, it's a difficult one at the time as well. Because it was the hardest time for us as a team. And we, there was a lot of arguments, a lot of fallouts around that. And I didn't think that the video that we made was really what told the story how I wanted it to be told.

Steven Bartlett (2:46)

What happened?

Russ Cook (2:49)

So, yeah.

Steven Bartlett (2:51)

You're emotional about this?

Russ Cook (2:53)

Yeah, I mean, it, yeah, that whole thing was mad. So we got to DRC, I think day 100, we got to DRC. It was hostile from the start.

We'd been warned loads about it, about the country. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. It's quite known for corruption. And we'd been sent the videos of the craziest things happening there. And I think we were all a bit apprehensive.

Steven Bartlett (3:26)

You've been sent what kind of videos?

Russ Cook (3:29)

The craziest, like people getting chopped up, all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, it was, I mean, I don't know how much I can read. What I would say about DOAC is that we spent a few days there. My experience was very subjective. It's a massive country, loads of people, loads of great people. But my personal experience of the small amount of time I spent there was a bit rough. But yeah, I mean, we landed in the country, crossed the border. It was a very chaotic border town. We had people from the get-go very not very happy to see us at all, shouting at me whilst I was running, trying to like exploit us for money, officials, all this kind of stuff, trying to get money out of us. And we'd heard about all of this from people traveling. So we kind of half knew what we were rolling into, but it really created a kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging.