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The man who set out to run the full length of Africa has finally completed his 16,000 km trip after almost an entire year of footslogging.
Russell ‘Russ’ Cook, 27, known online as ‘Hardest Geezer’, set out on his record-breaking charity run on April 22 last year and has raised more than £500,000.
Having openly discussed his struggles with his mental health, gambling and drinking, the Worthing local said he took on the challenge – traversing 16 countries from South Africa to Tunisia in 352 days – to ‘make a difference.’
Russ kicked off his journey in the most southern point of the continent in Cape Agulhas on April 22.
Today, he crossed the finishing line in Ra Angela after finishing the equivalent of 376 marathons.
Russ took a dip in the sea after finishing (Picture: Reuters)
People cheered as Russ crossed the finish line (Picture: Reuters)
Russ has become the first person to run the entire length of Africa (Picture: Reuters)
‘I’m a bit tired,’ he told Sky News.
The road ahead hasn’t always risen to meet Russ, however.
He’d originally planned on completing the trip in completely the other direction but was denied entry into Algeria for want of a visa.
Setting off again from South Africa, the second rock in the road came when Russ and his team reached Angola only to be robbed on June 24 by an armed gang.
He and his team had their cameras, phone, cash passports and visas taken, an ordeal the ultramarathon runner downplayed in videos posted online as just ‘a spot of bother’.
As he told Good Morning Britain: ‘I was just on a lunch break like any other day. I was just in the van with a couple of my crew and just had a couple of sweeties and a bit of water so I was a happy lad.
‘But then two lads came storming up the side of the van, and another one on a motorbike, and cracked open the door and proceeded to point a gun in all of our faces and tell us to give them everything we had. It was a bit of a lively one to be fair.
‘It was a bit touch and go, obviously, guns in the face aren’t an ideal situation but we all made it out alive, we lived to tell the tale so it is what it is. We were expecting things like this to happen.’
The ultramarathon runner was twice attacked by armed groups (Picture: Instagram/Russ Cook)
On August 7, having reached Congo, he was kidnapped by a gang of machete-wielding men after getting separated from his support team due to blockages on the road.
As he wrote on X: ‘In an attempt to find the boys at a village on the Plan B route, I stumbled into a rural settlement where the chief told me I must give him money. I had none.
‘So that went down well. Pretty soon I found myself surrounded by lots of game blokes with machetes. Was escorted out of the village into the bush.
‘Emptied my bag to show I had nothing but a half-eaten biscuit. Gave it to them, and ran. Spent the next few hours bushwhacking through overgrown jungle paths. Trying to stay off any tracks until I was far away.
He has also faced mounting concern over his health after blood and protein were found in his urine just 45 days into the journey (Picture: Instagram/Russ Cook)
‘Made it to the village on the plan B route to find the road was also impassable for the support van again. Exhausted and dehydrated, I started heading back to the last known place with passable roads when two blokes pulled up on a bike.
‘They spoke no English but tried to communicate I must come with them to get back to my friends.
‘What happened next was a seven-hour motorbike ride deeper into the jungle. In my head, I thought this was it. Me. The self-proclaimed hardest geezer. About to get held in a Congo gulag before being ripped apart limb by limb and eaten.’
Eventually, he was driven to a village where the group of men argued about what to do with him, with whom he eventually managed to negotiate an opportunity to contact his team, who were in turn able to rescue him.
It was in making his way up to Nigeria however that the physical stresses of running more than a marathon every day began to weigh on Russ.
Despite these setbacks, Cook has consistently pushed on with his trip, having said he set out on the journey because he wanted ‘to make a difference’ by raising money for charity (Picture: Twitter)
At one point he was even forced to take a few days rest after doctors found blood and protein in his urine.
But the biggest stumbling block for Russ appeared to be something as simple as a little slip of paper.
Arriving at the Algerian border for the second time since first starting in the opposite direction, Russ still had not secured a visa that might allow him to cross into the country.
It looked like it might all be over, but an online appeal for help that was seen and shared by millions around the world eventually saw the UK Embassy in Algeria announce it had secured Russ a ‘courtesy visa’ that would permit him one-time entry into the country ‘on the spot.’
Cook’s 16,000km marathon took 352 days and saw him raise £500,000 (Picture: Metro)
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In his posts ahead of reaching the finish line, Russ was overjoyed, downplaying his growing health concerns as he had done throughout the entire trip.
As he said in a tweet dated April 3: ‘Body is really starting to break down. Everything hurts. Legs feel like they’re about to fall off.
‘I really need someone to book me an emergency appointment next week when I’m back in the UK at the nearest bakery.
‘Nice one guys, really appreciate it.’
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