Hi there, no, it's not Stephen.
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 realised what I've been running from and had to face it head on.
Now I'm buzzing to say I've teamed up with Stephen and FlightBooks 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.
Day 102. When I say day 102 does it bring back any memories?
A couple, yeah, a couple.
Congo. Congo. DRC, yeah that was one hell of an experience that...
You described this as probably the hardest part of the whole trip.
Probably the hardest part of my whole life.
Really? You've not talked about this much in detail either for some reason.
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've made was really what I told the story how I wanted it to be told.
What happened? You're emotional about this?
Yeah I mean, 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've been sent the videos of the craziest things happening there and I think we're all a bit apprehensive.
You've been sent what kind of videos?
The craziest like people getting chopped up, all kinds of stuff.
What I would say about DRC is that we spent a few days there and 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 we landed in the country, crossed the border, it was a very chaotic border town.
We had people from the get -go not very happy to see us at all shouting at me whilst I was running trying to like explore 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 travelling so we kind of half knew what we were rolling into but it really created a kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging.
Yeah I mean the day before, day 102, we had a guy come up to, guy came up to me with a rock, spikes in the rock and he was like I'm going to smash your head in with this, I need to speak French so I don't really get it but Harry spoke French so he's basically threatening us with this big spiky rock
that he had in his hand saying like give me three quid, the equivalent of three quid or I'm going to like start smashing it all up.
And uh like we said we gave him a quid in the end because I'm not getting my head smashed in over three quid but also I didn't want to like get word around that there was a bunch of people just throwing money around to anyone that would threaten them.
So yeah I mean woke up day 102, I was running 100k that day and I felt very anxious from the get -go, really like really finding it difficult already.
Ran, left my, left the boys in the morning like I normally do, ran 20k then ran another 20k.
Start, we took a turn off onto a dirt road so the boys had planned this route, took, went down this dirt road then the van basically the sport van couldn't get to me.
So the boys sent a guy on a motorbike and so I'm running around this dirt buck and this guy on a motorbike keeps trying to stop me and I was so like scatty already that I was, I didn't want to stop for, he was trying to get me to stop and I was like nah I'd had it the day before people trying to stop
me on motorbikes and it was all a bit didn't, didn't feel great like I was, I was quite anxious about the whole thing.
Anyway eventually I did stop he gave me a note that basically said like the boys can't get round to where we were going to meet but they're going to go to this other place and meet there and it's about 20k through the jungle, no roads, that barely even a path.
I was just kind of like whacking my way through bushes to get to this meeting point where I was going to try and find the boys run out of water, phone's got no signal and I'm going through these, these bushes stumble into this village and because, I think because of the experience that I already had
in the first couple days at DRC I was very much like I just want to get my head down and get through these places as quickly as possible with less fuss as possible.
So I'm running through this village and like people shout at me and stuff and I'm like okay this is happening all the time now just carry on going, carry on going.
But I think I upset quite a lot of the village by doing that and then the chief of the village comes over and then you know before you know I'm like surrounded by half the village.
They're all like very upset, they don't get what I'm, they don't get who I am what I'm doing why I'm there and they start trying to like say that I need to give them money.
I didn't have anything on me.
So then like the chief of the village kind of got some people away and he got two blokes, took me out into the bush with machetes and I was bricking it.
Yeah I was absolutely bricking it thinking like every, my mind's totally racing at this point.
I'm like what like what is going on here?
Why why am I going out to the bush?
Like this doesn't make any sense.
Like is this a shakedown?
Like what is the worst happening?
Don't know and then got out into the bush.
I basically emptied all my bags, had some biscuits, gave them the biscuits and then just darted and then I was just like right, B -line for this meeting spot and mine's totally frazzled at this point.
I've got, I'm hearing motorbikes coming, I'm hearing people, I'm jumping in bushes like totally just out kind of off it here.
And kind of get through this jungle bit, get to this meeting spot, the boys aren't there.
Now I'm really like oh this is bad because I'm about 50 something K in, I'm dehydrated, I've got no water, I've got no signal and I don't know where the boys are, I don't know how to get to them and I'm in the middle of the jungle and I know that there's like I've upset a lot of people in the local
area and I've just ran away from the wall and I'm like oh like this, this is bad news.
Anyway I figured out that the tarmac, the last nine bit of tarmac was I think about 15 or 20 K away and I was like I reckon I can just about make it there and if I make it there then that makes sense that the boys, that's the last bit they could get to.
So did you just sprint it away from the guys with the machetes?
Pretty much, yeah. Like they walked me out into the bush and I didn't really, I didn't know what was happening but I was just so like this is bad, gave them biscuits and just died and then I've ran off and I can just hear loads of commotion going on and I'm just running through this jungle.
It's all quiet. I mean it's all quite mad.
I'm like adrenaline going through the roof.
I was like oh yeah.
Were you scared? Yeah I was petrified man, I was absolutely petrified.
I think what didn't help is that I didn't understand any of the languages like local, like Lingala local language, I didn't know any French either which would have helped and I didn't understand, I didn't have a very good understanding of the culture or anything so I think if I went for it again a lot
of these things would have been rationalized in my mind easier but because I was so unaware of the situation and I'd had all of these horror stories built up in my head and the first couple of days in DRC was quite rough and I was just like in this spot where it didn't take much for me to kind of just
assume the worst of everything so it really just got me into a place where I was like quite skaey but yeah I mean I find, I find this I go see the bit of time I come out right let's head there it's about you know two hours away I could probably make it there and as I'm going now I'm going down this dirt
path another two blokes on a motorbike pull up and you know I'm, I was like this I just don't want any part of this they're trying to stop me you know mine's totally gone and they they were trying to I think they were trying to communicate to me like oh we're going to take you to your friends blah blah
blah and I'm, I'm thinking about I'm like are these guys who are these guys sent from they sent from this village or that village is there like a bush telegraph of there's a white guy running around here he's upset like don't get him kind of thing so I'm like nah not doing it blah blah blah thinking
you know the boys they send a note with the driver if it's from if it's from them and it's got these guys had no note and I was like ah there's you know getting later and later I was like I've got no water I've got no signal I've got no way of knowing where the boys are they're probably no further than 10
or 20 k away so if I'm if I get on this bike and I'm on the bike for longer than half an hour or an hour then I know this bad news so I just thought fuck it get on the bike how long were those two men on the bike following you and asking you to get on the bike a while like probably we probably about 20
minutes um so yeah got on the bike half an hour went by then now went by I start like kicking off I'm getting off the bike I'm having a go at them but like the language barriers just with no one understand the word anyone's saying and then yeah ended up spending seven hours on that motorbike going into
the jungle which was like terrible seven hours seven hours yeah what goes through your mind in those seven hours I thought well I assumed after about an hour and a half I was like okay well I am getting kidnapped then like we're this is it you know and then I was thinking rationally I was like I had
such limited knowledge about DRC or any of this kind of stuff I was like they're probably just gonna they probably just want money but then you also think well maybe they're just gonna kill you and the stories that I'd heard about DRC and that wasn't the craziest thing you know you like people get stabbed
for fiber literally like a couple of quid people get stabbed people get killed for the you know a watch so I was really like very quite quite emotional as well and then I mean for the last few hours I was just like you know what god has for me he has he has me you know whatever it is it is and that's
fine and I was just trying to be like you know it's out of my eyes but it was very scary I was like so nervous like just shaking they took me to this village in the jungle later night no electricity it's like wooden little shacks with tin corrugated roofs and stuff and got me off the bike took me into
this little hut then loads of the men of the village came into the hut they were arguing about money and this kind of stuff and then the second chief of the village walks in and says to me like you speak to me in English very slowly and he he understood a few words I said to him like this is big mistake
you know like call my friend and he speaks French and like and and then he can come and like we've got money and we can sort it out and then they spoke on the phone and then basically we agreed like the boys would come we've got the money and then it took the boys like I think about 36 48 hours to get
there because it was so rural there was no roads going there it was all dirt paths they tried to rent some motorbikes got scammed then they then they ended up trying to borrow the police a police chief's four by four who also scammed us so bait yeah so then I mean the boys got there eventually we gave
everyone some money and then I was free to go I was just looking as you were talking about how fast seven hours is and for people in the UK seven hours is London to Edinburgh yeah it's not in DRC so if I go from London to Edinburgh on a car yeah that's seven hours just to give people an idea of like
how long that is on the back of a we're literally going through the jungle so it's like little tiny paths that are going up and down through rivers through over mountains for seven hours seven hours yeah I was like gripping on this I was absolutely done in by the end of it and you got to that village
they wanted they wanted money did they explain anything did they say anything to you about who they were and I think I think they were I think they were actually just they were more scared about who I was why I was there and all the rest of it and the I mean after the after the phone call with the team
things seemed quite settled like that they they were pretty all right with me and they I think they you know it was I was I was just in a state of like totally totally whacked what do you mean just exhausted but like petrified and I was just very nervous around everything twitchy you know yeah have you
suffered with anxiety I don't know I think I I don't think so but like I do obviously I'm human I do know what anxiety feels like and I do get it sometimes but I was I was anxious then for sure you're speaking to Emily back home your partner throughout um the journey on most days but for this period
of time sounds like you were out of communication with her and she seems like she was very very worried about you she was yeah in fact she told she told us on a research call that she thought you had died yeah I mean I thought I was going to die as well did you actually yeah genuinely thought you were going
to die yeah and how did you how do you sort of rationalize that thought how do you deal with that thought when you what comes to mind like what are you thinking what if you if you really believe you know I think I'm going to die here like I mean it's different I guess it's different for me I was just
like you know if this is the way that god wants it then I guess it is that's it you know and there's more for me elsewhere that's how I was what that's how I was trying to make sense of it in my brain
