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

Author: DOAC
Duration: 00:18:52

Episode Shownotes

He became the first person to run the full length of Africa—10,000 miles in 352 days—but just after day 100, Russ Cook, aka the Hardest Geezer, faced the toughest challenge of his life. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russ found himself running through chaos, dodging violence, and literally outrunning

men armed with machetes. With threats of kidnapping looming and his life on the line, he managed to escape and keep pushing forward. Months later, after enduring sandstorms in the Sahara, crossing rainforests, and navigating endless stretches of empty road, Russ finally completed his journey. Starting in Cape Agulhas, South Africa, and finishing in Tunisia, he covered the equivalent of 386 marathons. Throughout the journey, Russ faced life-threatening dangers—armed robberies, kidnappers, and harsh terrains. But the craziest part? After all those miles, he realised what he’d really been running from—and had to face it head on. His story isn’t just about running. 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 him too. Russ unpacks all of this, and more, in his book HARDEST GEEZER: Mind Over Miles. Out now. Buy Russ’ Book Here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hardest-Geezer-Mind-over-Miles/dp/1529945925/?maas=maas_adg_8E255B02CEB8C776ADC02ACF423C188A_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link//TIVYc9ZjNu Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link//JZiObXaBXNb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
Quick one, I want to say a few words from our sponsor NetSuite. One of the most overwhelming parts of running your own business, as many of you entrepreneurs will be able to attest to, is staying on top of your operations and finances.

00:00:09 Speaker_01
Whether you're just starting out or whether you're managing a fast-growing company, the complexities only increase. So having the right systems in place is crucial. One which has helped me is one called NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast.

00:00:20 Speaker_01
And NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform.

00:00:28 Speaker_01
With this single source of truth, you'll have the visibility and control to make fast informed decisions, which is crucial in business. I remember the chaos of scaling my first business and trying to keep everything in order.

00:00:38 Speaker_01
It was an absolute nightmare. And it's tools like NetSuite that make this easier. So if you're feeling the pressure, let NetSuite lighten the load.

00:00:44 Speaker_01
head to netsuite.com slash Bartlett and you can get a free download of the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite.com slash Bartlett.

00:00:56 Speaker_02
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.

00:01:10 Speaker_02
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.

00:01:24 Speaker_02
But the craziest part, after all those miles, I realised what I'd been running from and had to face it head on.

00:01:30 Speaker_02
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.

00:01:37 Speaker_02
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.

00:01:47 Speaker_01
Day 102. When I say day 102, does it bring back any memories?

00:01:51 Speaker_02
There's a couple, yeah. Couple. Congo. Congo. DRC. Yeah, that was one hell of an experience, that.

00:02:00 Speaker_01
You described this as probably the hardest part of the whole trip.

00:02:03 Speaker_02
Probably the hardest part of my whole life.

00:02:05 Speaker_01
Really? You've not talked about this much in detail either, for some reason.

00:02:10 Speaker_02
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.

00:02:25 Speaker_02
because it was the hardest time for us as a team. And 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.

00:02:45 Speaker_01
What happened?

00:02:49 Speaker_02
So, yeah.

00:02:51 Speaker_01
You're emotional about this?

00:02:53 Speaker_02
Yeah. 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.

00:03:17 Speaker_02
And we'd been sent the videos of the craziest things happening there. And I think we were all a bit apprehensive

00:03:26 Speaker_01
You've been sent what kind of videos?

00:03:29 Speaker_02
The craziest, like people getting chopped up, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, it was, it definitely, I mean, I don't know how much I can really, what I would say about DRC is that we spent a few days there. My experience was very subjective.

00:03:47 Speaker_02
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.

00:04:00 Speaker_02
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 exploit us for money, officials, all this kind of stuff, trying to get money out of us.

00:04:15 Speaker_02
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 kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging.

00:04:32 Speaker_02
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 gonna like smash your head in with this.

00:04:43 Speaker_02
I mean, he was speaking French, so I don't really get it, but Harry spoke French.

00:04:46 Speaker_02
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 gonna like start smashing you all up.

00:04:59 Speaker_02
And so we, I gave him a quid in the end, 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.

00:05:12 Speaker_02
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 the boys in the morning like I normally do, ran 20k, then ran another 20k.

00:05:38 Speaker_02
Start, we took a turn off onto a dirt road, so the boys had planned this route. Went down this dirt road, then the van basically, this port van couldn't get to me.

00:05:50 Speaker_02
So the boys sent a guy on a motorbike and so I'm running along this dirt bike 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.

00:06:06 Speaker_02
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.

00:06:20 Speaker_02
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, like barely even a path.

00:06:34 Speaker_02
I was just kind of like whacking my way through bushes to get to this meeting point where I was gonna 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.

00:06:51 Speaker_02
And I think because of the experience that I already had in the first couple of days of 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.

00:07:02 Speaker_02
So I'm running through this village and people are shouting 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.

00:07:13 Speaker_02
And then the chief of the village comes over. And then, you know, before you know it, I'm like surrounded by half the village. They're all like very upset. They don't get who I am, what I'm doing, why I'm there.

00:07:25 Speaker_02
And they start trying to 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.

00:07:45 Speaker_02
Yeah, I was absolutely bricking it, thinking like, my mind's totally racing at this point. I'm like, what is going on here? 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?

00:08:01 Speaker_02
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, beeline for this meeting spot. And mind's totally frazzled at this point.

00:08:16 Speaker_02
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. kind of get through this jungle bit, get to this meeting spot, the boys aren't there.

00:08:33 Speaker_02
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.

00:08:53 Speaker_02
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 them all. I'm like, oh, like this is bad. This is bad news. Anyway, I figured out that the tarmac, the last nine bit of tarmac was,

00:09:10 Speaker_02
I think about 15 or 20 K away. And I was like, all right, I reckon I can just about make it there. And if I make it there, then that makes sense to the boys that that's the last bit they could get to.

00:09:20 Speaker_01
So had you just sprinted away from the guys with the machetes?

00:09:23 Speaker_02
Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Like it was, 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, Like this is bad, gave him biscuits and just died.

00:09:36 Speaker_02
And then like, I've ran off and I can just hear loads of like commotion going on and I'm just running through this jungle. It's all quite, I mean, it's all quite mad. I'm like adrenaline going through the roof. I was like,

00:09:57 Speaker_01
Were you scared?

00:09:58 Speaker_02
Yeah, I was petrified, man. I was absolutely petrified. I think what didn't help is that I didn't understand any of the language, like local, like Lingala local language. I didn't know any French either, which would have helped.

00:10:14 Speaker_02
And I didn't understand, I didn't have a very good understanding of the culture or anything.

00:10:18 Speaker_02
So I think if I went through 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,

00:10:26 Speaker_02
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.

00:10:37 Speaker_02
So it really just got me into a place where I was like quite scatty. But yeah, I mean, I find this, see the bit of tarmac, I'm not right, let's head there. It's about two hours away. I could probably make it there.

00:10:53 Speaker_02
And as I'm going there, I'm going down this dirt path, another two blokes on a motorbike pull up. And I was like, I just don't want any part of this. They're trying to stop me, you know, I'm mine's totally gone.

00:11:11 Speaker_02
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?

00:11:24 Speaker_02
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.

00:11:35 Speaker_02
thinking, you know, the boys, they send a note with the driver if it's from them. And these guys had no note. And I was like, 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.

00:11:55 Speaker_02
They're probably no further than 10 or 20 K away. So 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.

00:12:08 Speaker_01
How long were those two men on the bike following you and asking you to get on the bike?

00:12:11 Speaker_02
A while, like probably about 20 minutes. So yeah, got on the bike, half an hour went by, then an hour went by, I start like kicking off.

00:12:28 Speaker_02
I'm getting off the bike, I'm having a go at them, but like the language barriers just, no one understands a word anyone's saying. And then, yeah, ended up spending seven hours on that motorbike going into the jungle, which was like terrible.

00:12:44 Speaker_01
Seven hours?

00:12:44 Speaker_02
Seven hours, yeah.

00:12:46 Speaker_01
What goes through your mind in those seven hours?

00:12:48 Speaker_02
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?

00:12:56 Speaker_02
And then I was thinking rationally, I was like, had such limited knowledge about DRC or any of this kind of stuff. I was like, they're probably just gonna, they'd probably just want money.

00:13:10 Speaker_02
But then you also start thinking, well, maybe they're just gonna kill you.

00:13:17 Speaker_02
The stories that I'd heard about DRC and that wasn't the craziest thing, you know, you like people get stabbed for fiver Literally a couple of quid people get stabbed People get killed for the you know a watch So I was really trying to what like I was really trying to be rational about the situation and

00:13:40 Speaker_02
but just like very, 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 for me, you know, whatever it is, it is, and that's fine.

00:13:55 Speaker_02
And I was just trying to be like, you know, it's out of my hands. But it was very scary. I was like so nervous, like just shaking. They took me to this village in the jungle, late at night, no electricity.

00:14:14 Speaker_02
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 all arguing about money and this kind of stuff.

00:14:30 Speaker_02
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 understood a few words. And I said to him, like, this is a big mistake. You know, like, call my friend. He speaks French.

00:14:45 Speaker_02
And, like, 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 got the money.

00:15:01 Speaker_02
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.

00:15:13 Speaker_02
Then they ended up trying to borrow the police, a police chief's four by four who also scammed us. So yeah, so then, I mean, the boys got there eventually. We gave everyone some money and then I was free to go.

00:15:38 Speaker_01
how fast seven hours is. And for people in the UK, seven hours is London to Edinburgh.

00:15:44 Speaker_02
Yeah, it's not in DRC.

00:15:46 Speaker_01
So if I go from London to Edinburgh in a car, that's seven hours. Just to give people an idea of like how long that is on the back of a motorbike with strange men going through the middle of nowhere.

00:15:56 Speaker_02
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 the side. I was absolutely done in by the end of it.

00:16:08 Speaker_01
and you got to that village, they wanted money. Did they explain anything? Did they say anything to you about who they were?

00:16:14 Speaker_02
And... I think they were actually just, they were more scared about who I was and why I was there and all the rest of it. And I mean, after the phone call with the team, things seemed quite settled. Like they were pretty all right with me.

00:16:35 Speaker_02
And 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.

00:17:00 Speaker_01
Have you suffered with anxiety?

00:17:03 Speaker_02
I don't know. I think, 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.

00:17:16 Speaker_01
You're speaking to Emily back home, your partner, throughout the journey on most days, but for this period of time, sounds like you were out of communication with her. She seems like she was very, very worried about you.

00:17:31 Speaker_01
In fact, she told us on a research call that she thought you had died.

00:17:34 Speaker_02
Yeah. I mean, I thought I was gonna die as well.

00:17:40 Speaker_01
Did you actually?

00:17:40 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:17:42 Speaker_01
Genuinely thought you were gonna die? And 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? If you really believe, you know, I think I'm gonna die here.

00:17:55 Speaker_02
Like, I mean, 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.

00:18:08 Speaker_02
That's how I was, well, that's how I was trying to make sense of it in my brain.

00:18:15 Speaker_01
Quick one, I want to say a few words from our sponsor NetSuite. One of the most overwhelming parts of running your own business, as many of you entrepreneurs will be able to attest to, is staying on top of your operations and finances.

00:18:25 Speaker_01
Whether you're just starting out or whether you're managing a fast-growing company, the complexities only increase. So having the right systems in place is crucial. One which has helped me is one called NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast.

00:18:36 Speaker_01
And NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform.

00:18:44 Speaker_01
With this single source of truth, you'll have the visibility and control to make fast informed decisions, which is crucial in business. I remember the chaos of scaling my first business and trying to keep everything in order.

00:18:54 Speaker_01
It was an absolute nightmare. And it's tools like NetSuite that make this easier. So if you're feeling the pressure, let NetSuite lighten the load.

00:19:00 Speaker_01
head to netsuite.com slash Bartlett and you can get a free download of the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite.com slash Bartlett.