Britain's 'hardest geezer' wants you to join him on 'adventure of a lifetime' if you dare
A fearless endurance athlete is launching his own travel company for anyone mad enough to joinhim on one of his extreme adventures. Russ Cook, aka The Hardest Geezer, was the first person to run the entire length of Africa.And having recently completed his latest mission, running the length of New Zealand, Russ says his next challenge is to get other people to join his adventures.In September he and half a dozen investors will launch “Hardest Adventures”, offering ordinary people the chance to take on extraordinary challenges.
Initially there will be four adventures: climbing to Everest Base Camp, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Balkans, and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The missions will be in groups of 20 to 30, some led by Russ.
He explains: “In my youth I was always looking for meaning. Now I feel I’ve found my purpose and I want to help other people find theirs. I think there is a real appetite for these kinds of adventures.“People want a really different and meaningful experience when they travel, away from being online all the time.“They want to be able to challenge themselves, to be able to tell their children or grandchildren that they did that.”
Russ recently organised a trip to Kilimanjaro with a woman who had terminal cancer. He breaks into a huge smile: “To see her push on through the altitude sickness and achieve what she wanted to achieve was incredible to see.”The 28-year-old from Worthing, West Sussex, now living in London, ran the entire length of Africa, covering 1,553 miles in 73 days. And he had plenty of hairy moments along the way.In the Democratic Republic of the Congo he was captured at gunpoint and held hostage for two days, having become separated from his back-up team.“I was absolutely petrified and genuinely thought I was going to die,” he recalls. “My team was trying to find me to bring money. My phone battery was dead.“I was taken on the back of a motorbike for seven hours and held in a wooden shed in the jungle.“The chief of the village spoke a little English and once they knew some money was coming I was taken to a football match in the village, which turned into a mass brawl, and I even attended the chief of the village’s son’s funeral.“I was the first white man they had seen in a decade. I had been warned DCR was super hostile to Europeans but had no idea.“Once my team managed to find me and handed over the money, between £1,000 and £2,000, I was free to go.
“I’m not sure I’d do something so reckless again.”
In his wilder youth the Hardest Geezer reveals he was prepared to die during his endurance feats. Now he says he really wants to live.“I would really like to get married and have a family one day,” he says, even if both could be considered endurance tests of their own. But running the length of Africa was more than just a personal goal and a world first for Russ– he also raised more than £1million for two charities.
These are The Running Charity, which offers running and mental health programmes to people who are struggling, and Sandblast, which supports the indigenous Saharawi population of the Western Sahara.
Russ admits he is no stranger to mental health issues himself and has struggled with a gambling addiction and alcoholism.Whatever his personal reasons for swapping destructive addictions for running, the thrill-seeker has certainly made an impactTwo weeks after completing Project Africa he was invited to run with then prime minister Rishi Sunak around Westminster.
But the Africa run has taken its toll onhis health and he is working his way backto full fitness in order to break the record for the longest run, which currently stands at 560km in 80 hours.
“My vision is blurry now from the sand in the Sahara Desert. I lost my sunglassesand I have a lot of skin tags from the sun,” he says.“I also got a lot of intestinal parasites from what I ate in Africa – really big worms! I was feeling awful but did not know why.”He is happy to go into more lurid details but I am worried it will put people off joining his adventures.
Suffice to say, Russ suffered from multiple bouts of food poisoning, flu and severe back pain, forcing him to take a two-day restduring which he received treatment in a hospital in Nigeria. But it takes more than all that to stop him in his tracks.
Earlier this year he ran the length ofNew Zealand, from the southern tip of the South Island to Cape Reinga on the North Island. But now he wants to concentrate on helping others achieve their dreams.He has also recently teamed up with credit reporting company Experian to help young people take control of their finances.
As a former gambler with a drinking problem, he is possibly an unusual choice for promoting sensible financial planning – but he insists there are parallels between running and money management.“When I was younger I was always looking for the quick fix, the quick dopamine hit, be it a drink or a gamble,” he explains. “Running gives you delayed gratification. At first it is hard and boring and hurts. But then if you can stick with it the reward comes.“If you can apply the same principles to money then you won’t overspend or impulse buy.“The same principles of resilience, discipline and goal-setting can be applied to your finances as they can to running.”
Russ’s own finances have certainly improved since his days working as a cleaner and pulling pints.He has become a popular and distinctive face on the corporate guest speaker circuit, with his bushy ginger beard and bank of anecdotes about his extreme challenges.
In the past these have included running from Istanbul to England in 68 days with no support team in 2019, setting the world record for the fastest marathon run while pulling a car – nine hours, 56 minutes in 2020 – and, in 2021, he was buried alive for seven days with just 20 litres of water and a ventilation tube. The punishing event was live-streamed.
Then came Africa in 2023, his toughest challenge to date, and last year, during the Euros, Russ ran to every England game.His route started at Wembley Stadium, then headed to Gelsen-kirchen in Germany, followed by the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland. From there, he ran to Frankfurt and Cologne before returning to Gelsenkirchen.As England progressed through the quarter and semi-finals, Russ ran to Dusseldorf, Dortmund and Berlin for the final. And then earlier this year came the New Zealand run.
All this globe-trotting and charity work led to an invitation to the Royal Box at Wimbledon this month, which was probably more out of his comfort zone than any of the extreme destinations he has visited worldwide.“I took my mum Cathy,” he says.“I am not at all blue-blooded and was really nervous to be there, but everyone was really nice.“We sat down to lunch with Stephen Fry and Cherie Blair and had some really posh food.”Does this mean the Hardest Geezer is perhaps going a little soft in his old age? What’s next, a package holiday to a nice safe European country?“I have actually just come back from a stag do in Magaluf,” he laughs.” Now that really was an endurance test!”
Daily Express
