Worthing’s Hardest Geezer has just completed his 10,000 mile odyssey, crossing 16 countries from South Africa to Tunisia, taking the concept of a charity run to a whole other level.
He has survived a gunpoint robbery and a kidnapping attempt, but finally crossed the finish line in Ras Angela at 4.40pm on Sunday afternoon.
To achieve his ultimate goal, Russ sacrificed not seeing his friends, family or his girlfriend for 352 days while he was out on the road. He battled illness including blood in his urine and crippling back pain, but powered through it.
Now he joins a handful of superhumans who pushed themselves to the limit of physical and mental endurance in order to achieve the unthinkable.
Russ Cook has become the first person to run the entire length of Africa after completing the mammoth challenge
Russ finished his challenge on Saturday after travelling through 16 countries over 352 days
Cook describes himself as ‘Worthing’s Hardest Geezer’ and has battled through many challenges
When Jessica Watson was just 16-years-old she became the youngest person to sail around the world —on her own — and without stopping. Her goal was to showcase what young girls could do.
Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage on her fifth attempt. Nyad used a protective jellyfish suit, shark divers and electronic shark repellent devices and claimed to have succeeded in doing the swim completely ‘unassisted’.
Jessica Goldman, a massage therapist and ultra runner, was the second woman to run the distance between San Francisco’s City Hall and New York City’s City Hall in 2014. She ran with a buggy to raise money for the Brain Injury Association of America.
In June 2017 American rock climber Alex Honnold made the first-ever solo ascent of El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, measuring 2,308 metres in elevation. Alex’s story can be watched on Disney +, as he achieves his lifelong goal of mastering the world’s most famous rock.
El Cap has been the ultimate dream destination for climbers. Huge, beautiful and imposing, with blank walls, featureless slabs, overhanging roofs and ferocious steep cracks, all elite climbers wanted to pit their skills against the granite challenges and fearsome exposure of El Cap.
Honnold, a brilliant athlete and hardened veteran of Yosemite, had, for some time, wanted the ultimate test: a free solo ascent. The route he chose was called Freerider, and the climb would call on all his reserves of strength, suppleness, athleticism, power, balance and mental fortitude.
Any mistake, however small — a lapse of concentration or, more routine, a loose hold — would mean certain death.
Jessica Goldman, a massage therapist and ultra runner, was the second woman to run the distance between San Francisco’s City Hall and New York City’s City Hall in 2014
Alex Honnold became the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000 ft high El Capitan wall
With no ropes or safety gear, he completed arguably the greatest feat in rock climbing history
A documentary entitled Free Solo, which tells the story of Alex’s ascent, can be streamed on Disney +
In 2018, Bryce Carlson set the record for the fastest solo crossing of the North Atlantic Ocean from St John’s Newfoundland, Canada, to St Mary’s on the Isles of Sicily. The journey was 2,649 miles aboard a custom-made boat and Carlson set a record crossing time of 38 days, six hours and 49 minutes.
In 1983, British ocean rower Peter Bird became the first person ever to row non-stop across the pacific from east to west when he journeyed from America to Australia.
He continued to take part in ocean rowing after the birth of his son Louis in 1991 and later decided to row the Pacific again, this time in the other direction from Russia to the US.
After a number of failed attempts, he set off a fifth time on March 27 1996. The Russian Rescue Centre picked up an emergency signal from him and a few hours later, his boat was found, but with no sign of him.
In memory of Peter Bird the Ocean Rowing Society established the Peter Bird Trophy, one of two awards.
As a troubled young man in his early 20s, Russ Cook had an epiphany in a Brighton nightclub at 3am which resulted in him walking out the venue and running 12 miles home to Worthing, West Sussex.
With the help of a mate ‘twisting his arm’ to run a half marathon when he was 21, the foundations for Cook’s African odyssey dream were built.
British ocean rower Peter Bird (pictured) became the first person ever to row non-stop across the pacific from east to west when he journeyed from America to Australia in 1983
Russ is fundraising for The Running Charity, which supports the mental health of young people with complex needs or who are homeless, and Sandblast which educates people about Sahrawi culture
The athlete, who is a self-described former ‘fat lad’ with alcohol and gambling issues, was introduced to long distance running when he entered a half marathon aged 21
He transformed his life after a battle with gambling and alcohol and has since made some remarkable achievements including setting the world record for the fastest marathon time while pulling a car and running 2,000-miles between Istanbul and Worthing.
In an interview with The Times – just 11 days after he had set off on his run across Africa – Cook revealed: ‘I am actually not anything special. If you put me in a lab, I’m not genetically anything unusual. I used to be a fat lad.
‘I was drinking a lot. I was quite overweight, struggling with gambling and working lonely, miserable jobs that I really hated. I didn’t have any zest of life left,’ he added. ‘I just accepted the reality that was handed to me.’
Crossing 16 countries as he ran the equivalent of 385 marathons, he completed his 10,100-mile run to Ras Angela, Tunisia, in 352 days – and claimed to be the first person to ever run the length of the African continent.
But his claim was thrown into question when the World Runners Association (WRA) claimed that one of its founders actually deserved the title over Cook.
The WRA, which is made up of just seven members, said that Danish athlete Jesper Olsen achieved the feat in 2010, when he ran 7,949 miles from Taba in Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in 434 days as part of an ultramarathon challenge that saw him run across the world.
Cook said that his journey, which was from Africa’s most southern to its most northern point, was 2,113 miles longer than Olsen’s was, but the group was adamant that Olsen was the first person to achieve the feat.
The WRA said that as the length of Africa ‘is calculated at 8,000km [4,971 miles] as the crow flies’, it does not matter that Cook’s distance was longer.
Cook has raised £842,000 for charity so far, with more than £250,000 donated over the last seven days as his loyal following spur him on.