The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 184: I Was Kidnapped Whilst Running The Entire Length Of Africa: Russ Cook

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

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

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams so I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much Amazon Music. Thank you to our team

and thank you to all of you that listened to the show. Let's continue. 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 realized what I'd been running from and had to face it head on. Now I'm buzzing to say I've teamed up with Stephen and Flight Books 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? Mm, a couple, yeah. 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 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 made was really what told the story how I wanted it to be told. What happened? So, yeah. You're emotional about this.

Yeah, I mean, it, yeah, that whole thing was mad. I mean, it, yeah, that whole thing was, was mad. The, so we got to DRC, I think day 100, we got to DRC. It was hostile from the start. Um, we'd, 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 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. 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. 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, across the border. It was a very chaotic border town. We had people from the get-go, very not,

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, get trying to get money out of us. 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 a kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging. Yeah, I mean, the day before day 102,

we had a guy come up to me with a rock, spikes in the rock. And he was like, I'm gonna like smash your head in with this. When you speak French, 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 gonna like start smashing you all up.

And so we, I 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 the boys in the morning like I normally do, run 20K, then run another 20K. 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, the sport van couldn't get to me. So the boys sent a guy on a motorbike and so I'm running along this dirt bike and this guy on a motorbike. And so I'm running around this dirt park, 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, now, 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 was about 20 K 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 of days at the RC, 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. I like people showering me and stuff and I'm like, hey, this is happening all the time now. Like just care and go and go and go. 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 one. They don't get who I am, what I'm doing, why I'm there. 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. Yeah, I was absolutely bricking it. Thinking like every, all, 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, be lying 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 at kind of off it here. Kind of get through this jungle bit, get to this meeting spot, the boys aren't there.

Now I'm really like, ah, 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 run away from them all. I'm like, ah, like this is bad. This is bad news. Anyway, I figured out that the tarmac, the last known 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, that makes sense to the boys that that's the last bit they could get to. So had you just sprinted away from the guys with the machetes? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Like it was, I, they, 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. I gave him biscuits and just died. And then like 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 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. Um, and I didn't understand, I didn't have 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 And I didn't understand, I didn't have 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 scatty. 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 there, I'm going down this dirt path, another two blokes on a motorbike pull up. And, you know, I was like, I just don't want any part of this. They're trying to stop me, you know, mine's totally gone. And they were trying to, I think they were trying to communicate to me like,

oh, we're gonna take you to your friends, blah, blah, blah. And I'm thinking about, I'm like, if 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 them. And these guys had no note. And I was like,

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 get on this bike and I'm on the bike for longer than half an hour or an hour, then I know that it's 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 about 20 minutes. Probably, we probably about 20 minutes. 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 a word anyone's saying.

And then, yeah, ended up spending seven hours on a 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 that 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 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 but then you also start thinking well maybe they're just going to kill you and the stories that I'd heard about DRC and that wasn't the craziest thing, you know, like people get stabbed for fibre, literally, like a couple of quid, people get stabbed,

people get killed for the, you know, a watch. So I was really trying to work, like I was really trying to be rational about the situation, 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. 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, it's like wooden little shacks with tin corrugated roofs and stuff. 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. And then the second chief of the village walks in and says to me, like, you speak to me in English very slowly.

He understood a few words. I said to him like, this is big mistake. You know, like, call my friend. 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 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 ended up trying to borrow the police, a police chief's four by four who also scammed us. 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, 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. 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, 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. I mean, after the phone call with the team, things seemed quite settled, like they were

pretty alright 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 twitch twitchy, you know. Yeah. Have you suffered with anxiety? 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 anxious then for sure. You're speaking to Emily back home, your partner, throughout the journey on most days, but for this period of time, it sounds like you were out of communication with her.

She seems like she was very, very worried about you. She was, yeah. In fact, 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 genuinely thought you were going to die? Yeah. And how do you sort of rationalise that thought?

How do you deal with that thought when you... What comes to mind? What are you thinking? If you really believe, you know, I think I'm going to die here. 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. That's how I was trying to make sense of it in my brain.