Russ Cook (Hardest Geezer): I Haven't Told The Whole Truth About Africa!

When I say day 102, does it bring back any memories?

Yeah. It's the only YouTube video that I didn't release. My name is Russ Cook, and I'm attempting to become the first person ever to run the entire length of Africa. It was probably the hardest part of my whole life.

What happened?

So going down this dirt path, and two blokes on a motorbike pull up. I knew that if I'm on the bike for longer than half an hour, it's bad news. Ended up spending seven hours on a motorbike going into the jungle. I was getting kidnapped.

Your partner told us that she thought you had died.

I mean, I thought I was gonna die as well.

Were you thinking about people back home? Russ, I don't think many people know that you did all this stuff before Africa. At 22 years old, you become the first person to run from Asia to London. You buried yourself alive for seven days. You pulled the car as well, which is pretty fucking crazy. What were you looking for?

God, that's one hell of a question, man. Things had got pretty bad. I wasn't speaking to my family. I was drinking and gambling. I would wake up throughout the week just bursting into tears crying.

You had dark thoughts?

Yeah. But ultimately, you know, no one was gonna come and save you. It just had to be me. And I thought Africa would be the best adventure ever.

But 8:30, you start pissing blood.

I knew it was bad. It'd probably end.

You get robbed at gunpoint.

They got passports, money.

And then a falling out amongst the team. You've not talked about this in detail either.

I just blew up, shouting at everyone, throwing chairs.

What happened?

Well-

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(laughs)

... to, to take on. So I was, I was so curious to understand from your perspective, what are the dominoes that fell in your life that led you to be the guy that sits here, that everyone around the country and around the world is perplexed and astonished and inspired by?

Hmm.

Where does it start?

God, that's one hell of a question, man. Uh, I think really I had quite a normal upbringing. And maybe that's like the basis for why I ended up doing all this kind of stuff. Um, yeah, like Dad, uh, my early memories of like my dad were he was a very hardworking man. He cut metal for a living. And didn't really see that much of him when I was young. He would be out working 13, 14 hours a day, come home, metal dust all over him. Mum would look after me and my brothers, and, um, I think he kind of instilled the, like that hardworking mentality in me. And you know, a lot of the, a lot of the dominoes fell from that really.