Sore and sandblasted but triumphant, runner Russ Cook reached the northernmost point of Africa on Sunday, almost a year after he set off from its southern tip on a quest to run the length of the continent. Dozens of supporters gathered on a rocky outcrop beside the Mediterranean in northern Tunisia, cheering on the British charity fundraiser, who has run more than 16,000km across 16 countries in 352 days.
“I’m a little bit tired,” Cook said – likely an understatement. In the course of his journey the 27-year-old endurance athlete from Worthing in southern England crossed jungle and desert, swerved conflict zones and was delayed by theft, injury and visa problems.
Cook – known by his nickname Hardest Geezer – set off on April 22, 2023 from Cape Agulhas in South Africa, the continent’s southernmost point. He hoped to complete the journey in 240 days. But he and his team had money, passports and equipment stolen in a gunpoint robbery in Angola. He was temporarily halted by back pain in Nigeria. He was almost stopped in his tracks by the lack of a visa to enter Algeria, before diplomatic intervention from the Algerian embassy in UK.
Cook, who has spoken about how running helped him deal with his own mental health struggles, previously ran about 3,000km from Istanbul to Worthing in 68 days. His African run has raised over $870,000 for the Running Charity, which works with homeless youth, and Sandblast, a charity for displaced people from Western Sahara.