Guns, machetes and disease: the dangers of running through Africa

Going for a run can get a little harder when it lasts a year and is complicated robberies, diseases and men with machetesS.

Russ Cook, a 27-year-old Englishman, completed his south-to-north run across the African continent at Cape Angela, Tunisia, on Sunday.

It departed from Cape Agulhas, South Africa, on 22 April 2023.

Along the way, he faced challenges not often seen on an easy walk in a suburban park.

In Angola They robbed him at gunpoint.

In Namibia suffered food poisoning.

Inside Congohe was approached by men armed with machetes.

In Algeria He had visa problems.

Eventually it passed 16 countries.

After its beginnings in South Africa, it mainly surrounded the west side of the country, remaining quite close to the ocean.

He said he chose the West African route mainly for reasons of safety, Although, even so, he encountered dangerous situations.

In June in Angola, Cook was taking a break with his team in the team support van when a gunman opened the door.

The man fled with money, phones and a camera, but no one was injured.

“He will take things; “We’re going to have to allow it,” Cook said in a video shortly thereafter Youtube.

The incident in Congo was even more terrifying, he said.

In August, while running separated from his team due to impassable roads, Cook encountered some of them men armed with machetes who were asking him for money, even though his entire inventory at the time was a half-eaten cookie.

“I gave it to him and ran,” he said.

Later that day, still far from his team, he encountered two men on motorcycles who waved him on.

Without “money, food, water, signal, data or knowledge of where the kids were,” he said, he decided to do it.

They took him on a trip seven hours.

“In my head I thought it was over,” he wrote on social media. She arrived in a city and found more useless requests for money.

Your team took several days to locate him, give his captors money and get him working again.

“My head is not completely there right now,” he said after the accident.

Cook also suffered from back pain, food poisoning and other health problems which, along with the terrifying motorcycle detour, ultimately led him to take more days off than you had originally planned to already reduce your daily mileage.

In the end, he ran 1,000 miles and raised 690,000 pounds, or about $873,000, for Charity in motionwhich supports homeless youth, and Sandblast, which supports the indigenous people of Western Sahara.

Cook, nicknamed the toughest old man, ended up averaging 29 miles a day, even accounting for rest days and his various illnesses and mishaps.

Although it was billed as the first crossing of the continent, a group of runners, the World Runners Associationtold the Telegraph that a Danish athlete, Jesper Olsenhe achieved the feat in 2010, albeit by a different route.

It traveled approximately 12,874 kilometres, from north to south, from Egypt to South Africa.

The group said it recognized Cook as the first to run from the southernmost point to the northernmost point of the continent.

“There are a lot of people before me who have had great careers,” Cook told “Good Morning Britain” on Monday.

“Congratulations to all of them.”

After his ultramarathon finish, Cook said he had a strawberry daiquiri and a few beers.

“Yesterday was pretty overwhelming,” he said Monday.

“I woke up a little tired.”

As for the plans for the first day after the feat, “today I have to do some stretching, but not run”.

“It’s time to cut your hair,” he added.

I arrive

With 48 hours to go, a teammate asked Cook to share his thoughts as the finish line neared.

“It was a little crazy,” he said.

“A lot of ups and downs.”

“Do you have anything less in between?” the crew member said, hoping for some viral content.

Cook’s response:

“Brother, I ran 63 km.”

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