Meet Hardest Geezer: running the entire length of Africa in 351 days
Running the entire length of Africa, might go down as the most impressive endurance feat in human history.
Russ Cook, known around the world as The Hardest Geezer is on the brink of an unspeakably outrageous physical feat. He’s about to become the first human being in history to run the entire length of Africa.
HARDEST GEEZER IS ON HIS VICTORY LAP
For long portions of this arduous journey, success felt like an unrealistic, distant, virtually impossible prospect. 27-year-old Englishman Russ Cook has completed the equivalent of 376 marathons in 345 days across the vast, unforgiving African continent. He started the quest in South Africa’s Cape Agulhas South of Cape Town and will complete it in Bizerte, Tunisia. Words will never do ‘Project Africa’ any justice, such is the sheer insanity, scale and unprecedented nature of it. What went down between 22 April 2023 and 8 April 2024 in the life of Russell Cook will forever be etched in history books. Here’s a post he shared roughly two weeks ago, detailing some of the mind-boggling distances he’s covering on the daily:
AFRICA IS NO JOKE, BUT NOBODY EVER SAID IT WAS
Cook was 25 when he set out, relatively clean-shaven and fresh-faced; now he’s 27 with a woolly red beard that any Viking would be proud to sport. Having endured all sorts of opposition with visas, health scares, geopolitical challenges and an armed robbery, Cook and his team changed the route, extending it from 240 days to one which spans 351.
“Get your daiquiris ready girls and boys. This is going to be mega,” Mr Cook said, alluding to an after-party going down at the Northernmost tip of the continent. Those cocktails are going to hit differently, and all are welcome to partake.
GIVE THIS MAN A FOLLOW
Follow Russell Cook, aka @hardestgeezer on Instagram to try and grasp the enormity and sheer ridiculousness of this epic achievement. Human beings are capable of some absurd things. All told the man from Worthing in West Sussex can look back at a distance equating approximately 380 marathons (or 16,000km) in comfortably less than a year. He’s also raised £380,995 (R9 million) for charity and that number will spike as his record-breaking run reaches a stunning crescendo. How can we ever quantify these numbers?
By the way, have you gone for a run today?