Having run more than 10,000 miles across the length of Africa, all whilst surviving machete-wielding bandits, food poisoning and even visa problems, you would expect your appearance to change quite a bit.
This was exactly what happened to ‘Hardest Geezer’ Russ Cook, as he completed his mammoth challenge across the continent on Sunday, April 7.
The 27-year-old jogging fanatic crossed 16 countries as he ran the equivalent of 385 marathons in 352 days, completing his 10,100-mile run in Ras Angela, Tunisia.
The runner, from Worthing, West Sussex, posted on Instagram back on February 10, nine selfies which documented his changing looks throughout the trek.
Starting from his ‘business mode appearance’ whilst on the start-line in Cape Agulhas, South Africa, he can be seen to look more rugged and weary with each passing photo.
Throughout the year, Russ managed to keep hold of his trademark Forrest Gump beard, which appeared to stretch down to the middle of his chest by the end of his trip.
His hair also grew from a tight buzz-cut into a long ginger-haired mop, something he said would be the first thing he would sort out after crossing the finish line.
Posted on Day One from the start line in Cape Agulhas, South Africa, Russ Cook described his appearance as ‘Game face. Business mode activated’ Russ took this photo on day 18, having just survived a ‘solo all nighter’ in the African desert After being attacked by armed thugs in Angola, Russ said he was ‘regaining optimism’ when he took this photo on the 142nd day of his challenge A Christmas Day photo on day number 247 – Russ managed to keep hold of his trademark Forrest Gump beard throughout the whole challenge As he entered the ‘championship rounds’ on day 290, Russ had already faced multiple illnesses, including blood in his urine and crippling back pain
Russ completed the challenge at 4.40pm on Sunday afternoon in Ras Angela, Tunisa, having crossed the border into the country on Thursday night.
READ MORE – Inside ‘Hardest Geezer’ Russ Cook’s 10,000-mile odyssey: How marathon runner was robbed at gunpoint and was held hostage by machete-wielding villagers
Originally he had hoped to achieve the mega distance in 240 days, but was delayed after being held at gunpoint by robbers, a terrifying hostage ordeal and multiple health problems.
When he was travelling through Angola at around 1800miles into his run, he was set upon by armed thugs.
Cook claimed his support van was raided by ‘desperate blokes with guns’ and that the armed men stole his team’s cameras, mobile phones and some passports, as well as wads of cash.
He added that nobody on his crew was hurt in the armed hold-up.
Then in August he was ‘kidnapped’ by a gang of men armed with machetes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Cook ultimately managed to escape, and despite most people’s expectation that he would catch the first flight home, he instead returned back to his start point that day and ran another 60km on a new route.
Cook scraped his mop into a bun as he arrived at the northern-most point of Africa
Alongside this he has faced multiple illnesses, including blood in his urine and crippling back pain.
Then in January his whole mission was nearly scuppered after he failed to get a visa to allow him to enter Algeria.
READ MORE – ‘Hardest Geezer’ Russ Cook says he ‘doesn’t know anything’ about row over whether he’s the first to run the length of Africa
But now he has completed the trek, it marks a sensational turnaround for the ‘Hardest Geezer’, who described his former self as a ‘fat lad’ and a ‘mess of a bloke’ with drinking and betting issues who ‘didn’t have any zest for life left’ until he found his calling.
In an interview with The Times – just 11 days after he had set off on his challenge – Cook revealed: ‘I am actually not anything special. If you put me in a lab, I’m not genetically anything unusual. I used to be a fat lad.
‘I was drinking a lot. I was quite overweight, struggling with gambling and working lonely, miserable jobs that I really hated. I didn’t have any zest of life left,’ he added. ‘I just accepted the reality that was handed to me.’
As a troubled young man in his early 20s, Cook had an epiphany in a Brighton nightclub at 3am which resulted in him walking out the venue and running 12 miles home to
And with the help of a mate ‘twisting his arm’ to run a half marathon when he was 21, the foundations for Cook’s African odyssey dream were built.
Extreme marathon Russ Cook is pictured eating a slice of pizza after completing a previous challenge with much shorter hair – but the thick beard is still present Cook covered his unwieldy hair with a hat when he ran through the Tunisian town of Bizerte Celebrating at the afterparty, he kept his hair tied back in a bun and his beard clasped
Before he set off for his run across Africa, he told the Wide Awake podcast: ‘I got quite isolated at 17, living in a flat by myself, working five different jobs. For about three years I was overweight, miserable, angry at the world and I kind of hit rock bottom. I got heavily into gambling, lost basically everything I own.
‘I was in a nightclub in Brighton and I had this mad realisation: What am I doing with my life? Something needs to change. I decided I was going to run home. I had to have a couple of power naps on the pavement on the way, but I made it.
When a friend invited him to run a half-marathon, he suddenly had his life back on track. He said: ‘I’m hesitant to say that running or exercise is the solution to everyone’s problems because it’s not, it’s more complicated than that. But running or fitness and exercise can be the spark.’
Russ had claimed to be the first person to ever run the length of the African continent, but doubts have been raised as to whether this claim is actually true.
The World Runners Association (WRA), made up of seven members, declared that one of its founders actually deserved the title over Cook.
READ MORE – How ‘Hardest Geezer’ Russ Cook, 27, turned his life around after a friend ‘twisted his arm’ to run a half-marathon
The group said that Danish athlete Jesper Olsen achieved the feat in 2010, when he ran 7,949 miles from Taba in Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa in 434 days as part of an ultramarathon challenge that saw him run across the world.
Cook said that his journey, which was from Africa’s most southern to its most northern point, was 2,113 miles longer than Olsen’s was, but the group was adamant that Olsen was the first person to achieve the feat.
The WRA said that as the length of Africa ‘is calculated at 8,000km [4,971 miles] as the crow flies’, it does not matter that Cook’s distance was longer.
President Phil Essam told the Telegraph: ‘The WRA recognises Mr Jesper Kenn Olsen of Denmark as the first person to have run the full length of Africa.
‘The World Runners Association therefore contests the claim made by British national Mr Russ Cook to be the first person to run the length of Africa.’
Olsen himself tried to undermine Cook’s efforts, telling the paper that other runners had completed similar lengths without taking breaks as Cook had.
Russ has denied knowing anything about the row over whether he’s the first to run the length of Africa after jokes he ‘needs to sort his mop out’ and is looking forward to his first Greggs after completing his 10,000 mile odyssey.
A member of a running group contesting a Briton’s claim to be the first person to run the length of Africa has said she does not want her friend’s achievement to be ‘written off from history’.
Marie Leautey, 46, a member of the World Runners Association (WRA), praised Russ Cook, nicknamed Hardest Geezer, for running the length of Africa over 352 for charity.
Ms Leautey, a finance consultant based in London, told the PA news agency: ‘It’s not really about claiming a title or a claim for glory or recognition, it’s just a fact-checking thing and it has to do with sportsmanship.
‘We are a small community, only seven of us, we all appreciate the people who have done it before us because they are the ones that have made it possible for us to do.
‘(Russ) has done a fantastic run and we really want to applaud him for it and say congratulations, but we also don’t want Jesper’s run to be written off from history because it doesn’t feel right.’
Source link : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13283929/amp/What-difference-352-days-make-Hardest-Geezer-Russ-Cooks-face-changed-conquered-10-000-mile-epic-Africa-kept-trademark-Forrest-Gump-beard-time.html
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Publish date : 2024-04-08 03:00:00
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