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 pass. I knew that if I'm on the bike for longer than half an hour, it's bad news. Ended up spending 7 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 going to 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. 22 years old, you become the first person to run from Asia to London. You fed yourself for like 7 days. You pulled the car as well, which is pretty crazy. What were you looking for? Class, one hell of a question, man. Things had got pretty bad. I wasn't speaking to my family. I was drinking and gambling. I'd wake up throughout the week and just burst into tears crying. You had dark thoughts? Yeah. But, ultimately, you know, no one was going to come and save you. It just had to be me. And I thought Africa would be best adventure ever. Russ, day 30, you start pissing blood. I knew it was bad, but 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, shouted at everyone, throwing chairs. What happened? Well, Congratulations, Diary of a CEO gang. We've made some progress. 63% of you that listen to this podcast regularly don't subscribe, which is down from 69%. Our goal is 50%. So, if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. [Music] Russ, you know, you're someone that has achieved and has pursued really anomalous feats in their life. Feats that most of us as Muggles would never have the insanity 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. Where does it start? Class, 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 My early memories of like my dad were he was very hard working 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. Coming home, metal dust all over him. Mom would look after me and my brothers. And um I think he kind of instilled the like that hard working mentality in me. And you know, a lot of the a lot of the dominoes fell from that, really. And what was your mom like when you were growing up? My mom was very what I always remember about my mom is she really enforced it in us to be like polite. She that was like a big thing for So, always like yes, yes, please, thank yous. Uh whenever we'd go around to people's houses, she was like make sure that we behaved well and all of this kind of stuff. And uh like her her dad is like military man. So, 18 to 65 always in RAF, like very well respected. Um so, I think she got that from him and that's what she passed down to us. But, she was like very caring. She her her whole life was her kids, really. So, yeah, like a lot of respect for my mom. The absence of your father. Mhm. You said a second ago that because he was quite absent, your mother kind of carried the responsibility of raising the kids herself. Do you reflect on that and as you look back in your life, understand how his absence had an impact on you? Because before before this conversation today, I got to speak to my team and I got to speak to lots of people around you. As you know, cuz I'm sure they're all Yeah. They're all snitching. So, we spoke to your girlfriend, we spoke to your dad. Yeah. Um spoke to your team. Spoke to everyone around you privately. Um and got all of their take sort of perspectives and stuff. And it appeared from those conversations that the early sort of absence of your father had a pretty big impact on shaping you as an individual. Yeah, I mean, I guess I think my I I Now I'm Now I'm older, I just look at it like my dad was doing everything that he could to provide for his family. You know, like I think he took that responsibility really seriously. Um and yeah, I mean, it's hard to hard to really contemplate how that affects me. But, the the this the few things I did see of my daddy was just always like he ran a marathon when I was a kid and I remember that being like a big you know, he'd always talk about willpower. And he didn't say much, but like he was more of a man of he did things rather than spoke about them. So, he'd go out and work really hard and he'd go and run a marathon. And I'd see these things happening. You know, he'd come home from work and he'd be knackered and he'd be on the sofa and like he kind of just that was the way he led, you know? It's a generational thing in many respects, isn't it? Cuz my my dad's I feel like is very much the same. I don't think we had many deep conversations at all. Nah. But, he they he led by example in the sense that he worked hard, loved his family. Yeah. Um that marathon your dad ran. Mhm. Did he do things like that a lot? Um not really. He was so He was working pretty much all the time. So, he'd do He He ran two marathons, one when he was 31, one when he was 40. But, he used to take me out on runs when I was quite young. And you know, he'd wouldn't really say anything, but it was more just me seeing it that I think was important for me. Like that's how he operated, you know? What about affection? Uh Yeah, no, my dad's My dad and my mom are very affectionate people. Mhm. I don't think I've I don't think I've ever seen them like even kiss, maybe maybe once or twice when I was young. Mhm. But, like you know, the I love yous and I love yous and stuff like this wasn't words that got thrown around in our family. Not that they didn't mean Don't know that they didn't mean it. I just think that like we we our family is a bit stiff like that. Mhm. Not all families have the tools. Yeah. know what I mean? Yeah. They just Maybe they didn't get them from their parents. I think that's exactly it, you know? And I think when as I've got older and I've understood like where they've come from and their parents and their upbringings, then it's like makes sense. But, it didn't make sense. Didn't make sense at the time. It's hard like when you're young, it's really I find it really hard to make sense of a lot of things. I was one of them like I had a lot of questions. Mhm. Hard to find the answers, but I kept digging. What kind of questions did you have? I guess it was more stuff like I I was finding it hard to find my way in the world and especially when I got to like teenage years and I'd be like how do I do this? Or how do I you know, how do I build a career? How do I make money? How do I do all of these things? How do I navigate friendships and relationships and all these kind of complex how do I find meaning in my life? Not that I was directly asking those questions, but they're the kind of things you I'm pondering at that age. And I think you know, from my parents, it was it was quite hard to find those answers just because I think they we all struggled with communicating like that, you know? Uh when you were 13, 14 years old, do you think you were different from your peers? Do you feel like you were different in any way or isolated in any way from other people? I looked at people and I was like like teachers, for example, or any kind of authority figures in my life. And if if I sensed that they weren't very happy in their lives or they were a bit miserable, I would kind of discard a lot of what they were trying to tell me. They I found a lot at that age had a lot of people trying to tell me what to do or you know, do this, do that, behave like this. And I was like if I do what you say, then I'm going to end up like you. And I don't want I don't want that. So, I'm doing my own thing. And I think that kind of started a journey of trying to find my own answers and stumbling across a lot of different things to try and find that. Do you think your mom and dad were happy? No. I kind of feel bad for say I want to do them a a service when I'm talking about them cuz I do respect them a lot now. Especially I'm old Now I'm older and I understand things more, but I don't think at the time I think they've had their struggles like a lot of us have our struggles, you know? Mhm. Yeah. I asked the question because I even look at my own life and I think whatever the source of my parents' unhappiness was, I think as kids we sometimes um our relationship with whatever with whatever's making our parents unhappy often has a big impact on us. And I you know, I sit here a lot with comedians and stuff. And I remember Jimmy Carr. So, I think it was Jimmy Carr said to me, he goes, "Listen, when you sit down with a comedian, Steve, you don't need to ask the comedian if they're depressed. You need to ask them which one of their parents were depressed because the reason for their behavior will be at some level a desire to please or make one of their parents smile for a change." You know what I mean? And and I wondered that with with your early upbringing cuz cuz you know, I got to speak to your family and I got to speak to people around you and the picture that was emerging was that home wasn't the happiest place and it wasn't the most loving, connected, cuddly, perfect, rosy, smiley, Yeah. you know, idyllic environment to say the least. No, yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree with that. And Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it wasn't for the lack of trying. Yeah. But if it's like you said, they didn't have the tools and you know, ultimately that is what kind of pushed pushed me to go and try and find my own things, which is worked out for the best. And when you say pushed you to go find your own things, um 16, 17 years old you move out. Mhm. Why? Well, things things had got quite bad with with family stuff. I was I was a piece of [ __ ] honestly, yeah. Um very rebellious, very disrespectful, didn't listen to anything that they were saying. And very intent on doing my own thing. And I think that kind of took a big toll on everyone in the family because I was you know, I was stressing everyone out. Why? What were you looking for? I think like deep down I was just like looking for something more in my life. I was looking at what you know, the life that the adults around me were living and I was like, I don't I don't want that. I I I want I want more than that. I want to go and see I want to go and live, you know? And you know, that's kind of when you know, you've got a kid that's 16, hasn't done anything with his life and he's just kind of disrespecting you, ignoring everything you're saying and doing his own thing, coming home whenever. Kids don't Kids aren't born like that, are they? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? They're not born acting out and disrespecting people. So, that's why I'm asking about the cause of it cuz you know, sometimes when you hear kids doing that kind of thing, you kind of think they're trying to they're acting out to try and get some attention and then they're they're kind of like rebelling from you know, authority because they feel, I don't know, disconnected in some way or whatever. I think that's maybe it, you know, like it's probably part of it. I'm not I'm not exactly sure why. Um but that's that's kind of what happened and I think I was I had a lot of energy, a lot of motivation, viciously ambitious, but didn't really know how to apply it, where to apply it to get what I wanted. And I was looking around me for I think I was looking around searching for the guidance that that would help me, but I wasn't really finding it. So, I was just trying to make I was just basically discarding things that I thought weren't important, people or opinions that weren't important or weren't going to get me where I wanted. And I was just looking for looking for it. And yeah, that's kind of how things started unraveling and then ended up moving out. And that that induced a quite a tasty few years in itself. When you say moved out, Mhm. do you mean like organized the removal van and had an apartment you were moving into or what was the day like when you moved out? Uh it was quite a messy it was quite messy for a couple of years in there. Like I remember my parents sent me up to my granddad in Scotland one summer when I was like 15 and this was kind of the start of when things were going quite bad. Um Your parents were doing okay? My parents were doing okay. Yeah. Yeah. But then so then and then I remember one night they moved all my stuff to my other granddad's house and changed the lock on the door. And they were like, you're not coming back. Kicked the door in. And I'm bold in. So, it was kind of happening for a while and then it got to the point where I remember my mom being like, yeah, you need to go. And I was like, cool. It wasn't like a out the door with tail between my legs or anything. It was like, I don't need you anyway. See you out. Like At what age? 15, 16? about 17. Okay. Yeah. And then um I organized a flat. It was the cheapest flat I could rent in Worthing and I was still I was at college. So, I was working about four or five part-time jobs, just like cleaning. I was up on my bike going to Waitrose cleaning toilets in the morning before college and then finished that and still I went into sales at first. You know when they change the locks on the door and tell you that you can't come back home. Yeah. If I asked them at the time why they'd done that, what do you think they would have said? They would have said like, this guy needs humbling. He's he's he doesn't know anything about the world. He's very arrogant, very disrespectful. And then in hindsight, as you right. Yeah. Totally right. But you you must have empathy for that kid. Yeah. Because you now you look back as an adult, you can understand the complex range of emotions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz there's no kids aren't like they're not it born to be like terrors like that. Yeah. Uh well, I get it from I think now I'm older I just get it from both sides. Like it it's really difficult it was really difficult for them to manage that like complex kind of personality. And it was also really hard for me to express or communicate my in a way that was I was going to get myself listened to. I wasn't doing that. I was just like totally totally trying to run everyone over, you know? You wanted to be heard. Yeah. Think so. And what does that mean? I I guess I just wanted someone to like understand and I just I think I just wanted the guidance like of someone I wanted guidance but from someone that I someone that I looked at and was like, I want what they've got, you know? Or like they've done life in a way that I want to do life. And they could teach me the lessons, but I didn't I was struggling to kind of find that at age. It reminds me of my conversation with Ashley Walters and from Top Boy. Yeah. Said pretty much the exact same thing. His father wasn't around. And so he was looking for a role model or guidance, answers. And he couldn't find it, so he ends up joining these gangs and that spirals somewhere else and it's so interesting that, you know, a young a young man at your age, that age, sort of, you know, 14, 15, 16, 17, if they don't have someone there to model themselves on, they can descend into different forms of chaos. Yeah. Like so much energy, um which is in a lot of ways I think a positive thing. But just without those guidelines to to actually get you somewhere, it just kind of becomes chaos. When you moved out then, so you moved out sort of 16, 17 years old, how was your relationship with your parents from there? Terrible. Really? Yeah, didn't speak to them for a long time. Uh even up until I would say up until probably the last year, it is it's couple of years, it's been pretty Yeah. But um You're 27 now. Yeah. We're talking about when you were 17. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's there was there's moments in there where it's got better and then got worse and got better. But for for a while it's yeah, it was tough. When you you know, 17 years old they change the locks, you move out. Mhm. I'm sure your response was hardest geezer. Cuz it always is, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, it's just [ __ ] it, I don't care. Yeah. I'll figure it out. Yeah. But at some deeper level you're I think we're all bullshitting ourselves to if we say that it doesn't have an impact cuz I can relate. I remember the call to my mom at 18 and telling her I was leaving university. And I remember what she said to me. I can't repeat what she said cuz it's so vicious. Yeah, it's like you it's so it's so vicious, one of the things she said to me. But it was hardest geezer exterior. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then at some deeper level on certain days Oh, yeah. You know, certainly catch me on the off day. 100% man, like and I think the hardest geezer kind of approach like that aggressive approach to it is just like a way of coping with it. And every now and again, you know, like the emotions would roll out and yeah, I'm not denying that for a second. I remember seeing I moved out and then I think I saw my dad maybe I can't remember how long after it was, a few good few months, maybe a year or so, and he just made me cry just seeing him. So, like the the emotions were always there. But to kind of get through it, it was like, right, you know, [ __ ] everyone. Why did you cry when you saw him? Just cuz I think like there's always a part of me that understands that my parent there is no there's no one else in the world that loves me like my parents do. And like no matter what they do or like how bad badly I felt I'd been wronged which I wasn't really, they were just trying their best. I always knew that, you know, whatever happens, these these are two people that actually care about me the most. And I think that just makes like when things aren't going well, that makes you emotional cuz it's like these are the people I'm supposed to be closest with. Things real bad. Right now. So, you're so right. I think so many people are probably in that situation right now where they they love that person, but they don't know how to build the bridge. Both people. Yeah. And it takes two to build the bridge. It really does. They can't build it, I can't build it. So, we love each other, but we're [ __ ] at war. Yeah. Or I think like a big part of that for me in building that bridge was actually my girlfriend when I was away. Oh. Cuz she she went over and she went around the house and spoke to him loads and she's cuz even before I left like I went around to see both my parents before I left it was the first time I see them in like maybe like a year and a half, 2 years. Really? You hadn't seen your parents Yeah, yeah, yes. Before I left for Africa. We'd spoken, me and my girlfriend spoken a lot about these kind of things and how like important we want families to be and she I felt like I was lost making that that step. I just didn't really know how to do it, what to say, blah, blah, blah. But she kind of over this year is really like done a lot of in that sense. People might think this is sexist, but I do think women have more tools. 100%. 100%. My girlfriend's the same. If my girlfriend me and my mom sometimes don't speak for prolonged periods of time and my girlfriend like insists upon it. Yeah, yeah. And then dragged me down to Plymouth and was like, "We're going to see her." Yeah. Oh, mate, I couldn't agree more. I especially with me and my girlfriend's dynamic anyway like that's really she's I look at her like a like a wizard in that sense. I'm like, "I don't know what I'm doing but she she's got that under control, which is amazing. So, you're 17 years old, you've moved out, you're on your own. What's the plan? Yeah. Wow. Um yeah, so I remember I had this flat in Worthing. It was the cheapest flat available on Rightmove. 450 quid a month. Which is more than I could afford but I was like, "Right, let's do it." Um was working a bunch of different jobs, trying to finish college. Kind of scraped through. And then I um I actually was watching This this is so cringe but it's funny. I was like one of them lads that watched Wolf of Wall Street and was like, "This is it for me." Do you know what I mean? Um the I this is the game. I'm going to I'm going to become a millionaire millionaire doing sales stuff. So, I went and got a few sales jobs. Um made some actually not bad money for for my age but really didn't enjoy it and you know, ended up with that kind of lack of guidance I ended up just doing the things that felt to me like the most fun or the most like they would bring in my naivety they would bring me the most meaningful experiences at time, which ended up being going out a lot with the boys and drinking and uh gambling and that's kind of what my life was for the next kind of 2, 3 years after that. Were you were you addicted to gambling? Um Cuz I was reading through your story and speaking to some of your friends and they told me that there was some instances where you you basically lost everything you had and had to borrow money off you your misses at the time. Yeah, oh mate, it was it's embarrassing to even talk about like I remember yeah, I didn't have much money but I'd done one night on roulette I'd done about two I think it was over two grand on online roulette just sitting there on my phone late at night just tapping away. And that was kind of everything I had at the time and plus the overdraft plus every all the rest of it. And I had to I was too embarrassed to say anything so I told my misses like I think I just made up some [ __ ] lies about what this XYZ said like, "Oh, I need to borrow money for rent and stuff this month." There was a moment there where I was like, "Okay, this really needs to stop." And I just went on every single gambling website I could find and did the self-ban thing. Never gamble since. And you alcohol? Yeah, I mean I think the alcohol stuff was just like binge drinking culture. I wouldn't say like I was an alcoholic or anything like this. That was just the only way I could really the only thing I look forward to. I'd hate I'd hate my jobs I'd hate work all the throughout the week but I'd be like, "All right, Saturday with the boys or Saturday drinking this whatever out here was like the thing that I look forward to. That was the only thing I was really living for. Was there part of you throughout that period of your life when you're working in sales, you're gambling too much, you're drinking too much? I heard you were overweight at the time as well. Was there a part of you that sort of a voice inside your head that was saying like "Come on, Russ. Like this isn't it." Definitely. Um I was so miserable, man. So, so miserable at that time. I really struggled. I remember I would like wake up throughout the week just like crying. Just so miserable. Um yeah. You'd wake up through the week crying. Just like I'd wake up like supposed to go to work. I'd just be I'd just be like so upset. Just be like the worst, so miserable. I I what Couldn't just fathom I was like, "Why is why is life this why does it suck this much?" You know, like I really had no Felt like I was kind of trapped. Lack of connection I think was a big part of that. You had people around you there but you just weren't connected. not I didn't I mean I had like a few a few of my boys but I I wasn't speaking to my family at all at this time. Um Well, I guess I was just doing a lot of things that would make you miserable you like I was I had no control over my finances cuz I was pissing away everything I earned on roulette. I was the only things I look forward to was going out and getting pissed which I could which would make me me feel like [ __ ] as well. And then I'd go to work and hate it. Working every day. So, like it doesn't take a genius to work out that's going to be a pretty miserable existence, you know? And you didn't have family around you. Didn't have yeah, didn't have like many deep connections. So. How old were you at that point in your life? So, that would be like 18, 19, 17, 18, 20 maybe just about. So, if you had to give me a a word to summarize your sort of mental health throughout that period, what would you how would you describe your mental health? Toilet. Yeah, bad. Pretty bad. Was there a worst day that you can recall? Um Yeah, I mean I remember like I do remember just You don't want to talk about it. Yeah. You you you go at your own pace. Tell me what you're comfortable talking about. I I mean I I remember days like I said I'd wake up crying. Speak to my boss. I remember even one day with my boss it speaking to him on the phone just bursting into tears crying. And I think what was hard is that I didn't understand anything. I didn't understand why. You know what I mean? I didn't have the tools to really make any sense of what of the situation. Cuz you know, now I'm 7, 8, 9 years older I can look back and go, "Yeah, well, it's what happens when you gamble loads and you piss all your money away and you drink loads and you don't have anything in your life that's going to bring you any meaning or fulfillment." It's obvious. But at time I didn't know that. So, that kind of sense of helplessness was a really big weight on me. And it just felt like I was never going to be able to shift it. I think that was the the most difficult thing. I was like, "I don't know how I'm going to get out of this." You had dark thoughts. Yeah. The most dark thoughts. Pretty yeah, pretty much. That season of your life I've heard you kind of describe it as a rock bottom Mhm. moment. And it's interesting because there's so many people that are somewhere along that journey where they're struggling. They've they've got that sense of helplessness that you've described. Mhm. And they're searching for answers and I think in some respects thinking about some people I've spoken to recently they they've kind of given up believing that they can solve this because it's gone on for too long. Yeah. And as you said, they don't even know what's causing it. They just feel it. They feel it intensely. I've got a couple of friends that are really going through that at the moment. And I wonder I always wonder to myself like how does someone get from that moment their like personal rock bottom? What does it take to get them start in the climb? Mhm. Cuz that's why I that's why I'm asking these questions. I see it in your story. I see you going further and further and further and further and further and further down. Yeah. Reaching this rock bottom moment and then in that rock bottom moment you have some of the the I think the darkest thoughts anyone can have and then something causes you to make a decision. Yeah. I think there's a few different things that went into that melting pot. Um I think actually a massive thing was like things I listened to podcasts. Like I started I remember listening to like Joe Rogan a lot back in the day. And um you like I remember the Jordan Peterson there was a Jordan Peterson episode ages ago. I know it's it's like a classic thing. But that really kind of hit me. And that's what I like I love listening to him now and I know he's a bit controversial these days and people have XYZ to say about him. But for me like just having that was like my uh guidance in a lot of ways and I think so blessed to have been born in this generation where the guidance can come through all of these online resources whereas before you know like 20 30 years ago maybe that would never have come for me and maybe it 20 years later I'd still be in the same spot. So like incredibly grateful for that. But then Can I ask a question about that? In that moment when you were 19 years old and you were searching for guidance do your parents know what you're going through? No, I don't think so. Do you think today they know what you you were going through in that Probably not. No, probably not. I I I I reckon like I don't know I reckon my mom's probably thought about it to be fair. But I don't know. They don't know the ins and outs. What are the ins and outs that they don't know? Well, just like the day-to-day, you know. And I and I get I'm quite like keep a lot of things to myself a lot of the time anyway. So like no one really knows. There's a real cost to that, isn't there? There is, yeah, I guess. There is this you know these things I always think with these things keeping them to yourself doesn't mean that they stay inside it means they express themselves in other ways. Mhm. Yeah, smart. Yeah, smart. people so I I sit with a lot of people so I I come to learn about myself but I I've come to one of the things I've definitely come to learn is that keeping it in doesn't actually keep it in it just comes out in other ways. It makes it like a pressure chamber and then you get your little escapes, yeah. Someone will say something you CAN [ __ ] OFF. YEAH. OR SOME PEOPLE EXPRESSES themselves in pornography addictions or gambling addictions. They're trying to find other ways to ease Yeah. the burden of having to hold on to that all that stuff. [Laughter] Um so they they had no idea. No. If you could go back and have a word with him when he's woke woke up on that morning Mhm. when you were you you're rock bottom and he's crying and he doesn't want to go to work and he's thinking about dark you know dark thoughts. If you could go back and just have a telephone conversation with him now what would you what would you say to him? Oh. I guess I do I do have empathy for that guy. I think the thing the thing that that I needed to hear that which was the most which actually got me to forced me into action was like I need to take responsibility for my situation here. So like that version of me at 19 18 19 was very much one that looked at my outside world and blamed everyone else for my problems like oh it's cuz my parents did this or my boss did this and all of these other things and I didn't need anyone else to come in and say oh it's not your fault blah blah blah blah I needed someone to go that's the [ __ ] world, mate. Get used to like do something about it or don't. It's up to you. So that's probably the message that I would give. Maybe I'd deliver it in a nice little empathetic way but ultimately you know no one was going to come and save me. It's had to be me. And you talk about this um I was reading different sort of seasons of your life and there's one moment where you're in a nightclub and it seems like you have a bit of I don't know whether you were on something or you were drinking seems like you had a little bit of a dance floor epiphany moment 2 3 a.m. in the morning. Yeah, so I think it it'd been leading up to this cuz I would I'd been I'd been finding life really difficult for a while and I was doing all these different things trying to find something that I could put my energy into that would give me something positive in return. And I'm yeah I remember being in the arch in Brighton and just being like I need I I need to sort my life out here. Like what am I doing? Like proper one of them like mirror bit pissed looking in the mirror moments going [ __ ] hell. And then ran home like 11 12 miles took me ages I was so unfit. Sorry, you ran home from the nightclub? Ran home from the nightclub. Why? I I don't know really. It was a bit Forrest Gumpy in the way of just like I just running kind of vibes. At what time, sorry? Like 3 a.m. 2 3 a.m. something like this. You ran 12 miles at 3 a.m. Yeah, it took me ages. Drunk? Yeah, yeah, I was totally off it, yeah. Um sleeping on the side of the road? Yeah. Took a little power nap in Shoreham pavement. But yeah, I mean so I ran that mar well I ran that little bit and then a mate of mine I'd been mates with for a long time had had just started getting into running properly and he'd signed up for half marathon and he said to me like come and run it. Like let's do it. I'll train with you blah blah blah and I think that was the moment where I was like oh this might be something that I can do like I've I'm out of ideas here. You know, I need something. So I I literally just on a whim was like fine. Let's do it. Signed up. And then he took me out training. Um we did the half marathon then a few weeks later we signed up did the full marathon. And that process was like a huge relief for me. It would just make it for the it made me really like it hammered in the sense that if I do something positive it will pay itself back to me. You know, like that accountability of like go and do something good. Here we go and you can see the improvements coming week by week by week. And it in I think that's why I love running so much like cuz that's it in its simplest form. It's like you go out run. It's really [ __ ] And but then you keep going you keep going and now a month later you can run a half marathon or two months later you can now run a marathon. And it was that process of going from someone that I like I couldn't even run around the block and then I could run a marathon and I was like [ __ ] This is this I've got something here that this is how we progress. That's really the word, isn't it? Progress. That feeling of progress like you you learn cuz that becomes a metaphor for life like I set out to do something and I got better at it. I progressed. Yeah. And I accomplished something. Yeah. That's a that's a pretty strong transferable idea for the rest of your like for everyone's life to learn that lesson. Exactly. That's kind of what happened for me. I I managed to like save up some money off the back of run run these marathons and then it's like stopped drinking as much stopped I wasn't gambling anymore and saved up a bit of money for the first time. And then few months later I decided right, I've been off the all these cleaning jobs. I'm going to go and travel the world with my few grand that I'd managed to save up. And where did you go around the world traveling? Did a bit in Europe then went over to Africa got to Kenya. Mhm. Did did some I was really into my running at this point so I was training really hard every day. It was like my living and breathing it. Went to the training camp called this village called Iten which is like home to some of the best long distance runners ever. Uh Kipchoge is from there all this kind of stuff. Just trained with them got my ass whipped up pretty good. And that just I met an Italian guy who'd been cycling around the world for six years. Super inspired by his story how he was living what he was doing and decided I wanted I want to do I want to try and do something like that. And I was I was pretty good at running by now. So then I first kind of conceived the idea of running from Istanbul to London. And then that that was the next I was like all right that's what we're going for. I don't think many people know that you did all this stuff before Africa. No, I don't think so, yeah. I don't think they do. I don't think people I was speaking to my mates I was like brother do you know he he like ran he was the first person to run from Asia to London? Mhm. And people like no. Yeah. know that you ran Africa. And then all these other things you did beforehand but 22 years old you become the first person to run from Asia to London Mhm. because you ran from Istanbul to London. Um you completed 71 marathons in 66 days through 11 countries. And you had no team with you. Yeah. You basically just did it on your by yourself and your your phone was dying and all that stuff. Yeah. When you told your family and other people that you were going to run from Asia to London Mhm. at 22 years old what was their response? Cuz that would be the first big Most of them were like yeah, you're like you're going to you're going to die. Or like that's not going to happen. I remember pretty much everyone being like that. I could probably count on one hand the amount of people that actually thought I I was going to do that. What did your parents think? Can't actually remember. I don't know if I was speaking to them very much at this time. Oh, really? Yeah. My I remember my little brother was the only one that was like yeah. He's the only one I remember being like yeah, he's def he's going to do it. What was that like? You know, cuz you're on your own. Mhm. It's different to the Africa run. Mhm. But this time you're on your own for that whole that whole journey across Asia to Europe. Yeah. What's what's that like? It was an amazing adventure, man. It really was. It was it was tough though like really tough being by myself the whole time. I would literally run a marathon. I'd have a little bag with a hammock and toothbrush toothpaste phone I'd just find a couple of trees at the end of the day swing the hammock up and go again the next day, so yeah. Did you not need like friends or something? Like why? Why do you I think it's the that a lot of people said this to me at the start. They're like, "Well, well, you're going to need this. You're going to need that." I'm like, "Yeah, but why? Actually, why? Why can't you just sleep in a hammock every day and then go and run a marathon?" Did you speak to Were you speaking to anybody anybody back home around that time? Not really. You must look at that objectively and go that is not normal behavior. Um And then and then from that I ask I go, "So, what is it that's abnormal about you? Because you're performing abnormal behavior. It's super inspiring, but it's not normal. It's not typical." That's a good question, man. I'm not really sure. Yeah, it wasn't normal. Yeah, I guess it definitely wasn't normal. I think I love that you're just figuring that out now. Yeah. Um I think, you know, I met this I met this Italian guy and he'd been cycling around the world for 6 years and he showed me his setup. He had nothing on him, really. He had like He had basically nothing, but he just had a coffee kettle. That was the only thing he really cared about. So, meeting these kind of people just made me realize like what is normal? Who even cares about normal? I don't care. I just like this this is normal. This guy's cycling around. 6 years. Why not? Like he seems like he's had a pretty good adventure. I want to be like that. In Africa, specifically Kenya, I've been there. Certain parts of Kenya can really teach you that you don't need much. That's the primal. Exactly. I think it was just a different way of looking. That's what the I mean I mean it's the classic traveling like, "Oh, go traveling, find yourself." Blah, blah, blah. But that you know, sometimes meeting these people from doing the crazy stuff and from different cultures will just make you look at things in a different way. You know, even I found that coming back to London now and it's like all of you could I'm I'm back into the mode of like, "Oh, you need to go and get a flat and you need to go and live somewhere and blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, "Hold on a minute. Like I don't need Why do I need to do any of this, you know?" You must realize upon returning to the UK how much people are kind of programmed. Yeah. Yeah, and I just I guess the uh the Asia to London run was the first time I was just like just give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? And at the end of that run, your father joins you. Um Yeah, so my I remember my dad my dad came up to London and saw me. It was He said that he was proud of me and I remember that hitting cuz like he didn't say it often, but when he says it, you know, it's probably I can imagine your dad being similar like kind of thing where you know he means it when he says it and I think that's like one of the most powerful things a dad can say to his son like, "Proud of you, son." Even that makes me emotional just saying it like thinking about it. I'm like, "Wow." Um So, yeah, that was nice. And he he ran the last day with you? He ran like the last 5K, I think. I don't know. Well, yeah. The last 5K. And I was actually joined for the last couple of days by the mate that got me into running in the first place, which is really cool as well. Interestingly, there was no followers. No. There was no YouTube views. There was no headlines. There was no BBC articles. There was nothing. Yeah. Most people don't even know it happened. Yeah. Frankly, cuz you went on your own and you didn't do all the social media stuff. You didn't get back to the UK to much different fanfare than you got back to this time. You go back to your parents' house? Mhm. Couple of days in, everyone's looking around going Yeah. What's that like couple of days in? Yeah, I mean I remember my body being pretty in a pretty bad way after that. I couldn't even walk like I was really struggling. My body was really hurting and uh uh got back into the country. I was skint cuz I'd done all my dough on this Asia to London run. And then my dad was like I remember I remember he came in and dad was like, "What are you doing? You're lazy. Like get a job or something." So, I was like, "Oh, [ __ ] All right." And then went and got How did you feel when you heard that? It I It was hard at time cuz I just I I was I was I was really struggling cuz I'd just been away for a whole, you know, for about a year or something. Done this big thing. Finally finished. And then I was like, "Oh, that's reality slapping me in the face again." But yeah. You were pissed off? Yeah, I was. Yeah. When he told you to get a job? Yeah, I fumed. Yeah. Why? Because I was I was just mentally just absolutely done in and physically done in. And then he'd like just been like, "Oh, I'm so proud of you." I remember him being like, "Oh, I'm so proud of you. You've achieved more in your life already than I ever have." Blah, blah, blah. Like and it really felt like, "Oh, made a bit of a breakthrough there." What do you mean breakthrough? Just like I felt like he respected me more. Like he'd actually seen that I I was capable of doing something um that he thought was good. Yeah, hadn't felt that before. Not in that way. Not in that way. What did you think that he thought of you growing up? When you were sort of 19 years old and you're gambling and doing Uh like probably just disappointed. Um Yeah, disappointed. Bit of a loser. You eventually end up burying yourself alive, which Oh, [ __ ] bizarre. Yeah. That's a turn of events I didn't I didn't see coming in your story. So, you you do this run at 22 years old. There's sort of a 2-year gap between then and when you bury yourself alive. What are you doing for those 2 years? So, I was just working bits and pieces here and there, really. Um Back to normality? Pretty much. Like I I I finished the Asia to London run and in in my head from then I was like, "I would really love to make this kind of thing a career somehow. Don't know how I'm going to do it, but I would love to be able to do that." And then that kind of started like a 3-year or 4-year process of working out okay, you know, if we make content then maybe brands will sponsor that and then I can go and do adventures with that money. But that it took a long time to kind of put those pieces of the puzzle together. Like that was never the really what I was thinking of when I did Istanbul to London. I chucked a few photos up on Instagram just really for my boys to see be like, "I'm out here in Serbia camping or whatever." Um But yeah, th- then you know, I did the Asia to London run, figured out if we make some content, then that's how we're going to do it. Buried myself alive. Pulled a car for a marathon. Then the Africa plan is starting happening. You buried yourself alive. You asked your parents if you could bury yourself in the garden and they told you to [ __ ] off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that now. Yeah. You buried yourself alive for 7 days Mhm. in underground. You basically just dug a hole Mhm. in a tin can and jumped in the tin can and then they they buried you there. Um and then eventually the plans, as you say, you you pulled the car as well. Which is crazy. Do you know when I I actually found out all this stuff, which is shocked me, was I don't know, a week or so into your run in Africa. I saw you pop up on my feed. And then, as you know, I clicked on your profile. And then I clicked on the the inbox. Yeah. And you sent me a DM. Yeah. And the DM you sent me was in May the 5th. I think it was 2022. So, it was a long time ago. It was more than 2 years ago now. And paraphrasing cuz I know you Speculative one. No, but I bet you get these kind of DMs all the time now. Yeah, I I missed it. I didn't see it. So, I didn't I didn't I didn't see it at all, but um it's funny it's funny cuz I actually replied to you exactly 1 year to the day when you sent me a message. I replied to you on May the 5th as well, but you emailed me on May the 5th, 2022. And in that message you said some nice things and then you said, "You'll probably get a lot of these DMs, but let me explain why this one is special and exciting." Oh, you're killing yourself out there, aren't you? This is your sales background actually coming through. I'm Now, I've removed some parts cuz I Oh, yeah, cuz it's bad ads. No, no, no, no, no. Just, you know, "I'm an endurance athlete. In 2019, I was I was the first person to run from Asia to London. In 2020, I pulled a car for a marathon in record time. In 2021, I got buried alive with nothing but water. My life streamed it for an entire week. And in 2022, I'm starting a mission to become the first person to ever run the full length of Africa." You sent me that DM 2 years ago um hoping that I could assist you in some way with the the Africa leg of that. And when I saw that, the most shocking part was that you'd done all of these other things Yeah, I'd never ever heard about any of them. Yeah, yeah. And then in that message you explained to me cuz it was a very like long message and you really It was a really thorough message. You explained that this time would be different. People would actually know because you'd figured out content. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd got some good people around you. And you'd spent almost 2 to 3 years thinking about this Africa run before you even you set off going. Yeah. Why Africa? Why was that the plan? Well, I knew that Africa hadn't been done before and it's one of the few things left that hadn't been done. So, that was probably one of the big reasons. Also like Africa's not very trav- like not very well traveled. Not many people tourists not many tourists go there and I thought it would be like the best adventure ever. So that's why I decided to So you were going to run from the bottom of Africa to the top? Yeah. How long did you think it was going to take? Two I thought it would take 240 days. That was my goal. I was going to do 360 marathons in 240 days. Didn't quite work out. How long did it take in total in the end? It took 352 days. Long time. But there's lots of hurdles along the way. Before you set off, I think it was 4 to 5 months before you set off maybe 6 months. Mhm. You meet a young lady called Emily Bell. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Um Wow. Poor girl. What a woman. Was it 6 months before or something? No, I actually I I met her we first met at one of our mutual friends birthday party. Yeah. And I said to my friend like why have you never introduced me to her? She's beautiful. And then um then that started like a 3-month process of me trying to convince her to go on a date. Good luck. It took a while but we got there eventually. We got there eventually. Um actually we had a secret Santa going and I think one of my friends did me a solid and kind of like rigged the secret Santa so I got her. Oh, nice. And then I got her uh tickets to go to Komedia comedy club in Brighton. Got her two tickets so I was like well you could like you could take me okay. And then yes and then that's that's when we first started dating but uh this Africa thing was already in the works so it was quite complicated. But then before I left we were like right let's do it and we kind of like we spoke on the phone every day and mate I I was one of these people if you'd asked me 2 years ago could that have ever worked like 14 months away we spent from each other I'd be like nah. Nah, that's never going to work. Never going to work but I think we we spoke pretty much every day for hours whilst I was running if I had signal and the the the kind of stuff that we got to speak about and really go through in depth on is the kind of stuff that I think in a lot of relationships would just get swept away in the rigmarole of the day-to-day life. So I'm actually super grateful for that time. And like really proud of her and us for like navigating that kind of weird situation. Knowing that your childhood and knowing the early model of relationships that you experienced with this mother and this this father didn't seem like they always had the best time. Little bit distant. The affection wasn't there. Mhm. When you go into a relationship there must be a part of your subconscious that still has that model of relationships front of mind. So you must be in some respects like I am to be fair. Or at least like I was until I was about 27 28 when I had my first relationship. I had my first relationship at your age. Um an avoidant. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Cuz you hadn't learned you didn't have the tools to be affectionate and to be open. Totally avoidant. Still am. A bit. But but when you met her Yeah. you hadn't done had those deep conversations. Nah, I I think uh it's her credit to her more than me. She she kind of bring that out. I I I didn't have the tools to go to do any of that stuff to be honest. You know. She's just I think sometimes like I don't know. I think I just think we fit really well like together. What I can do well she can't what she can do well I can't like it works. It's so interesting because we got to have a conversation with Emily. Yeah. And the way she described you sounded very very much like me. [Laughter] It's not it's funny because I've actually listened I remember messaging you actually about it I think. I listened to you had a podcast with some relationship person. Esther Perel I remember. and yeah like the way you were talking about it I was like god this is like this is hitting home here. And we both we do that a lot sometimes we listen to podcasts and talk about it and like oh do this I'll do this. I'm going to play this. Oh god. This is going to be awkward for you but listen. It's it's word for word me. He's not the easiest to support and hasn't been the whole time I've known him cuz he doesn't accept support very like he's he's got so much better at it. But I'm a very like nurturing like I want to help. Um I want to make his life easier. What can I do? How can I support you? But for him support looks like um space. That's that's textbook me. Yeah. Support is leave me alone. It's my love language is acts of service and leave me alone. Uh that's really what it's about here. We're talking about you have different love languages and she goes on to explain that um this is much because of the way that like your early early years you were used to independence. Yeah. Um God she's smart. Let me just He's changed so much since I first met him. Like when I first met him I was not thinking oh I could actually seriously date you. [Laughter] Yeah, no I remember those days. You've um you've changed. Mhm. You've changed. How have you changed? I think I've definitely become more willing to accept some I do still struggle with that. But I've definitely tried to do that more. It's all I think for me it was like I really cared about Emily so I really wanted to be the best that I could for her as well and I just think like the level of desire to to make that happen was like really high so I've just I think before I wasn't very willing to compromise on a lot of stuff. I was like I'm doing my thing you either fit in or you don't see you later whatever. Whereas with Reminds me of me. With Emily I was like oh like she's special. I really want to make this work and I'm I'm going to have to there's it's actually a benefit to me if I can compromise because she that kind of having that connection will also bring a lot to my life and I need and I need to I need it. She kind of got over the fence. She got over the wall of the castle and managed to invade and change you from inside. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you didn't want to let anyone over the [ __ ] Nah. Nah. Is that how it's been for you as well? 100%. Yeah. I met I met a person who I cared about so much. Yeah. It's what exactly what you said that I was finally willing to compromise on things. Before that it was like as you say my way or the highway like don't get in the way of my dreams. Yeah. on the bus or you're off it but not like I'm willing to go in a different direction in some areas of my life here. And it's I think that's good news for a lot of people that are avoidants because it offers us all hope that you know we'll we'll meet someone and they'll be worth it um and they'll help to rewire some of the evidence we have from our earliest years about what relationships are and aren't and the freedom they make us compromise and all of those things. She sounds like a really wonderful person. She is man she's great. She's the best. I love her to bits. They always say you strengthen a relationship by going through something difficult together. Mhm. And that's exactly what happened as you ran the length of Africa. The the really remarkable thing was I was reading about your preparation for this trip and to say the least Russ you were ill-prepared. Yeah. You you landed in South Africa with 10K which is 4% of the money that you would need to make it the whole way. I mean there's so many other things here. You you knew that you couldn't get through I think it was Angola. Algeria. Algeria. You knew you couldn't get through Algeria because they don't issue visas if you're not in the country. our visa already yeah and they don't issue visas when you're not in the country we'd already left so. So you just thought [ __ ] it I'll figure it out when we get there. Pretty much. What is that mentality? Because there's so many people that need everything figured out and all the answers and to feel that psychological feeling of I'm ready. Mhm. You don't seem to give a [ __ ] Frankly. I don't think I was afforded the luxury of being able to you know wait really. We were running out of money. It was it was now or never I you know make it work with what you've got or don't do it basically and I was like I think we could do it. Where did this 10K come from? Well we actually got 50K to start with from an investor. Mhm. That it was a mate of a mate I've managed to persuade to give us some money to get things going. What was in it for him? He got he's got a percentage of like everything we make off the back end. So he's he's done all right. It was a risky risky risky one. That's one hell of a Yeah. Risky one for sure. I think he it was more like a he just wanted to see it happen you know. He was fellow Worthing boy. Year younger than me. Made a bunch of money in crypto and yeah so he fronted the first bit of money to get us going and 50K was more than enough to get us going. But what ended up happening is the the mission got delayed more and more. We had some people involved at the start that kind of long story they kind of said that these things were going to happen blah blah blah. Brands were going to happen all of this stuff they were trying to make happen none of it ended up coming to fruition. Did they take money? They didn't take any money no. They um but we ended up burning through a lot of the money before we were supposed to be on start line with like 50k and we ended up months rolled by, we wasted money on XYZ ideas, didn't come. So we basically got to a point where I kind of got rid of all these people. Start line 10 grand. I was like, if we don't get funding within you know, if we don't get any kind of sponsorship within the first month we this is game over because we've run out of money. Said to all my team going to have to delay your wages etc. Just really tightened up. And then I got a message from some some bloke from Dragon's Den like two weeks in. Jones. Yeah. No, so mate I mean I don't know but this is another thing that people probably don't know that you're like such a massive part of the story like you know, when when you messaged I I remember being in South Africa. I think it was about 10 days two weeks in or something like this. Got a message from you. There was like oh like just seen what you're doing something like this, love it. Like if you need any help let me know and I was like Mate, you should have seen I rang Emily up. I was like you'll never going to believe who's just messaged me. Like it was crazy. You know, obviously Huel got sorted out, Perfect Ted got sorted out. Two unbelievable sponsors. Mhm. And it's just kind of changed the whole mission man like I can't even put into words how grateful I am that you messaged me that like it was That was like you know sometimes when you have like a moment where you're like wow, like that's like that you were that moment for me. Really? Yeah. But you did that. I No, You did it. No, but like No, you did. I'll tell you why you did that. Because two things. The first thing is you had messaged me a year earlier and I just had totally missed it. But the second thing is you went and did some So you planted a seed there, then you went and did something so awesome that the world brought it to my attention. And when the world brought it to my attention, I looked at what you were doing. Um I think you were two weeks roughly two weeks in and I just thought it was awesome. I thought you were a cool guy and I could play out how this mission goes in my head and I thought this is really [ __ ] cool. I I I'm an investor in I'm a part owner in various companies um and there was two companies that I am very close to, Perfect Ted and Huel who I felt were just perfect because no pun intended, because Perfect Ted are like an energy drink company that I met on Dragon's Den. You need energy and they're all about positive energy and um the founders are very much like you. And then obviously Huel on the nutrition side of things, I thought they were perfect for you as well. And I messaged both of them and they were both down instantly. I just WhatsApp. I said there's this guy, he's running the length of Africa. He's so cool. He's really he's like going to do it and then both brands were like down in one message. I messaged the both the founders on WhatsApp and they they were like, we're in. So and you had done that. You had because you had messaged me. Most people I say this because sometimes people can see things like pivotal moments in their journey as luck, but I think it's important to highlight that you planted a seed a year earlier when you literally sent me like three pages Yeah. I mean I guess I'll describe it like I was knocking on the door but I needed someone to open it and you opened it. So like it's a kind of a dual thing there. I think you planted a lot of seeds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was knocking on a few doors, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure there's lots of messages you sent that were never replied to. Yeah. So I'm really glad that I saw it. I'm really glad but I saw it because you were doing something awesome and it just popped up in my feed one day. And I went down a rabbit hole and I was like this is [ __ ] cool. This guy is cool. It'd be dope to be you know, to do anything we can to see him see this through. So that that gives you a little nudge forward, those two incredible brands. Um you get going on the mission. You run into a bunch of health issues. I mean it went around the internet for a while. I think at this time you've got I don't know you didn't have many followers at the time. You had 20, 30, 40,000 followers. Yeah. It kind of grew it grew a lot quite quickly um early doors but I we started started the mission with I think 20k on Insta, 6k on Twitter, 10k on YouTube. And you start pissing blood by like day 30. Is there a part of you at day 30 when you're you're running through Africa and you're pissing blood and you go I ain't going to be able to do this. Nah. I knew it was bad. You're you're running out of money Yeah. a couple weeks before, then you start pissing blood. Mhm. For most people either one of those things would be okay. Let's get Let's get a flight. Well, I just I knew that you know, it was a bad situation but it would it probably end eventually. And then carry on going. You get robbed in South Africa, which is the first sort of minor robbery incident. Thieves approach you, they try and take your stuff. Think you give them a lift home. Yeah. That was two two guys came up to me whilst I was running at night. One one came in front of me, one came behind me. And I kind of instantly knew this was a bit shaky. And I um I just went a bit mad. Just like weighed up situation, just started acting a bit crazy, started like beating my chest and shouting and stuff to try and like put them off cuz I could I got the feeling like okay, they're going to this is an attempt but they haven't gone straight in with the robbery. They're kind of feeling it out. So I was like trying to give them enough of reason to think that I'm crazy enough that it's just not worth it. Kind of worked. Sorry. You started beating your chest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started beating my chest. I started shouting. I was they cuz they just joined they I was mid run and they joined me running. So like one in front, one behind. They were running it like they Uh I think they it was a situation where they were trying to feel me out, you know, like should we rob this guy? This kind of thing. And I just thought if I can put them off enough So can you describe to me what you were I literally beat in my chest. Yeah. I was JUST LIKE WE'RE RUNNING, BYE LIKE JUST GOING TOTALLY a bit just to make them think like oh this guy's a bit you know, he's a bit off it. Maybe we just get the next one. Did you learn that somewhere or was that like a plan you had or was that just was just purely like I think you react differently to different situations. Like we've been robbed at gunpoint where there's a gun in my face and I'm not going to start beating my chest cuz I don't want a bullet in my head. But then there's other times where you think like you're kind of looking at them going he's actually a bit nervous to rob me. So if I can put him off enough then he's just not going to bother. Which was that that situation. So what happens then? You start beating your chest acting like a lunatic. Start beating my chest acting like a lunatic. The one got the run the guy running behind me ended up dropping off. So then it was just the guy in front of me. He was he was quite a small guy anyway and I was like I don't reckon he's about it. And then um Did you tell him you're the hardest geezer? And then we ended up speaking a little bit and he was like oh like my friend was going to rob you but we're not hit but he's gone we're not going to rob you and I was like oh your friend was going to rob you. Was he? Yeah, like nice. Um and then you know, I actually ended up speaking to him and he was saying like he's just he needs some money to like feed his family and stuff. He was living in a township next next to the road which was like pretty bad conditions. And I was like look mate, my boy's going to come pick me up in a couple minutes. Like we'll give you some food. And he was like all right, sweet. You fed the robber. Yeah, so then the boys came and then we ended up giving them a lift back. Yeah. What nice story. Yeah. It's going to be a movie one day that. Yeah. This whole thing's going to be a movie. You get to um Angola and then you get robbed at gunpoint. Ah yeah, robbed at gunpoint in Angola. That was um Day 50. Yeah. I mean they were a bit more successful that time. They got a lot of our stuff. What happened? So ran 30k, was on a lunch break. We sat in the van. Me, Jared, Harry, my support team and we were just chatting [ __ ] like usual. Two three guys pull up on a motorbike, two of them get off come up the side of the van crack door open gun in all our faces. Start speaking Portuguese. Um then they took a bunch of stuff. Yeah, and that was a nightmare to be honest. They got passports, money, cameras, drone, phones. Was long. Have you processed this stuff? I don't know. I don't think so man. Like the the the thing is is that these things happen but you you're on the road again the next day. So just you know. Cuz you say it such a casual sort of blasé way but if someone had a gun pointed at them Mhm. most people would would be in therapy trying to resolve this sort of complex of psychological implications that causes. And when I asked you the question I could see your demeanor changes a little bit because it it's not as blasé as you you sometimes make out, is it? I don't know man. I guess it just is what it is. I haven't really I don't know if I've deeped it that much at this point. You know, we're over it. Nothing bad happened in the end. I mean we got robbed but no one died. You lost the cash, you had the equipment and and your passports which is probably the most annoying thing of all those things. Yeah, that that cost us like at least two or three weeks in terms of going to re-get visas and things. Day 50, you get to day 100 and you're day 102. Mhm. When I say day 102, does it bring back any memories? Mhm, a couple. Yeah. Couple. Um Congo. Congo. DRC. Yeah, that was one hell of an experience that. You described this as probably the hardest part of the whole trip. Mhm. Probably the hardest part of my whole life. Really? Mhm. You've not talked about this much in detail either for some reason. We so we made a YouTube series online which kind of followed the whole thing. It's the only YouTube video that I didn't release because it was quite I mean, it was quite it's a difficult one at the time as well because it was the hardest time for us as a team. And we we there was a lot of arguments. Lot of fallouts around that and I didn't think that the video that we made was really what told the story how I wanted it to be told. What happened? So yeah. You're emotional about this? Yeah, I mean, it yeah, that whole thing was was mad. The So we got to DRC I think day 100 we got to DRC. It was hostile from the start. Um we'd we'd been warned loads about it about the country. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. It's quite known for corruption. And we we'd been sent the videos of the craziest things happening there. And I think we were all a bit apprehensive. You've been sent what kind of videos? The craziest like people getting shot chopped up all kinds of stuff. Um yeah. It was it it definitely like it I mean, I don't know how much I can really I will What I would say about DRC is that we spent a few days there. My experience was very subjective. It's It's a massive country, loads of people, loads of great people, but my personal experience of the small amount of time I spent there was was a bit rough. But yeah, we I mean, we landed in the country, crossed the border. It was a very chaotic border town. We had people from the get-go very not not very happy to see us at all shouting at me whilst I was running trying to like exploit us for money officials all this kind of stuff get trying to get money out of us. And we'd heard about all of this from people traveling. So we kind of half knew what we were rolling into, but it was it really created a kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging. Um yeah, I mean, the day before day 102, we had a guy come up to guy came up to me with a rock, spikes in the rock, and he was like, "I'm going to like smash your head in with this." And he was speaking French, so I don't really get it, but Harry spoke French. So he's basically threatening us with this big spiky rock that he had in his hand saying like "Give me three quid the equivalent of three quid or I'm going to like start smashing you all up." And uh like so we I gave I think gave him a quid in the end cuz I'm not getting my head smashed in over three quid balls. I didn't want to like get word around that there was a bunch of people just throwing money around to anyone that would threaten them. So yeah, I mean woke up day 102. I was running 100k that day. And I felt very anxious from the get-go. Really like really finding it difficult already. Ran left my left the boys in the morning like I normally do, ran 20k, then ran another 20k. Start we took a turn off onto a dirt road to the boys planned this route. Took took went down this dirt road. Then the van basically this support van couldn't get to me. So the boys sent a guy on a motorbike. And so I'm running along this dirt path and this guy on a motorbike keeps trying to stop me. And I was so like scatty already that I was I didn't want to stop for he was trying to get me to stop and I was like, "Nah." I'd had it the day before people trying to stop me on motorbikes and it was all a bit didn't didn't feel great like I was I was quite anxious about the whole thing. Anyway, eventually I did stop. He gave me a note that basically said like the boys can't get round to where we were going to meet, but they're going to go to this other place and meet there. And um it's about 20k through the jungle. No roads like barely even a path. I was just kind of like whacking away through bushes to get to this meeting point where I was going to try and find the boys. Run out of water. Phone's got no signal. And I'm going through these these bushes stumble into this village. And cuz I think cuz of the experience that I'd already had in the first couple days of DRC, I was very much like I just want to get my head down and get through these places as quickly as possible with less fuss as possible. So I'm running through this village. And like people shouting at me and stuff and I'm like, "Okay, this is happening all the time now. Like just carry on going. Carry on going." But I think I upset quite a lot of the village by doing that. And then the chief of the village comes over. And then you know, before you know I'm like surrounded by half the village. They're all like very upset. They don't get what I'm They don't get who I am, what I'm doing, why I'm there. And they start trying to like say that I needs to give them money. I didn't have anything on me. So then like the chief of the village kind of got some people away and he got two blokes, took me out into the bush with machetes, and I was bricking it. Yeah, I was absolutely bricking it. Um thinking like every all every my mind's totally racing at this point. I'm like, "What like what is going on here? Why why am I going out to the bush?" Like this doesn't make any sense. I like is this a shakedown? Like what is the worst happening? Don't know. And then got out into the bush. I basically emptied all my bags, had some biscuits, gave them the biscuits, and then just darted. And then I was just like, "Right, bee line for this meeting spot." And mind's totally frazzled at this point. I've got I'm hearing motorbikes coming. I'm hearing people. I'm tr- jumping in bushes like totally just at kind of off it here. Um Kind of get through this jungle bit. Get to this meeting spot. The boys aren't there. Now I'm really like, uh this is bad cuz I'm about 50-something k in. I'm dehydrated. I've got no water. I've got no signal. And I don't know where the boys are. I don't know how where how to get to them. And I'm in the middle of the jungle. And I know that there's like I've I've set a lot of people in the local area and I've just run away from them all. I'm like, uh like this is This is bad news. Anyway, I I figured out that the tarmac the last non bit of tarmac was I think about 15 or 20k away. And I was like, "I I reckon I can just about make it there. And if I make it there, then that that makes sense to the the boys that that's the last bit they could get to." So had you just sprinted away from the guys with the machetes? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Like it was I They They walked me out into the bush and I didn't really I didn't know what was happening, but I was just so like like this is bad. Gave them biscuits and just darted. And then like I've I've run off and I can just hear loads of like commotion going on. And I'm just running through this jungle. It's It's all quite It's yeah, I mean, it's all quite mad. I was like adrenaline going through the roof. Um I was like, "Oh, yeah." Were you scared? Yeah, I was petrified, man. I was absolutely petrified. I I think what didn't help is that I didn't understand any of the language like local like Lingala the local language. I didn't know any French either, which would have helped. Um and I didn't understand I didn't have a very good understanding of the culture or anything. So I think if I went for it again, a lot of these things would have been rationalized in my mind easier, but because I was so unaware of the situation and I had had all of these horror stories built up in my head and the first couple of days in DRC was quite rough and I was just like in this spot where it didn't take much for me to kind of just assume the worst of everything. So it really just got me into a place where I was like um But yeah, I mean, I find I I find this I go see the bit of tarmac and I'm like, "Right, let's head there. It's about, you know, 2 hours away. I could probably make it there." And as I'm going there, I'm going down this dirt path, another two blokes on a motorbike pull up. And yeah, I'm I I was like, "This I just don't want any bit part of this." They're trying to stop me. You know I'm mind's totally gone. And they They were trying to I think they were trying to communicate to me like, "Oh, we're going to take you to your friends, blah blah blah." And I'm I'm thinking about I'm like, "Are these guys who are these guys sent from? Are they sent from this village or that village? Is there like a bush telegraph of there's a white guy running around here. He's upset. Like go and get him." kind of thing. So I'm like, "Nah. Not doing it, blah blah blah." Thinking you know, the boys they send note with the driver if it's from if if it's from them. And this guy These guys had no note. And I was like uh But it was, you know, getting later and later. I was like, "I've got no water. I've got no signal. I've got nowhere of knowing where the boys are. They're probably no further than 10 or 20k away. So if I'm if I get on this bike and I'm on the bike for longer than half an hour or an hour, then I'll know this bad news." So I just thought, "Fuck it. Get on the bike." How long were those two men on the bike following you and asking you to get on the bike? A while. Like probably we probably about 20 minutes. Okay. Um So, yeah, got on the bike. Half an hour went by. Then an hour went by. I start like kicking off. I'm getting off the bike. I'm having a go at them, but like the language barrier is just we don't understand a word anyone's saying. And then yeah, ended up spending 7 hours on that motorbike going into the jungle, which was like terrible. 7 hours? 7 hours, yeah. What goes through your mind in those 7 hours? I thought, well, I assumed after about an hour and a half that I was like, "Okay, well, I am getting kidnapped then. Like, we're this is it." You know, and then I was thinking rationally, I was like, I had such limited knowledge about DRC or any of this kind of stuff. I was like, "They're probably just going to they'd probably just want money." But then you also start thinking, "Well, maybe they're just going to kill you." And I the stories that I'd heard about DRC and that wasn't the craziest thing. You know, you like people get stabbed for fiber. Literally like a couple of quid people get stabbed. Um people get killed for the you know, a watch. So, I was really trying to what like I was really trying to be rational about the situation. But just like very quite quite emotional as well. And then I mean, I for the last few hours I was just like, you know, what God has for me has he has for me, you know, whatever it is it is and that's fine. And I was just trying to be like, you know, it's out of my hands. It's Um but it was very scary. I was like so nervous like just shaking. They took me to this village in the jungle. Late at night, no electricity. It's like wooden little shacks with tin corrugated roofs and stuff and got me off the bike, took me into this little hut. Then loads of the men of the village came into the hut. They were arguing about money and this kind of stuff. And then the second chief of the village walks in and says to me like, "You speak to me in English." very slowly. And he he understood a few words. And I said to him like, "This is big mistake." You know, like "Call my friend. Uh he speaks French and like and and then he can come and like we've got money and we can sort it out." And then they spoke on the phone. And then basically we agreed that the boys would come. We've got the money. And then it took the boys like I think about 36 48 hours to get there because it was so rural. There was no roads going there. It was all dirt paths. They tried to rent some motorbikes, got scammed. Then they Then they ended up trying to borrow the police a police chief's four-by-four who also scammed us. So, yeah, so then I mean the boys got there eventually. We gave everyone some money and then I was free to go. I was just looking as you were talking about how far 7 hours is. Mhm. And for people in the UK, 7 hours is London to Edinburgh. Yeah. It's London to DRC. So, if if I go from London to Edinburgh in a car, Yeah. that's 7 hours. Just to give people an idea of like how long that is on the back of a motorbike with strange men going through the middle of the going through the jungle, so it's like little tiny paths that are going up and down through rivers, through over mountains. For 7 hours? 7 hours, yeah. I was like gripping on the I was absolutely done in by the end of it. And you got to that village, they wanted they wanted money. Mhm. Did they explain anything? Did they say anything to you about who they were and I think I think they were I think they were actually just they were more scared about who I was and why I was there and all the rest of it and the I mean, after the the after the phone call with the team, things seemed quite settled like the they they were pretty all right with me and they I think they you know, It was I was I was just in a state of like totally totally whacked. What do you mean? Just exhausted, but like petrified and I was just very nervous around everything, twitchy, you know. Yeah. Have you suffered with anxiety? I don't know. I think I I don't think so, but like I do obviously I'm a human. I do know what anxiety feels like and I do get it sometimes, but I was I was anxious then for sure. You you're speaking to Emily back home, your partner, throughout um the journey on most days, but for this period of time, sounds like you were out of communication with her. Yeah. She seems like she was very very worried about you. She was, yeah. In fact, she told she told us on a research call that she thought you had died. Yeah. I mean, I thought I was going to die as well. Did you actually? Yeah. Genuinely thought you were going to die? Yeah. And how did you how do you sort of rationalize that thought? How do you deal with that thought when you're What comes to mind? Like what what are you thinking when if you if you really believe, you know, I think I'm going to die here? For like I mean, it's I guess it's different. For me I was just like, you know, if this is the way that God wants it, then I guess it is. That's it. You know, and it's more for me I was like, That's how I was what that's how I was trying to make sense of it in my brain. Were you thinking about people back home? Yeah. I was I mean, I was thinking about I was thinking about like uh all the things that I wish I had the chance to repair that I haven't like my relationship with my parents. Um I was thinking about all the things that you know, I wanted to do with my life that I wouldn't be able to do. I was thinking about what it would do to you know, everyone that that comes after you killed in the Congo for just trying to run the length of Africa. I I felt stupid cuz I was like, you know, this was these were like mistakes that have been made that were like quite should have been quite easily preventable that we didn't do and you know, that's all on me, my responsibility as well. So, it was yeah, it was a hard few hours. You're thinking about things that you should have repaired with your parents. It's interesting in moments like that people always talk about how they have a a retrospective like clarity on their life Mhm. and their priorities that most of us will never understand because we've never been in a situation where we've genuinely believed there was a chance that we weren't going to make it out. When you say you were thinking about how you should have repaired relationships with your parents, what do you mean? I don't know. I guess it it's like you said, it was a moment of clarity where I was like, I've probably wasted a lot of years there holding on to things that weren't necessary, you know, for [ __ ] reasons. And like life's too short for that. What have you been holding on to? Like resentment and pride and you know, I'm not not trying to understand or like avoiding things and not trying to connect with people that that love me and these kind of things. You think these are your last hours. You've obviously got a person there in your life who has loved you and has shown you a different way to connect and to be and to intimacy and all the all of those things, which is Emily. Are you thinking about Emily in those moments as well? Yeah, I was Yeah, I mean, I was thinking of like all the all the things that we talked about like our future together and everything that we wanted to build and like the like having kids together and all these things that just felt like they were just And how like just felt like I was letting her down. And you know, I wasn't like delivering the things that I I was going to run the length of Africa. We're going to It's going to everything's going to be all right. Like don't worry about, you know, all of these dangers. No, it's going to be fine, babe. And uh yeah. I knew how much how hard that was that time was for her as well. Cuz guess I mean, especially I'm in the thick of it, you know. I'm in the thick of it. She's like at home just thinking about it all the time. And there was a few moments like that when we didn't have signal and things. Your boys eventually find you. Mhm. They pay off the uh the guys in that village and they let you go. Mhm. Doesn't really stop there though, does it? Because there's so much now to process and to figure out and to kind of That was I think the hardest point for us as a team of the mission was like the aftermath of that. It's very difficult because I think we were all struggling. Everyone was right at their limit and probably because that no one had any spare energy to think of it anyone else in that situation. It was all like, "Oh, I'm struggling, so that's it, you know?" And yeah, I mean, there was a good few arguments. People don't really know about this moment. No. Because people like me that just watch from YouTube and from social media, we just think, "Oh, they're They're all getting on. It's all fine. Oh, they've got They're pissing blood again. Haha, funny." But when I when I did those research calls and spoke to members of your team and spoke to, you know, people around you and even members of the team that were out there with you. This was really a a falling out amongst amongst the team that no one in the public ever got to see. It's difficult one to talk about cuz I don't want to throw anyone under the bus or paint anyone in a bad light bad light. We were all I mean, just trying our best. I think for me what I recognized that I did wrong in that situation was I set us up in a bad way. Like I hired so heavily on content side because I knew that you know, we started with no money. We had to get content out there to get brands to sponsor us that I basically recruited three people that were almost entirely there for content reasons. You know, to make YouTube videos, take photos, record documentaries, this kind of thing. I completely blindsided the logistics and element and like having knowledge of Africa and all of this kind of stuff. I just thought, "That's a luxury we can't afford right now." Because of that, I'd ended up asking a support team that were mostly there for content to basically be like logistics and African logistics experts. And that's put them in a position that's obviously going to be really difficult. So yeah, I mean that the whole situation could have could have been avoided with different different plan. I recognize that and I thought off the back of that, I was like, "Right, I'm going to get a 4x4 because the van can't travel up any of these dirt roads and I'm going to hire two new people, one of which is going to be like a proper logistics guy that's going to get us through all of these tough situations." A team member actually departed around this time as well. Yeah. That that was a difficult one. Um We actually we had a big argument. It me and Harry had a big argument on just after this Congo thing. We were traveling back through these villages. He'd obviously had a rough time as well trying He'd been scammed for motorbikes, had this these dealings with the police chief. And as we were coming back he was buying like [ __ ] and and alcohol and stuff in all these little tiny remote villages. And I I had an issue with it because we're going through some of the poorest places in the world. There's kids running around with like malnourished bellies can't even feed themselves and you know, as Europeans if we bolt through these villages drinking and smoking blah blah blah, then it's giving off the sign we've got a lot of money to spare and that's why we're getting scammed so much for extortionate amounts of money. So I had an issue with it and I told him. And I probably didn't say it in a way that was how good leadership would say it, you know? So we had a big argument about that. I've obviously just been in this rural village for a couple days. I'm already I'm I'm tightly strung already. So is he. We get back to the other the other boys. These guys had no idea what had just happened. And they were all struggling themselves. So they were very much everyone was just concentrating on themselves and they were all kind of like everyone was a bit pissed off with each other. And then we had a meeting and I just blew up. Just blew up, started shouting at everyone, throwing chairs about, completely lost my cool. Just not not obviously not the right way to act. Um and yeah, I mean, it was it was awkward. It's awkward few days after that. I was I just went straight back to running. Wanted to get out of DRC as quickly as possible. It was everyone was on eggshells. We got to Cabinda, which is in the Angolan exclave. And then I said to I was like to Harry, "You're going on holiday." And I said to the other boys, "You'll all be going on holiday at some point." I think at that point I'd realized that for me I'm running every day. My body's very stressed. I'm very stressed in general. I'm managing a lot of things and I can't have the people around me also being at the edge of what they can do cuz then it just leaves me in a totally [ __ ] spot. So I tried to kind of put some reorganize, reshuffle things so that wouldn't happen but sending everyone holiday. Hired Gus. Hired Jamie, another editor to take some workload off Stan cuz I've got the geezer was working like 18 hours a day trying to get two YouTube videos out a week whilst recording and producing. I was like, "Right, we need to change something there." Gus, ex-para from Dutch military. He'd cycled up and down Africa by himself. Absolute beast of a bloke. So I was like, "He's coming in. He's going to do our logistics and one of the best recruits I've ever made. So um that's kind of how the aftermath happened. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. What is in the Diary of a CEO cup? 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If you haven't tried it, go down to a Tesco, go to a Waitrose or go online and use the code DIARY10 at checkout and you'll get 10% off. And when you do try it, let me know how you get on. As you continue on, you have all of these issues. You have a bunch more health issues. Your your back starts to give out. I think around uh around two day 205 and 206, you completely stopped because you had back issues. That the back was probably the worst injury. I I don't It's not even healed still. But basically my back started seizing up and I would get like shooting nerve pains coming down my leg. And it would just totally like totally jar. I wouldn't be able to move or yeah, it I mean God knows what happened there. Does that mean there's a chance that you've done permanent damage to your back? Probably, yeah. I mean, I ran the marathon on Sunday and it was still going a bit, so. Did you have to stop? No, but it's basically been on and off on and off very painful for the last kind of six well, whenever that was, day day 205. So since then. Emily said around that time that's sort of 200 day mark, you were like you were pretty done. What does she mean by that? When she says you're pretty done. I was in a lot of pain. Like every day. So I really just wanted it to be over at that point. And I had still got like five months to go. You still have five months to go. Yeah. Yeah. Was there I I've heard you answer this question before, but what what what day was the closest to quitting? The closest where you thought, "You know what? Maybe the the thought The the only the only time I ever really had the thought was in the Congo. Really? On the on the motorbike. Yeah, like that was the only time I actually ever actually thought like, "Why am I doing this? This is stupid." You know, like I'm going to get myself killed over this. And it kept It was a fleeting thought. It came in and then I thought, "Well, I ain't got a [ __ ] choice. I've got to do it now anyway." December time, which is day 241, you're you're in um I think the Ivory Coast. Mhm. And uh the Ivory Coast think you're a spy. Yeah. So they they took you to the local police station because they thought you were a spy. Yeah. They were very confused. Did they tell you that they thought you were a spy or did you just kind of piece that together? it was more piecing that together. I think they were very confused about how I was, why I was there, why I was running in in the middle of the night. Um and yeah, they they made sure they did all their checks on me that so that wasn't any suspect individual. January comes around, the new year. How did you celebrate Christmas out there and that all that stuff? We uh it was back to basics kind of Christmas we had. Um chickens on the fire. I got a bit pissed. Missed the family? Yeah, Christmas would have been a bit of a weird one for my family anyway, but yeah, like um I mean, it was business as usual. I was I think it was pretty much focused on the job and had a couple drinks and that was that. One uh a day shortly after that, um that really I think things took a bit of a turn in terms of publicity was when you reached Algeria and you had the issues with your visa because Algeria um as we said is a country that doesn't grant visas unless you're in your home country currently. And so you were advised by the FCO not to travel there? Um I believe. I can't remember. A lot of people advised us not to travel. Travel there. And the Algerian authorities were saying absolutely no to you to get to you getting a visa. Um so you decided to start an online campaign to try and like it's such a it's such an interesting thing because very few people would have a country say, "We're not going to give you a visa. You cannot come into our country." And you decide that the way to overcome that is with some tweets. Yeah, it was bold strategy. It was we were we were strategizing for a couple weeks before that of like right, this you know, we have our backs against the wall here. What are we going to do? And we kind of you know, Gus and Stan had were putting together these kind of plans to get residency in Mauritania and then potentially, you know, do all of these little things to try and somehow get a visa. And um just got to a point where I said like, "Boys, let's just hail Mary it. Just get the just let's just blast it on socials cuz it's going to take someone right at the top to to say yes. You know, let's swing for the fences." And that's what happened. Um you launched this kind of online campaign led predominantly by Twitter to get someone in Algeria, someone higher up or a politician in the UK to speak to Algeria. Yeah. The campaign goes pretty viral. Everyone's posting it in the UK. So much so that even Elon Musk tweeted at one point which is mad. Yeah. Basically saying that this is what this platform's for, what he loves about the platform. That was sick. And then Algeria tweet you basically saying, "We'll give you a visa on the spot." Yeah. Which is mad. Isn't that mad? Actually mad. Yeah. you think about where you came from. Yeah. You've got Elon Musk tweeting and and they're like Algeria's Twitter account tweet at you going, "Come on in. We're going to we're going to change our laws Yeah. so that you can come through here." And Elon Musk's tweet and that is just mad. It was mad. It was absolutely crazy. And then you get through. You get your visa, you're able to enter Algeria. The um Sahara Desert was another big challenge for you. You get to day 3 engine 13, the truck breaks down in the Sahara Desert 250 km away from the nearest road. What I found so interesting about this little chapter in the story was that when we spoke to Stan, who's part of your team on the research call he says that you weren't really concerned because everyone just assumed everything would be fine. We'd been through much worse. Um Stan said that the resilience they had built up was accumulative and gradually they became less and less concerned about set setbacks. And I read that and it was really inspiring to me because it says something about life. We all have these like subjective setbacks that we can like fall into a dark hole thinking it like the end. And it could just be like Jenny at work sat in our seat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas you're in the Sahara Desert and your truck has broken down 250 km from the nearest road. The repair team can't fix it and you guys just shrug, "It'll be fine." Barely thought about it, mate. Come on. Really? Yeah, I remember just thinking, "Ah, that's a minor. We'll figure that out." Because you had so much evidence that you guys had been able to figure out so many other things. Yeah, and I think like by the end as well like the team was so it was slick like the way everyone was operating. We everyone knew what they had to do. No one needed you know, no one needed telling. We all just got on with our jobs. And the amount of output for four people was crazy. That really is what resilience is. People always ask like, "How do you become more resilient?" But it seems to your story taught me that it's like go through some difficult [ __ ] together and come out the other end Yeah. and you'll have evidence. Yeah. And even if you you know, go through some difficult [ __ ] and it doesn't work out then you've got a few lessons in there, right? So At least you survived, right? That's a lesson. Um and then you get to the final leg of the trip. And all of the people around you tell me that there was a noticeable increase in your sort of happiness and demeanor when you could start to see the finish line. Definitely. In your mind. You get to what 2 weeks out and the social media interest goes pretty [ __ ] crazy. Yeah, it did. Yeah. Yeah, even like mainstream media kind of picked up I think the last few days. Last few days. Yeah. The whole of the UK only had one thing to talk about. Really? Yeah. I'm sure it was, you know, very much the case in other parts of the world. I saw news reports in America and other parts of the world, but it felt like back here in the UK the the UK was just talking about one thing. Really? It was following you. You know this surely you might your girlfriend and stuff must have told you. It was [ __ ] pandemonium. It's every social you know, I'd go on social media and anyone that I I knew was was posting about you um running that last leg driving money to those charities that mean a a whole lot to you. Um as you come into that last leg, that last day crowds of people like hundreds of people flew out there. It's nuts. Absolutely nuts. And they're running with you. A lot of them I I was heard from some of your team. I think it was Stan that was saying to me a lot of people flew out there, but they were keeling over and like collapsing on the side of the road cuz I don't think they anticipated that this isn't London, mate. Yeah. It was so funny. Like um Tunisia at that time wasn't even that hot, but coming from the UK everyone's just absolutely cooked and And you um you come into that that last day and your dad is there as well. Yeah. Yeah, it was an emotional day, man. I met my dad came and ran like he he could only run like 2 or 3 K out these days, but he came and ran and um like put his arm around me and that and you know, it was it was special. Your relationship with him started to pick up. Mhm. Um as you got closer to the finish line it seems. Yeah. I've heard that from a few people. Yeah. Uh throughout throughout the whole mission really I think, but uh Emily's definitely a big part of helping that. What was it like to see him? And where did you see him? Was it on the last day? On the last day. Um yeah, we ran a little bit, couple tears. Just like What were the tears for? I don't know. Like I guess it was like a signal that it was like this is actually over now, you know, like my dad's here. Um and like you know, everything everything that I've been through, but also like everything he'd been through, everything his dad's been through. Felt like it just felt like a moment, you know. He was proud of you. Very, very proud of you. Very, very proud of you. We got to speak to him on the phone. And hearing how proud of you he was was one of the most moving things I actually of this whole experience of speaking to your friends and family, hearing just how proud your father is of you is it moved me when I heard it. I actually um I I couldn't believe it with my son, you know, crossing the line and and um it was it was sort of like not real sort of thing. You know, it's like you know, but it's took a while to sink in feel sinking in now, really. And he went on to say, "I couldn't be more proud of my son." Yeah, it's nice. It's powerful when your dad says that, isn't it? Always. You cross the line. How does that feel? Ah, yeah. I mean, that finish line honestly felt like a [ __ ] mystical thing that was never coming for the longest time of time. So it's the fact that it finally came was just like wow, it's finally over, you know, like we actually did it. So yeah, very grateful. It's quite complex emotions. I can see it in your face. Yeah. What were those emotions? I guess it's just like grateful that it all worked out, you know. And like all the hard work paid off. And all the hard times paid off. Your girlfriend said that you um you walked over to the edge of the water and you reached the northernmost point of Africa and you saluted. And to her that salute meant more than just a sort of random token gesture. It was a a salute in many respects to say you know there's certain chapters closed in my life now and there's certain things that I've I've proven. I think maybe the right word there is proven. Yeah, I think so. Hopefully. What have you proven? Ah, I guess I've um I'm capable. You know? I can do it. Your mom was there as well? The whole gang? The whole team. Was that the best feeling of the whole journey? That that end moment with your family was cuz I heard you describe that the start was amazing, the first day. Mhm. And in that moment, I imagine it's overwhelming for so many reasons. There's so much the process and So overwhelming, man. People are there and screaming and with cameras in the sky news are running alongside you. It's like It looked absolutely crazy. I was watching it on TV. It was totally mad. I think the finish line was one of them things that was just so over like I don't know if you had it like when there's so much going on and it's so overwhelming, you kind of like you it's almost feels like an out-of-body experience. Mhm. And you're someone that's like lived most of their life in relative isolation. Yeah. You like being alone. Yeah. Emily told me that she goes, "I think he's happiest when he's when no one's there." [Laughter] Yeah, I do like being alone. I do like it. Interesting still is like you get back to the UK and you've been running this crazy you've done this crazy thing for more than a year, right? It was 300 352 days. I was out there for 14 months, I 14 months. You get back to the UK. You land. The weather's different. Obviously, society's completely different. Yeah. Now everybody knows who you are here. Mhm. So wherever you go, someone's going, "Oh, how did he do that? Can I have a [ __ ] picture?" And I'd like How how is that? Um still think I'm kind of working that out at the moment. Don't really know. It's It's definitely different. But everyone's so nice and I think like the like the stories of people that like they come up to me and they're like, "You know, I I was running the marathon on Sunday." And people are like, "You're the reason I'm here." and stuff. And I'm like, that's kind of mad, but that's sick as well, you know? So Are you feeling overwhelmed? Yeah. Definitely. How do you know? Because I'm I'm trying to distance myself from everyone and everything at the moment. Really? Yeah. Like I yeah. Just I think um my social battery run out quite quick and once that happens, I'm just like, "Whoa, I need to be alone." immediately. Done. Can't speak. Done. And you're getting all these emails now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's just like Well, I think there's a lot of things happening as well that I'm not that I don't know how to handle properly like emails and all these other things. You don't have management. You don't have anyone agent, nothing. I kind of need a moment to work out what I actually want to do. I think but it's fine. Like I'm not running ultra marathons in the Sahara Desert anymore. I can't like it's it's all right. You know when you were running that marathon you ran the London Marathon like a couple like two days ago or something. Yeah. That's a very public place to be. Yeah, I didn't quite anticipate anticipate that. I don't know why. I had some people that saw you down there. Mhm. And they were a little bit concerned. Really? Yeah, cuz you looked a little bit overwhelmed. Yeah, I was a little bit. There was just a lot of people. People grabbing at you and stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean people are nice, so like they would they only had nice things to say to me. It was just like so much like stimulation, you know what I mean? Mhm. Like it's just it was I was like I'm not used to this. It's I find it fascinating so you you're at the very top of this mountain in terms of like publicity and attention and everyone's screaming and grabbing at you and wants you for stuff. You've just done this incredible adrenaline inducing feat running the length of Africa. There's all of these chemicals in your body, the adrenaline, the endorphins, all that stuff that comes from endurance sports. Yeah. And then Done. Done. Zero. Like stop. Yeah. How's that? Um my body needed it. Yeah. It's absolutely, you know, bashed in. But it is also it was it's it's been quite difficult to I had the like such a solid routine every day for a year. It was like get up, run, break, eat, run, do the same, you know, every single day. And now the schedule's like wildly different. It's like Okay, wake up, interview here or go and do this and then this and, you know, meet this person, person. And I'm kind of missing that that routine of exercise and all the time. Kind of want to start that back up again pretty soon. Maybe Maybe not 60 or 70k a day, but like I need I actually need that, you know? So How's your mental health? I think I think it it's fine. I just need to get like I just need to get a few things sorted. Like I haven't got a place to live yet or I don't really I don't know the immediate next steps like career wise what I'm going to do. And a lot of things have changed obviously, so it's just working out a lot of all of this stuff. But I think when there's that many uncertainties in your life, it will it's always going to create a certain level of like mental challenges. So I just need to figure them out and then I'll be all right. You know, you must get bored of people asking you what's next cuz it's this is what everyone asks when everyone doesn't when anyone does anything interesting. Like, "What's next?" They want to know Yeah, yeah. the next challenge I have got a lot of ideas. I think like one of the big things that I would be really what I really love to do is in some way be part of like documenting other people's journeys when they go on you know, they're starting from somewhere and they they've got this big thing that they want to do and just like either helping them or being like in some way do it. Mhm. Uh so I'd really love to try and do more of that. The last year as well like one of the things that I struggled with is it like it was so much everything it was geared towards basically helping me run. And I've had enough of that. You know, all of my support team were there basically to facilitate me running as far as I can every day. And it would be nice to do things for other people more than just everyone doing things for me. That's an interesting thought. You've had enough of that. Enough of it being about you. Yeah. It's interesting, Russ, cuz you're someone that quite clearly through your story once likes being alone and like low-key under the radar, do their own thing, spend time in my own head. Mhm. And then exactly that, doing exactly that in in you running the length of Africa, being alone out there in the Sahara Desert alone has built this massive [ __ ] audience. Yeah. And all these people watching you. That are now like very much compromising in some respects. Obviously, there's so much privilege and stuff that comes with it, but they're compromising the very thing that you loved the most, which is you running from London to Asia alone, Asia to London alone um on your own with the hammock. It's never quite going to be the same, if you know what I'm saying? You can't even walk down the street in London. You're like a really distinctive recognizable guy as well cuz the ginger beard and stuff Uh I I well, I think it will like it will die down like eventually. So I think it's going to be all right. It's just different. Yeah, it is just diff Yeah, it's just different. It's a different new set of problems, I guess. Yeah. To manage and stuff. Yeah. You did all of this, you know, to have the experience. You inspired all these people along the way and obviously central to this was the running charity. They do incredible work for people kind of like yourself that are in that situation where you're looking for guidance. Yeah. You're looking for a sense of purpose and meaning, etc., etc. Um How much how much What was the goal? Fundraising goal? Yeah, what's your fundraising goal? A million. A million? Yeah. And what are you on at the moment? When I checked yesterday, I think it was 970. I'm not exactly sure what it is now. And you've been down to see the work that this charity do, haven't you? I've worked with the charity for like years. You know, I used to before I left, I was the adventure guide. So I'd take people take groups of people up climb mountains or out into nature and we'd do stuff. I did stuff with fundraisers who were raising money for the charity. I mean I I I did the Asia to London run for the running charity as well. So I've been involved for for four or five years. Well, I have to say, Russ you um you inspired millions of people. You don't know this, but like when I'm in the gym Yeah. and I start thinking about quitting, the whole time you're in Africa, I was like, "Fucking Russ is running three marathons today." So I was like, "What What the hell am I doing thinking about quitting?" And I it kept It was this thought in the back of my head that helped me over and over again when I was in difficult moments, when I'm in the gym, when I'm thinking about quitting, when I'm thinking about not even doing the workout. I'm like, "That guy's going to be up today running another 20 well, 60k or 100k." Yeah. So it was a it was even like a this motivational force for me in my life and I'm really, really appreciative of that. But I also know cuz I've seen the messages and I've seen the DMs that for many people out there that are Russ at 19 that don't know the path forward, that don't have guidance, that don't have something to aim at, you've given them a blueprint for how to turn your life around. And there's you've given 19-year-old Russ, all the 19-year-old Russes out there a blueprint for how to turn your life around. And you've given them evidence that it's possible. And people in that situation as you were they don't always believe it's possible. You described the hopelessness and helplessness of that situation. That's exactly what you've done. And also you've raised a [ __ ] ton of money. Now your goal was to raise a million pounds, which is a ridiculous amount of money. Um So before we sat down, I made a few phone calls. You know I'm an investor in a few companies and I'm on the board of a few companies. So I called Julian Hearn at Huel and I said, "Listen, wouldn't it be great if uh Huel could get behind this and and make sure he hit that target? Now, there you go. Wow. They've donated the remainder of the cash to for your fundraising. So you've hit the million pounds and we wanted to say a huge well done and congratulations on behalf of all of us here at Divine Studios. MAN. IS EM- EMILY HERE? THERE SHE IS, COMING IN. YEAH. OH, SWEET. SO MUCH, MAN. NAH, MAN. THANK YOU. Absolutely incredible. And I know the the team at Perfect Ted here, they've Could you chuck me the um daiquiri thing on here? This one here. Again, I'm an uh an investor in this company and uh we we have a partnership together. Hardest energy. produced the hardest energy, which is a limited edition strawberry daiquiri flavored Perfect Ted, which will be on sale and I think the proceeds much of the proceeds of this will be donated towards this campaign as well. Um it begs the question why strawberry daiquiri. If uh some people that don't know, why strawberry daiquiri? Uh I don't even know. Like it just ended up becoming a thing that I was saying towards to throughout the mission. I'd be like, "Get me to Tunisian beach for a strawberry daiquiri." And it was in my head and then we finally got it done, eh? And they're here as well. So we'll we'll include up the link to buy this in the description below. So anyone that wants to celebrate your incredible achievement with us will be able to do so. We do have a a last tradition on this podcast. We I mean it's not not usually how they end, but um where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving it for. So I hope it's a good one. Huh, there's two questions. Interestingly, I'm going to ask you both questions cuz they're both applicable. Okay. So first question is, if there was a movie about your life, which I'm sure there will be, who would you want to play you? Ron Weasley. Okay, and question number two. What place do you feel the most comfortable in and why? One of the things that I just love doing the most is mid-run, going to Tesco, getting some snacks, and just sitting outside Tesco on the pavement eating my snacks. It's my favorite place ever. Love doing that. Very relatable as always, Russ. Thank you so much, honestly. If everything I said then about the inspiration you've given me is completely true and I I I know that there's so many people out there that feel the same way and you've made me want to aim higher in in some of the things that I do in my life and pursue bigger challenges and really push myself to the limits because as you've proven in your life, all of the good things are on the other side of some form of discomfort. The purpose, the meaning, the connection as you've proven. And like so many people at the moment in society are suffering with their mental health, with a lack of sort of a sense of meaninglessness. And you're this like the shining example for all of us, this North Star of this first step we have to take to go on that incredible journey. So thank you so much, Russ. Mate, thanks for everything you've done, man. I can't honestly, I can't thank you enough. So you made it happen as well, so amazing. [Music]