Hello and welcome to StompCast, me Dr. Alex George. It's the podcast where I go for a walk with a guest to find out how we can use their expertise to help us become a healthier version of ourselves mentally and physically. This week I'm stomping with Russ Cook, best known as the hardest geezer. Russ took on an unbelievable challenge earlier this year. He became the first person to run the entire length of Africa
from the southernmost to the northernmost point of the continent as part of Project Africa. After running approximately 15,000 kilometers, averaging over 30 miles a day in some incredibly tough conditions, he crossed the finish line after 352 days. Yes, essentially a year. We've had a few people on the stompcast before who've taken on tough endurance tests, but this one is definitely the most extreme yet.
Russ has just released his first book, Miles of the Mindset detailing the grueling journey he went on offering motivation and advice on mindset and how to reach your full potential. I can honestly say this has been one of the most incredible episodes of the stompcast we've done. I know I've said this a few times, but this is an absolute corker you're going to love it.
I do, however, have a quick favour to ask. Can you pick up your smartphone device and just go the platform that you're listening with, Spotify or Apple, and please leave a review and a rating? Why? Because it helps us reach more people. I want to help people to stomp cars and help their mental health, their physical health. You can help me to do that by doing this little thing. It tells the platforms to share our podcast to more people. Right. Let's get on with the episode.
Well, Russ, welcome to the stomp cast. I must say, I've been really wanting to have you on for a long time. I was like, I've got to get this guy in the stomp cast. They was aware of your journey, your very long stomp through Africa. I think when you're two thirds the way through, and I said, this is incredible. And then there's this snowball effect, wasn't it, on social media? Yeah. It became bigger and bigger and bigger. So honestly, I was just praying, manifesting the kind of a stomp. Yeah.
Well, we're here, we made it happen. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I thought what I might do first of all. So, in the introduction I've talked about...
a bit about you and the challenge you've done. But I think some people aren't necessarily aware about the other challenge and things that you've done along the way. So I might just recap a few though. So correct any of them if they're not 100% right. But in 2019, you ran from Istanbul, Turkey to Worthing in England. And that was 2900 kilometres. Now 68 days without support. So that was obviously run. In 2020, you set a world record for the fastest marathon while pulling a car. You did that in nine hours and 56 minutes. That's great.
And then you also, the one that I was like, what? This one is very different to running. In 2021, you're buried alive for seven days with 20 liters of water in a ventilation tube. Yeah. Livestreamed. Oh, yeah, that was a good one. Why? And did you do that? Let's start off with that one. Why did I do that? I think... Well, I've done a lot of running. I'm pulling cars involved. You need to lie down.
I wanted to kind of test the different element of endurance. I wanted to see what it was like to just experience nothingness for a whole week. Just let my mind sit there and see what happened. Didn't have any food or anything. So it's just like overcoming a different type of struggle really.
So with that, what I was thinking about when I read about you doing the seven days, you're literally buried, which sounds absolutely terrifying in a way. How was it done? It was like you're in a box, basically. It was given what personal space, but you are literally buried. Yeah, so we had a coffin inside a little box where I could sit up and then...
She's buried under a bunch of mud. That sounds literally terrifying. What was that like from a sensory perspective? Because now there's a bit of fashion there where people wanting to do, I don't know if fashion, that's not fair. People are wanting to have sensory deprivation, almost like dopamine deprivation. You can go into these like baths that are really salty so that you float and you lie there and then sand that in rooms. What was it like from a sensory perspective? Because it must have been kind of boring.
Yeah, it was well boring, actually. But, well, it starts off being boring, but then once you get used to it, you actually, like, I don't know if you like this, but I just, I could just think for unlimited amounts of time. So I just really enjoy having time to just think and process and really like go deep on some of the big topics of life. Are you a over thinker?
Interesting word, overthinker. Do you think more than sometimes you'd like to perhaps? Yeah, no, I do. Yeah, definitely. Sometimes it would be nice to switch the brain off on occasion to find that challenge. What about you? I'm a big overthinker. I think it's part of being an ADHD who's very sensitive. I think that's like a perfect combination for spiraling. Yeah.
Like ruminating, I guess. So I wonder, because I know a lot from the other podcasts you've done, and of course you've written about it in your book, which is fantastic by the way. I love the way that you've got the contents of different forms of geese things. That's a good idea. I love it. It's brilliant. And I will link the book, by the way, guys in the show notes. Go and get a copy. It'll be a fantastic read for you. You talk very honestly about a lot of the difficult things we've experienced, like gambling and
drink and those kind of things. How much did that play into the kind of thinking and being someone that is in their mind a lot? We're going straight and deep here. We're on the stomp cost. So how did like the gambling and the drinking and stuff? Did you how much does that play? Because I guess what's interesting is you talk about swapping the kind of hard, right? So you kind of chose the running. And I think he had to talk about someone like the clarity that kind of gives you.
Do you think that on the other side of things, was the alcohol and things playing and gambling? Was that playing a role in the thinking? Was that more the kind of dopamine side of things? I think it's all encompassing a bit to be fair. I mean, for me...
When I look back at those years, I think as a young man, I was really just trying to search for any kind of something that meant something just meaning in any kind of way I could and tried a lot of different stuff to experiment with that.
You know, the drinking, I mean, I was never like an alcoholic or anything. I just more of a binge drinking culture, really. And then, like, gambling was pretty problematic. I was just, I think, lost and looking for things that would make me feel better. And that's where I found, like, that's where I was trying to find it. And then, you know, you go through the cycle of it, you realise it's a bit of a bottomless pit.
And then, luckily enough, I found running. You found the running and that was it. What was the moment where, was it as simple as discovery? You went for run. Like, talk us through how that transition happened. Yeah. I think these things were quite gradual, really, but the pinpoint moment was probably when I was in a nightclub and I ran home, I was like,
in the nightclub. I didn't really like clubbing, but I did it because my mates did, and I wanted to fit in. And I was like, what am I doing with my life, man? I need to, like, something needs to change here. And there's no rhyme or reason to. I just had the kind of spontaneous thought that I'm just going to run home. And then I did. And didn't really think too much of it. It's just one of the- It's casual run home. Yeah. How old was it? About 11 miles. It's a decent run. It was a good old run.
I'd be hesitant to even call it a run. I was stopped starting all the time. I was taking naps on pavement. It wasn't pretty out there. It took out. It wasn't anything too spectacular, but my mate takes me after that who'd just got into running. He's like, you know, a twist of mine's going to run half marathon and then a full marathon with him.
And once I started training with him, I kind of got this sense that I was investing my time and energy into something that actually gave me some positive outcomes in return instead of the other stuff that I've been doing. For someone who doesn't run, I've really got into running. I found...
you really helpful in my training. So whenever I'm, when I'm on a run, I'm like, this feels very tough. I imagine you slogging through it as a, I don't want to keep it going. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm in a fancy park, doing loops, I'm going to have a coffee after this. It really, actually, so thank you. You've got to make your tea lap a frothake. Exactly. They've got a five pound combination to enjoy in a moment. So you've really helped me get through those bits. But what, what is it?
feel like for someone that isn't a runner. And I wasn't before. I never understood why people run quite frankly. Two years ago, I was like, why would you do that? What does it feel like when you go for a run? When I try and think about my own journey, I remember the early days, it sucked. I actually hated it at the start. Like this, I'm tired, I'm out of breath. I'm like in a just constant state of uncomfort when I'm running. It's not very nice. But then once you get over that hill,
I found running to be very peaceful, very meditative experience. I was feeling better in my body, I was feeling more confident, just feeling more about it. So I'd say once I'd got over that hurdle, it gave me all that stuff, but also a great space to think all my best ideas have all come off that I've been running, all of them.
Do you think it's a sense of the clarity almost that you get? Because your brain, your blood flow changes when you run, you obviously get that endorphin boost. You get an almost a sense of like, you see things perhaps in an oddly clearer way when you run, right? So it's... I'm not entirely sure on the science, you'd probably be better at explaining it than me to be fair. What do you think it is?
I think it's very true, and I actually did the Royal Parks half on last weekend, and I actually, for this half marathon, I put on like, meditative sounds, not one with a guided meditation, just sounds.
I found I went to this crazy flow state where I did my, well that was my PB and I was really quick around and I think I just went into this kind of flow state and you see things with more clarity kind of explain it in that sense but there's something about the, yeah probably the neurochemicals and the blood flow but you enter this kind of really positive kind of space. When it comes to
the challenges. So I get, so that side of the running, it's like, I'll take to anyone, give it a go, and it is crap at the start, isn't it? You just feel rubbish, and it's hard, and all that kind of stuff. But once you've done, I think, maybe 12 weeks, I think it's a good point. 12 weeks, you've got to the point where you can kind of run some distance, and you hit a steady state of running. It's beautiful. Why did you then decide to start doing the challenges? What was the inspiration for doing more difficult ones, I guess? Yeah, so, I mean, once I'd started running,
I really found a lot of purpose in trying my best and then I could see the improvement. I think that's what was really motivating is that when I was trying really hard throughout my training and, you know, it's like newbie gains in the gym. You can see the results and it's so motivating. You're like, wow, I'm actually getting better at something. You know, there's a positive feedback loop here. I'm trying harder and it's working.
And I think I just kind of continued on that cycle until a point where I was like, you know, I was pretty good then. And then I was chatting to one of my pal that got me into running. We were speaking about a place called Iten in Kenya. But if you've heard of it. No, I haven't. It's this little village right in rural Kenya on the top of the Rift Valley where like an insane amount of
the world's best runners have come from. So like Kipchoge, a lot of these types of people. Yeah, like really the best of the best.
You know, we were speaking about how they're all running on dirt roads and they're running barefoot and like there's this culture of running there and what makes this place special and I thought it was sick and I was like, right, I've got it. So I'll just quit all my jobs. I'd saved up a bit of money for the first time in my life and I was like, right, let's have it off. Enjoy your ride. Thank you. You must go there everywhere. Just everywhere on us. And I have most people like us, but everyone is like, thank you.
I forgot what I said. Sounds about Kenya. Yeah, so you went to go and spend it, yeah. Yes, I went, right? And, um, didn't train in, got my arse completely warped. Like, these guys were rapid, but I did meet a guy who'd been cycling around the world, six years on a bike, and it was one of the first times where I really sat there and thought, like, for up and growing up, I'd spent, you know, I'd looked at people and they all followed this kind of set path of,
school and then maybe college or uni and then they'd get this steady job and I was like oh like it never really spoke to me yeah and then I met this guy and he'd just been cruising around all over the world just doing his thing with like a backpack and a bike and I was like that is just so sick
And that's like what really inspired me to think, I was no good at cycling, but I was pretty decent at running. I thought, I could run across some continents. And then I started getting a map out. Just don't over-complicate these things. I just got a map out. Look to... Just Google Maps on your laptop. Just look to it. Literally my phone. And your phone. Don't have a laptop. Zoomed out. Yes. Can you keep the zoomy out? Like, how big can I go? Europe's probably all right in summer, isn't it? Like, there's no lines or anything in Europe. I'll probably do all right.
for your your matt trickers like is there lions do they have maybe like is there snakes or there is like bears in Bulgarian mountains and if you see when you've been running have you seen snakes and stuff like that loads from yeah oh my god so that I hate snakes as well they're proper I'd worry I'd say the snakes like the devil
When you see them, do you just kind of like, is it wide worth? Even if it's like a kilometer, just get around that. It's how they move. It's how they move, isn't it? They make a move suddenly. We ate the snake one. Did you? Goodness me. Does the snake taste good?
No, it's disgusting. It's like chicken. Everyone says everything tastes like chicken. Yeah, monkey tastes like chicken, but I found snake to be particularly repulsive. Not good, not good. So you zoomed out and you had a look and thought, because your first tackle was smooth up, wasn't it? Yeah, it stumbled. It stumbled. It stumbled. What was that like without a support team? A totally different type of challenge to be fair, because you're in your own headlot. And it's surprising how lonely you can get in, you think, six to eight days. It's not that long.
It's a home when you're running it. Yeah, sure. I'll tell you a follow your thread. Yeah. Yeah, I got so it's quite lonely experience, really. But again, something that I was like...
really pushing myself like I'd I think I'd run maybe two marathons before I did that and then I went and ran 60 not 71 back to back so it's like right on the edge of what I thought I could do and then managed to get it done and then had a new sense of like right you know anything is really possible like
I could do it. I like, you know, I could do it because the strings get even bigger. So before we go on to the big one, do you think I have a question about mentality and especially at the stage where you just kind of done that Istanbul journey back to England? Do you think knowing what you learned from that that we underestimate what we can do as people? Every day, people let me, like team here, like do you think we underestimate? This is the thing is I'm actually exceptionally average in
I can hear everyone on the phone be like, you're not. I'm on the phone on the ear. They're listening to the ear pods right now and they're going, no, you're not. This thing actually, I'm like, fairly stupid, not particularly gifted runner. You know, these things were a lot of these things are just possible because I like, I just dreamed massive, like the audacity, the pure audacity to just like, like, let's set the goal, like way above what I think I might be able to do and then like try and figure out a way to get it done. Do you want to find your limits?
is that what you're, because I'm interested, we can come onto it a little bit later, but I see on your stories and you're kind of, you're teasing and you're looking at Drake's passage and all this crazy stuff. Do you, do you want to find where Russ's limit is? I'm not sure what I will do. In Africa, I think I might have done, because, you know, I got through it, but it didn't come without its consequences. Yeah. So. What were the consequences?
well like mental physical consequences like I set my eyes getting worse and worse I think the Sahara sounds like battered my eyes
So I can't even like, my vision is so much worse now. My body, I still haven't had a health check up, I don't know how good it is, but there's definitely no. So I think there's definitely probably some repercussions in there. Also just like mentally, it's like nearly six months ago. I don't even know if I've mentally recovered from it yet. So, you know, sometimes you fly close to the sun and get burnt.
Yeah, and a great way to put it. I mean, let's, we'll come back, I think, that the mental side and, like, looking back now, but let's go to the kind of planning phase of everything. Why this challenge? Why do you decide to do this route? And was the part of you thought, is this possible? Was that part of the fun? It's definitely part of the fun. Yeah, I think, like, Africa, you know, no one had done it before.
So that really enticed me because I was like, it's the sense of going where no one's gone before. So that was like a, that spoke to me. And then also, yeah. The last, when I went to Kenya, when I went to Africa, got really, I was really inspired, had an amazing time there. And I also thought like, it's probably the most different. Running that continent is probably the most different to what I,
would know, like in Europe. So that sense of just going as far into the unknown as possible, it's like the biggest sense of adventure. Africa is definitely an adventure. That is an adventure. So talk us through some of the kind of, I guess you can say highlights and low lights, maybe start with the highlights. What were the kind of highlights of that experience? So I think a lot of the highlights for me are
When I look, when I think back to some of the kindness we were shown by it, absolute strangers along the way, it's just like, kind of really makes you appreciate the beauty of the human spirit, like rolling into a village in Nigeria in the middle of the night after running the city club and was absolutely knackered and having a couple of sketchy experiences and not being totally sure how you're going to be greeted, but then it's like,
Right, in your convoys, here's some beers, here's some food, we're going to play some music, have a great evening. Stuff like that, being joined by like 100 locals in the capital of Namibia and when took, came out running with me like, that was mad. The amount of people that came to the finish line as well, that was
crazy but like the amount of people with the locals that we met really like make those journeys what they are you know. So perhaps we not only underestimate our own ability to do things but also the people will support us or the kindness of some people obviously there's an opposite side of that as well but there are kind people out there. That's the thing and it's like even
Even writing this book, people are fine. We often talk about the challenges a lot in the bad stuff, like all the raw being at gunpoint and all this. It's more of a headline, but it's not maybe necessarily so much of a headline to be like.
you know, this family in Nigeria took us in for a night or this mechanic in the desert, like, fixed our car four times to drive half over across the country to help us, but, you know, 99% of it is that, and it's that the 1% of these bad stuff happens, but that's all there. So, you know, it's a really good point. It's kind of a sad fact, isn't it? I mean, I saw a lot of the headlines and news and some of the things that happened, obviously, seeing the book, those are some of the headlines you see, but it's almost like human nature that we were like, we have this intrigue to what went wrong.
biggest part, or almost important part of that story. The fascinating is that we kind of focus in on those things. We're going to talk a part two bit further about the actual experience and hear some of the low lights of it. But I guess as we come to the end of part one, my question is like, what's it like to write a book? You conquered many different complex things. Now you're conquering writing as well. It was a lot. You're a 11 English teacher. How did you smash it?
But yeah, no like, intense and like, there's so much to go through. But, you know, we've got it done and there's like a lot in there and I hope like people can take some, some of the things from there and apply it to their own lives and maybe, you know, whatever they want to do a bit. Hopefully it'll be good.
Well, you know, I think it's just, it is such an inspiring book, but it's because you're an inspiring person and like that chat that ran past and the red T-shirt shout out to him if you ever listened to it. You know, you've inspired him, you can see that, right? I can see that in the interaction. And you've inspired me, like I said to you, like when I'm pushing through, you're like, no, no, this is possible. You know, this person's done that. And I think, funnily enough, I was thinking, I was thinking about doing, like I'm doing a marathon next year. I was like, can I go from half marathon to marathon?
Sometimes knowing else is almost done. It makes it possible. I mean now, I'm like, yes, I can do it. When I started doing it, I would do my first half marathon. There's no way I could do a marathon. Half marathon is so hard, I can't do it. But sometimes just knowing someone else has done it. By someone else pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
Yeah. It makes you believe in yourself what's possible. Yeah. So I think it's phenomenal what you've done and I'm sure that vocal inspired. Guys, we're going to see you all. We're coming down to part one of the avoid getting run over a cyclist. I can't have the hardest skis. I can almost stomp cross. And of all the things you've survived, which is like it's taken out in a park, all right? It just cannot happen. It's not happening. It's not happening. See you all in part two very soon, guys. We're going to pick up on the journey through Africa. See you soon. Goodbye.
