Moment 184: I Was Kidnapped Whilst Running The Entire Length Of Africa: Russ Cook

0:00This episode is brought to you by Me Undies. While Me Undies can't totally help your love life this Valentine's Day, they can offer you insanely comfy undies and loungewear to buy or gift. Me Undies has so many awesome Valentine's Day prints and styles. Plus, you can match with your partner, friends, or even your pets. This Valentine's Day, give the gift that'll keep them thinking of you and score huge sight -wide savings at Me Undies .com slash Spotify. That's Me Undies .com slash Spotify. Me Undies. Comfort from the outside in. Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead.

0:36And over the course of my career, I've learnt just how crucial having the right systems in places, one which has helped me across many of my investments is NetSuite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system through their streamlined platform. You'll find all of your accounting financial management inventory and HR in one place. Their technology has been a real game changer, especially for my team at Flight Studio. As over the last year, we've moved out of startup mode and into scale at mode. We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and errors.

1:11Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future -proof their business with NetSuite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsuite .com slash Bartlett. And free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsuite .com slash Bartlett.

1:30Hi there, no, it's not Stephen. So who is it? Well, I'm pretty into running and I've just come back from a little jog across Africa. Yet it's me, Russ Cook, aka the hardest geezer. At 22, I became the first person to run from Asia to London. And earlier this year, I became the first person to run the length of Africa. 10 ,000 miles across 16 countries in 352 days. Around 386 consecutive marathons through mountains and desert, survived arm robberies and even escaped kidnapped. But the craziest part, after all those miles, I realised what I've been running from and had to face it head on. Now I'm buzzing to say I've teamed up with Stephen and Flight Books to turn all of that into my first book, Hardest Geezer, Mind Over Miles.

2:11It's for anyone facing their fears, questioning their path or trying to break free from what's been holding them back. Because that was me too. If you're ready to embrace this comfort, grab your copy at the link below. They're 102. When I say they're 102, does it bring back any memories? It's a couple. A couple. Congo. Congo, DRC. Yeah, that was one hell of an experience that. You described this as probably the hardest part of the whole trip. Probably the highest part of my whole life. Really? You've not talked about this much in detail either, for some reason. So we made a YouTube series online which kind of followed the whole thing.

2:47It'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... there was a lot of arguments. A lot of fallouts around that and I didn't think that the video that we've made was really what... told the story how I wanted it to be told. What happened?

3:23So... You're emotional about this? Yeah, I mean... Yeah, that whole thing was mad. So we got to DRC, I think day 100, we got to DRC. It was hostile from the start. 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'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 people getting chopped up, all kinds of stuff.

4:10Yeah, it was... I mean, I don't know how much I can read. What I would say about DRC is that we spent a few days there. My experience was very subjective. 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 a bit rough. But yeah, we landed in the country across the border. It was a very chaotic border town. We had people from the get -go very not very happy to see us at all shouting at me. I started running, trying to exploit us for money, officials, all this kind of stuff, trying to get money out of us. And we'd heard about all of this from people travelling.

4:51So we kind of half knew what we were rolling into. But it really created a kind of atmosphere that was difficult, challenging. Yeah, I mean, the day before day 102, we had a guy come up to me with a rock spikes in the rock. And he was like, I'm going to smash your head in with this. I mean, he was speaking French, I don't really get it, but Harry spoke French. So he's basically fretting on us with this big spikey rock the add -ins and saying, like, give me free -quid, the equivalent of free -quid. Or I'm going to like, start smashing you all up. And I gave him a quid in the end, because I'm not getting my head smashed in over free -quid, but also I didn't want to get word around it.

5:41There was a bunch of people just throwing money around to anyone that would fret in 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.

6:05Run, left the boys in the morning, lock and normally do run 20k, then run another 20k. Start, we took a turn off onto a dirt road to the boys of plan this route. Took, took, went down this dirt road. Then the van basically, the sport van couldn't get to me. So the boys sent a guy on a motorbike. And so I'm running along this dirt block and this guy on a motorbike keeps trying to stop me. And I was so like, scattery already that I didn't want to stop for, he was trying to get me to stop and I was like, now I've had it the day before people trying to stop me on motorbikes. And it was all a bit, didn't feel great like.

6:48I was quite anxious about the whole thing. Anyway, eventually I did stop, he gave me a note that basically said like, because 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 it was about 20k through the jungle, no roads that barely even a path. I was just kind of like, whack him away through bushes to get to this meeting point where I was going to try and find the boys. Right out of water, phones got no signal. And I'm going through these, these bushes, stumble into this village. And cause, I think, cause of the experience that I already had in the first couple of days at the RC, 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.

7:35So I'm riding through this village. I like people shouting at me and stuff and I'm like, hey, this is happening all the time now. I'm just carrying, going, going. 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 will like very upset. They don't get one. They don't get who I am, what I'm doing, why I'm there. And they start trying to, like, say that I need 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 blocs, took me out into the bush with machetes and I was bricking it.

8:18Yeah, I was absolutely bricking it. Thinking, like, every, all my mind's totally racing at this point. I'm like, what is going on here? Why am I going out to the bush? Like, this doesn't make any sense. Like, is this your shakedown? Like, what is the worst happening? Don't know. And then, got out into the bush. I basically emptied on my bags, had some biscuits, gave them the biscuits and then just darted. And then, I was just like, like, beeline for this meeting spot. And, my mind's totally frazzled at this point. I've got, I'm here in motorbikes coming on, I'm here in people. I'm jumping in bushes, like, totally just at, kind of, off it here.

9:01Kind of get through this jungle bit, get to this meeting spot. The boys aren't there. Now, I'm really like, this is bad, because I'm about 50 something K in. I'm dehydrated. I've got no water. I've got no signal. And I've done it where the boys are. I've done it where, how to get to them. And I've been in middle of the jungle. And I know that there's, like, I've set a lot of people in the local area and I've just ran away from all. And I'm like, ah, like, this is bad news. Anyway, I figured out that the tarmac, the last nine bit of tarmac was, I think about 15 or 20 K away. And I was like, I reckon I can just about make it there.

9:48And if I'll make it there, then that makes sense to the boys that that's the last bit they could get to. So, Hick, you sprinted away from the guys with the machetes? Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Like, it was, 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, this is bad. I just gave them biscuits and just died. And then, like, I've ran off and I can just hear loads of commotion going on. And I'm just running through this jungle. It's all quiet. It's there. I mean, it's all quite mad. I'm like adrenaline going through the roof. I was like, yeah.

10:30Were you scared? Yeah, I was petrified, man. I was absolutely petrified. I think what didn't help is that I didn't understand any of the language, like, like, Lingal and local language. I didn't know any French either, which would have helped. And I didn't understand, I didn't have a very good understanding of the culture or anything. So I think if I went through it again, a lot of these things would have been rationalised 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 D .R .C. 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.

11:10So it really just got me into a place where I was like quite skate.

11:18But yeah, I mean, I find this, I go see the bit of time, I can not write this head there, but two hours away, I could probably make it there. And as I'm going now, I'm going down this dirt path, another two blocks on the motorbike pallar.

11:34And I was like, I just don't want any part of this, they're trying to stop me. You know, my mind's totally gone. And 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 thinking about, I'm like, these guys, who are these guys sent from? This village of that village, is there like a bush telegraph of, there's a white guy running around here, he's upset like going to get in kind of thing. So I'm like, nah, not doing it blah, blah, blah. I'm thinking, you know, the boys, they send a note with the driver if it's from them.

12:15And it's got these guys had no note. And I was like, ah, these, you know, getting later and later, I was like, I've got no water, I've got no signal, I've got no way of knowing where the boys are. They're probably no further than 10 or 20 K away. So if I get on this bike and I want the bike for longer than half an hour or an hour, then I know it's 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.

12:54So yeah, got on the bike, half an hour went by. Then now went by, I start like kicking off. I'm getting off the bike, I'm having a good one, but like the language barrier is just, we know one other time, the word anyone saying. And then, yeah, ended up spending seven hours on that motorbike going into the jungle, which was like, terrible. Seven hours. Seven hours, yeah. What goes to your mind in those seven hours? I thought, well, I assumed after about an hour and a half, I was like, okay, well, I am getting kidnapped. Then like, where this is it? And then I was thinking rationally, I was like, I had such limited knowledge about DRC or any of this kind of stuff.

13:38I was like, they're probably just going to, they probably just want money. But then you also think, well, maybe they're just going to kill you. And the stories that I've heard about DRC and that wasn't the craziest thing, you know, you like, people get stabbed for either. Literally, like a couple of quit people get stabbed. People get killed for a watch. So I was really trying to be rational about the situation. But just like very quite emotional as well. And then, I mean, for the last few hours, I was just like, you know, what God has for me, He has for me, you know, whatever it is, and that's fine.

14:29And I was just trying to be like, you know, sat on my hands. But it was very scary. I was like, so nervous, like just shaking. They took me to this village in the jungle. Later night, no electricity. It's like wooden little shacks with tin corrugated roofs and staff. 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 at a village walks in and says to me, like, you speak to me in English very slowly. And he understood a few words. And I said to him, like, this is big mistake.

15:15You know, like, call my friend. He speaks French and like, and then he can come. And like, we've got money in. We can talk out. And then they spoke on the phone. And then basically we agreed, like, the boys would come. We 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 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.

16:03And then I was free to go. I was just looking, as you were talking about, how fast seven hours is. And for people in the UK, seven hours is London to Edinburgh. Yeah. It's not in DRC. So if I go from London to Edinburgh in a car, that's seven 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 road. We literally go through the jungle. So it's like little tiny paths that are going up and down through rivers, through over mountains. For seven hours. Seven hours, yeah. I was gripping on the side. I was absolutely done in by the end of it.

16:42And you got to that village they wanted money. Did they explain anything? Did they say anything to you about who they were? I think they were actually just, they were more scared about who I was, why I was there, and all the rest of it. I mean, after the phone call with the team, things seemed quite settled like they were pretty alright with me. And I think they, you know, I was just in a state of, like, totally, totally whacked. Which I 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.

17:38I think, I don't think so, but like, I do obviously, I'm a human, I do know why anxiety feels like I do get it sometimes. But I was anxious then, for sure. Yeah, you're speaking to Emily back home, your partner, throughout the journey on most days. But for this period of time, sounds like you were out of communication with her. She seems like she was very, very worried about you. She was, yeah. In fact, she told us on a research call that she thought you had died. Yeah. I mean, I thought I was going to die, though. Did you actually? Yeah. Genuinely thought you were going to die. Yeah. And how did you, how do you sort of rationalize that thought?

18:20How do you deal with that thought when you? What comes to mind? Like, what are you thinking? What if you really believe you know, I think I'm going to die here? I mean, I guess it's different. For me, I was just like, you know, if this is the way the God wants it, then I guess it is. That's it. You know, and there's more from elsewhere. That's how I was, what that is. I was trying to make sense of it in my brain.

18:49Q1 is often when businesses start implementing new systems and processes in hopes of creating efficiencies for the year ahead. And over the course of my career, I've learnt just how crucial having the right systems in places, one which has helped me across many of my investments is net suite. They're also a sponsor of this podcast. Net suite is the number one cloud financial system through their streamlined platform. You'll find all of your accounting financial management inventory and HR in one place. Their technology has been a real game changer, especially for my team at Flight Studio. As over the last year, we've moved out of startup mode and into scale at mode.

19:24We no longer have to juggle multiple systems and having everything together has reduced the number of manual tasks and errors. Over 41 ,000 businesses have chosen to future -proof their business with net suite. So if you'd like to learn how it can help your business, head to netsweep .com slash Bartlett and free download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning. That's netsweep .com slash Bartlett.