Marathoner running across Africa set to finish journey

Russ Cook has been running across continent for past year, aims to finish Sunday

Stock image. RUN 4 FFWPU (Pexels)

Africa might be the second-largest continent by area, but that hasn’t stopped one runner from attempting an ambitious feat over the past year.

Russ Cook, a runner from England, last April began a quest to run the full length of Africa in a span of roughly a year, in the process trying to raise funds for charity.

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Cook started his journey in South Africa, and on Sunday, he is scheduled to finish the over 9,000-mile quest in Bizerte, Tunisia.

To view a YouTube page of Cook’s journey, view above or click or tap here.

Cook has been raising funds for three charities during the endeavor, those being The Running Charity, Sandblast (which supports Sahrawi refugees) and WaterAid.

As of Tuesday, Cook had raised more than $550,000 for those charities, according to his fundraising page.

The quest is the equivalent to running more than 360 marathons, but Cook has also pulled off extreme running missions in the past.

Cook has run 71 marathons in 66 days and in 2019, he became the first person to run from Asia to London.

When Cook is finally done, odds are he will take the nap of all naps until he decides what his next ultramarathoning quest will be.


About the Author

Keith is a member of Graham Media Group's Digital Content Team, which produces content for all the company's news websites.

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