Featured Image Credit: Twitter/@hardestgeezer
Topics: World News, UK News, Crime, Charity
Joe Harker
A man aiming to become the first to run the length of Africa has admitted he recently ran into 'a spot of bother' as he was robbed at gunpoint.
26-year-old Russell Cook is in the process of running 360 marathons in 240 days, a whopping 9,320 miles (14,500km), in an effort to raise money for charity.
Half the money he raises will go towards The Running Charity, which aims to tackle issues such as homelessness, while the other half will be going towards Water Aid.
He's about a quarter of the way through his run and he's making amazing progress, but the marathon mastering monster recently ran into trouble he wasn't expecting to encounter along the way.
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The Brit had planned to run through rainforests, the Sahara desert and a number of bustling cities on his way to running the length of Africa but had to update his social media followers on a much greater danger.
The YouTuber, who also goes by the name @hardestgeezer, revealed on Twitter that a gang of men with guns had threatened to kill them if they didn't hand over everything they had.
He wrote: "Ferocious 1’s & 2’s all morning. Met the boys for a lunch break. Chatting our usual dribble in the van like any other day when a couple lads popped open the side door and demanded everything we have.
"Desperate blokes with guns pointed. Infamously bad situation to find yourself on the end of. Proper spot of bother. Damage limitation. None of us got killed or injured.
"We didn’t let them march us out the van. But we did lose a lot of our gear. Couple cameras, 2 iPhones, all of our cash, passports and a few other bits. Rough gig. But we live to tell the tale.
"Could’ve been a lot worse. Local police doing as much as they can to help. The relentless nature of this mission is quite something. Problems from every angle. No respite. Till the bitter end."
While getting robbed at gunpoint would be a bit of an off-putting occurrence for many, it didn't deter Russ from adding another 19.8 miles (32km) onto his tally.
He started his incredible run in Tunisia and hopes that by the end of the year he'll be in South Africa having become the first person to run the length of the African continent.
The 26-year-old and his crew losing money and their passports might be a bit of a problem on Russ' journey as he's having to cross a whole load of national borders and will presumably want to head back to the UK once he's completed his incredible journey.
Here's hoping the rest of Russ' journey features significantly fewer men with guns demanding he hand over his belongings.