The ‘Hardest Geezer’, Russ Cook, says he is all fired up to prove his doubters wrong after the extreme endurance athlete was mocked on social media for announcing his plan to run the London Marathon in a sub-2:30 time.
Having already completed some of the most outrageous feats of physical exertion in his running career, the 28-year-old Brit announced last year that he was planning what he described as seven ‘semi-impossible’ ultra-endurance challenges.
Cook sprang to prominence when he became the first man to run the entire length of Africa, but his new list of events is arguably even crazier, with the first of those focusing on him completing the London Marathon in a time below 2:30.
Seven ‘near-impossible’ challenges
Following that attempt, he will look to run a sub-7:30 100km, complete a 250km race in 24 hours, qualify for the Team GB 24-hour team, set a new world record for the Land’s End to John o’ Groats run, race from San Francisco to New York, and complete the longest non-stop run ever of 581km.
However, it is the sub-2:30 attempt at April’s London Marathon which has resulted in him facing scorn from his doubters on social media, with Cook stating in his video: “I don’t normally do this, but it’s time to address the hate comments.”
![Russ Cook completes his epic run across the entire length of Africa [Photo credit: The Snapshot People Ltd]](https://run247.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Russ-Cook-completes-length-of-Africa-run-2024.jpg)
Speaking to the camera, he reads out two of the messages that he has received, with one stating he was ‘nowhere near his target time’ and asking, ‘at what point is it just chatting rubbish?’, and another stating, ‘It would be, like, a Sunday League football player trying to convince the internet they’re going to play for Man United next season’.
His reply comes in a typically bullish manner.
‘It fires me up to prove you all wrong’
“I’m currently on the road to try and qualify for Team GB, and stage one of my plan is running a 2:30 marathon,” he says. “But some people on the internet don’t seem to be backing it.
“71 days until the London Marathon. I put it out there that I wanted to go sub 2:30. It’s looking like that might be a bit of a stretch this time, but getting faster over the marathon will definitely help the bigger picture goal of representing Team GB at the next 24-hour world championships in 2027.
“There is a lot of work still to be done, but step by step, I’m giving it everything to make it happen. Big love for all the support. Big love to all the people that don’t reckon I have a sniff either; it fires me up to prove you all wrong.”
The video ends with him taking a series of tests in the lab with a sports scientist to try to determine where he is currently positioned in terms of fitness for the big race on Sunday, April 26.
Lab testing offers hope
And the results were somewhat surprising.
“I thought this week, we could settle the score with some lab testing to see if a 2:30 marathon is realistic for me, or whether I’m a properly delusional ginger piglet,” he adds. “So the way this works is I’m hooked up to heart rate monitors and have my blood measured every three minutes to see how much lactate is in it.
“The goal is to find a pace where the lactate spikes, and using that, along with the other data, our very clever science geezer can give me a pretty solid prediction of where I’m at.”
The ‘science geezer’, as Cook describes him, admits that 2:30 might just be out of reach but does give the runner some hope by revealing that he is currently at a level where 2:35 might be possible and that with more work before the race, he could even hit 2:33.
Music to his ears, Cook beams as he says: “I would take 2:33, and I would snap your hand off for that. Honestly, 2:35, Shape, is an unbelievable result in my eyes. Still, I have work to do for 2:30. Can I do it?”
There are plenty out there who don’t believe he can… but he has proven plenty of people wrong before.
