Starting on 11 June, Cook ran from Wembley Stadium in north west London, to Gelsenkirchen, Germany, taking the ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland.

[7] During the run, he had to overcome several challenges including being robbed at gunpoint, food poisoning and being accosted by men with machetes.

[8] Although initially planning to complete the feat in 240 days, complications with visas, injury, armed robbery, and kidnapping led to the attempt taking over three months longer.

[4] Two weeks after completing Project Africa, Cook was invited to run with British prime minister Rishi Sunak around Westminster, London.

[8] The full list of countries Cook traversed (in order of first entry) is as follows:[1] The route included an extended stint through an extremely rural section of the Saharan desert in Mauritania along unpaved roads.

[14] Besides logistics support the crew’s primary function was to produce content for Cook’s social media channels and a biweekly Youtube series documenting the project.

[15] On 24 June 2023, 64 days into the attempt, Cook and his support crew were robbed at gunpoint in Angola of cameras, money, and passports containing visas for many of the remaining countries.

Two weeks later, he began to urinate blood and protein for no clear cause forcing him to reduce his mileage for two days until it was confirmed the issue was not serious.

Cook originally planned to run from north to south, however, due to a lack of an Algerian visa he reversed the route at the last minute.

However following a post to his online following on social media which garnered large amounts of traction, he was granted a courtesy visa by the Algerian embassy in London five days later.

Cook later described this experience as the “scariest moment” of the project and stated that “Probably for about one minute (I) thought about quitting, and then I realised I couldn't, so that was about as close as it got”.

After completing the challenge, the claim that Cook was the first to run the full length of Africa was disputed by the World Runners Association (WRA) and Nicholas Bourne.

[25] According to The Independent, "Mr Bourne said disputes often arise around ultra-running records because there was no governing body to oversee and set criteria for long-distance challenges".