I started running to woo my wife, Rishi Sunak tells ‘Hardest Geezer’

Rishi Sunak has confessed he took up running to impress his future wife, as he went for a jog in Westminster with the fastest man to run the length of Africa.

Russ Cook, the 27-year-old British endurance athlete, completed his 352-day journey, covering more than a marathon a day, in Tunisia on April 7. Using the name “Hardest Geezer” on social media, he has amassed a huge following.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister joined Mr Cook to back his charity efforts and managed to keep up with him as they jogged through Green Park and past Buckingham Palace.

Mr Sunak told Mr Cook that he got into running when he was at graduate school at Stanford University, California, where he met his wife, Akshata Murty.

“I got into running properly when I was at graduate school. I took up running because my wife was a big runner and we weren’t together at the time,” he said.

Mr Cook jokingly asked “Trying to impress her, eh?” to which the Prime Minister said: “Yes and I thought it was a way to spend time with her.”

The runner, from Worthing in West Sussex, completed the equivalent of 385 marathons across Africa. He has raised more than £1 million through his Project Africa for The Running Charity, which deals with young people’s mental health, and Sandblast, which helps the Saharawi people of Western Sahara.

He told the Prime Minister he had started running because he was struggling with poor mental health, including issues with gambling and alcohol.

The Prime Minister told Mr Cook: “I think it starts with role models, and generally it’s best if they’re not politicians. That’s why you were incredibly powerful in this.

“You talking about your journey and your story, which is incredibly inspiring … and you talking to people about the benefits of strong family relationships, finding work you have purpose and fulfilment in, and going out and about exercising.

“All those things contribute to good positive mental health, people hearing that from someone like you, and seeing that you were able to overcome all the challenges that you did and look at you now.

“If everyone just hears that, that is going to do more good than any amount of government policy.”

Mr Sunak also told Mr Cook that being able to fit exercise into his routine now was one of the biggest challenges. “It’s not so much the hours… the tricky thing is that you’re going from thing to thing to thing, all of which are different.”

Mr Sunak has previously revealed that he completes Peloton workouts. He is known to be a cricket fan and a supporter of Southampton FC.

Mr Cook was cheered on and congratulated by members of the public as the pair ran through central London, while one man told Mr Sunak: “You’re doing a good job, keep going.”

The two later had a conversation outside No 10 about what it was like to be prime minister, with Mr Cook asking Mr Sunak what the most stressful thing about the job was.

“Generally the most stressful days relate not to all the stuff you read about in all the politics and what’s going on here, the most stressful days relate to security things,” Mr Sunak said.

“Always, because people’s lives are at risk or I’m asking our soldiers, our Armed Forces, to put their lives at risk, as we saw the other weekend.”

Mr Cook also asked Mr Sunak what it was like to know that “whatever you do is going to upset at least 50 per cent of the country”.

Mr Sunak responded: “You have to accept that. I always say if at the end of the day, I look myself in the mirror and know that I’m working as hard as I can doing what I believe is right for the country and then, you know what, the rest is the rest, right?”