Ultrarunner Reveals Why 8,262-Mile Run From Cape Town to London Gives Him 'Hope in Humanity'
With a strong enough purpose, we can achieve almost anything. That’s the theory. One Ugandan-British runner and campaigner, Deo Kato, put that idea to the ultimate test. His mission: to become the first person to run from Cape Town to London, retracing the route of early human migration. His why: to challenge ‘go back to where you came from’ racial bias.
Kato’s 8,262-mile running odyssey started on 24 July 2023, in front of The Long March to Freedom monument, Cape Town’s memorial to South Africa’s long fight for equality.
Standing in the shadow of Nelson Mandela, about to take the first tentative steps on his own long march, Kato’s only certainty was physical and mental suffering. And not just for himself, but also for his family, friends and crew.
In the 18 months that followed, Kato crossed 22 borders and ran through 21 countries. He traversed deserts (including the Kalahari), scaled mountains and ran through wildlife reserves and war zones. He was chased by stray dogs and battled illness, visa bureaucracy and – irony of ironies – racism. He even went to prison for three weeks. As adventures come, they don’t get much bigger. Or more intimidating.
What made you take on such a challenge?
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, I started a campaign, Running for Justice, covering 10km a day for 381 days to raise awareness and demand justice for the Black Lives Matter movement. But I’d always wanted to do something in Africa. I had this idea of a challenge to help tell the true story of human migration. I really wanted to challenge the racist notion that people should ‘go back to where they come from’.
But you were a seasoned multi-day ultrarunner before you set out to run across two continents, right?
Well, no. I had no background in running consecutive days. The most I’d run in a row was eight days. I ran eight marathons, starting with the Manchester Marathon and finishing with the London Marathon, to gauge how my body would handle the running and carrying a bag.
And how did that go?
I was broken by the end of it. My legs and ankles were swollen. I thought, ‘What have I just got myself into? If this happens after eight days, how am I going to cope with more than a year?’
What else did you do to prepare your body for what was to come?
Besides running, I incorporated strength training, yoga and meditation into my preparation.
Zoom forwards three months and you’re about to run into the unknown, two continents ahead of you. How did that feel?
I was extremely nervous but also full of adrenaline and excitement. We’d just done a send-off run from 10 Downing Street to Hammersmith the day before. The plan was to keep the run streak going, so I only had a couple of hours after landing in South Africa before setting off. All the planning, all the processing and everything that we’d been working towards was done. And I was thinking to myself, ‘I’m now going into the unknown. Now it’s go time.’ It was probably good that I didn’t have too much time to think about it. Having people from the Adidas Runners, Cape Town team supporting me was a big boost, too.
How confident were you that you could make it?
I knew I was going to finish. I was 100% committed to that. But between the start and the finish, how that would go, I had no idea. I just knew I had to do my absolute best, to get from one day to another.
Was there a point where you thought ‘Holy shit, what am I doing?’
I did the full marathon distance on the second day. Then, on the sixth day, I did more than a marathon – 53km. That’s when it hit me really hard: this is what I have to do every single day, for more than a year. I really didn’t know if my body could cope with this amount of strain. But after the initial shock, I gradually adapted by listening to my body, prioritising rest and recovery, and adjusting my pace and strategy.
What was tougher, the mental or the physical endurance?
Running is the easy part, it’s the planning, logistics and mental struggles that are the harder parts. I developed ways of dealing with the physical niggles or muscles not working well. I used a massage gun daily for recovery. But I found I could also say to my body, ‘No, you’re not going to have this injury. You’re not going to have this niggle. This is not going to happen, not today.’ And it wouldn’t happen. It’s almost like I could control my body’s response to the physical challenge.
Did the scale and relentlessness of the challenge play on your mind?
The mental part takes much longer to figure out. Waking up in the morning, you’ve got this anxiety of how the day is going to unfold. You wonder, ‘How far can I run today? Am I going to be able to deal with it better than yesterday?’ You hope you can finish quicker and have more rest time. You wonder how the weather is going to play, what you’re going out into, the conditions and terrain. The anxiety doesn’t stop after the day’s run, either. Your mind turns to where you’ll be sleeping. Is it a place where I can feel comfortable? Do I have long enough to rest? This constant process of anxiety just keeps going and going and going for the whole journey. So it’s much harder to deal with.
Speaking of anxiety, how did you end up in a South Sudanese prison?
Myself and my driver were arrested in Juba, South Sudan, on the basis of missing documentation. We were locked in jail before being transferred to the country’s National Security Service. No one knew where we’d gone.
That’s enough to make most people pack up and fly home. What kept you going?
It was a distressing experience, but it strengthened my resolve to continue the run and fight for justice. The most brutal part of being in prison was not being able to contact my loved ones and them not knowing what had happened to me and my support driver, Mulondo. I really learned a lot from prison. I learned to have faith that I’m going to be able to come out of this in good health. I realised the people in there with me aren’t going to cause me any harm. They’re going to be all right. We’re going to come out as friends.
Did you ever come close to quitting?
That moment was definitely in Europe. I was supported across much of Africa with a car and driver for moral support, and help with routing and carrying vital supplies. But once I hit Europe, I was very much alone. Suddenly, it’s all on me: carrying everything, sourcing food, figuring out routes, getting to my accommodation. There were parts where there were no shops, no resting points, and that became really difficult. Then came the racial profiling. I was frequently stopped by police, or had people look at me, thinking I’m an illegal immigrant, taking pictures and sending them to the police.
One day, I was moving on a big stretch of narrow road in the rain. It was cold and I was trying to keep warm, with cars and trucks thrashing past me. Every time a car went past, I felt the eyeballs. I felt the need to hide myself, not be seen. I think that’s when the penny really dropped. Like, this is exactly how migrating refugees feel. They don’t want to be seen but they have no choice. I saw other travellers riding bicycles, almost on the same journey as me, having a much easier time. They weren’t being questioned by police because they’re white and I’m black. That was really messing with my mind a lot and I put up a video where I was like, ‘This is too much.’
But you kept going. How?
I developed this mindset of saying, ‘You know what, maybe tomorrow will be better than today.’ I was like, ‘Right, okay, go to sleep and hopefully tomorrow is going to be better.’ Even if the next day turned out to be even worse, I would say the same thing. That kept me going.
They say out of struggle comes joy. Were there highs with the lows?
Some of the biggest highs were reuniting with my family in Uganda and London, and receiving overwhelming support throughout the journey. I ran with kids in African countries, which brought me great joy and happiness, as did the kindness of strangers, achieving daily goals and the belief that I was making a difference.
How do you eat enough to fuel those distances?
Being vegan made it challenging to stay on top of my nutrition. At points, I wasn’t able to find any food that I could eat. Often, I relied on noodles. Noodles played a massive part in this journey. There were some days where I barely had the minimum amount of calories you could take on to be able to do this kind of challenge. Then there would be other days when I definitely overate, purely because I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to have good food again.
What exactly do you pack for a 518-day run?
I packed essentials such as first aid, a bivvy, a GPS watch, sunscreen, a universal adaptor, a GPS tracker, Vaseline, earplugs and a mobile phone. But my kit evolved based on the environment, which was constantly changing. I had hybrid shoes for road and mixed terrain, and trail shoes. But I didn’t use the trail shoes that much. I went through 15 pairs of shoes.
Do you have any advice to offer those who are contemplating a daunting challenge?
I learned to have hope in humanity, in how things will turn out. Not to be so fearful of what might happen. It’s easy to think of everything that’s going to go wrong, but it’s better to have the hope that things are going to be okay. My advice to anyone taking on a daunting challenge is to believe in yourself, break it down into smaller goals and surround yourself with a supportive network.
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