Deo Kato: The man running over 12,000km from Cape Town to London

Kato embarked on this extraordinary quest for a purpose. A Ugandan-born trail runner, running coach, activist and campaigner, Kato has used this run to tell the story of human migration from Africa to the rest of the world – and to show that every person on earth has the right to explore and improve the world with their existence.

Since commencing his running voyage at Cape Town’s Long March to Freedom exhibition, which honours those who fought for South Africa from the early 1700s to Freedom Day in April 1994, Kato has covered a vast amount of ground – in the shape of roads, sand dunes, grasslands and more – over two continents. He completed his huge run up Africa in Egypt this September, before flying to Greece to start another enormous leg up Europe. Yesterday (19 December), he took the ferry from Calais, France, to his final destination: the UK.

Over the months, he has also faced and surpassed a swathe of terrifying obstacles, from debilitating food poisoning to prison. At the start of June, for instance, Kato and the driver of his crew car were arrested in Juba, South Sudan, and locked in jail before being transferred to the country’s National Security Service.

However, he has also felt the warmth of strangers. For example, when running through the desert in northern South Africa, Kato and his driver were gifted a cooked meal and safe place to sleep by a local farmer – a small but mighty token of kindness.

Kato is also set to receive an immensely warm welcome when he completes his challenge in London on Sunday (22 December). That day, he’ll move from Greenwich to Central London – where he’ll take a brief stop at Downing Street – before finishing at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. Over 250 people have already pledged to accompany Kato on the final leg of his run and you, too, can sign up to join all (20km) or part (8km) of Kato’s final leg home here.

By the time he completes his mission in Hammersmith, Kato would have crossed 20 countries and covered 12,119km (7,530 miles) on foot, which is the equivalent of more than 200 marathons. He would have also conquered 91,620m of elevation, which is more than 10 times the height of Everest.

‘I hope that this challenge will help to tell the true story of human migration and to show that representation matters,’ says Kato. ‘In highlighting the origins of migration, I want to challenge the racist notion that people should ‘go back to where they come from’. The best thing that we can do is leave the world a little better because of our existence, creating our legacy and our lasting footprint.’

This isn’t the first time that Kato has used the movement of running to inspire greater movements in society. On 6 June 2020, following the murder of George Floyd in the US City of Minneapolis, and inspired by the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, where African Americans in Alabama staged a 381-day civil rights protest to end segregation on buses, he kicked off his 381 Days: Running for Justice campaign. This saw him run a minimum of 10K a day for 381 consecutive days – on some days, he ran half marathons, marathons or even ultramarathons to raise awareness of the movement.

In 2021, he ran the London Marathon and was awarded the Spirit of London Marathon Award by London Marathon Events for his unwavering campaign efforts. That same year, Kato and a small team of runners from the Black Trail Runners (BTR) community became the first group of Black and Brown people to run the Charlie Ramsay Round – a legendary 58-mile circuit taking in 24 peaks in the Scottish Highlands.

In 2022, Kato ran the London Marathon not once but twice – first from the finish line to the start line, then from the start line to the finish line – and regrouped with BTR community to complete The Speed Project, an unsanctioned 350-mile race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas with no spectators, no route and no rules.