Nick Butter has elephants to either side of him, quite likely lions up ahead and definitely African buffalo. But he is a man perfectly at peace with himself, running, as he is, in the pitch dark of a 25C Ugandan morning. Specifically, he just set off on the Rwenzori Marathon held in the stunningly beautiful Queen Elizabeth National Park and into the foothills of the snow-capped Rwenzori Mountains – a UNESCO World Heritage site.
It is an unlikely turn of events but, in fairness, this is an unlikely sort of guy. He started out life as a sharp-suited City boy, earning the crazy money the Square Mile bestows on its vaunted sons – high six figures plus those famous City annual bonuses. He was barely in his 20s.
Nick, now 36, knew that on paper his life was rich and full.. but he felt spiritually empty until the words of a dying man changed everything. He quit his job and splashed out one million pounds chasing his real dream.. running marathons.
And we are not talking a half-marathon around the local park. Nick made it his business to run a marathon in every country in the world (196) and duly entered the record books.
He also entered a Yemeni prison cell where officers threw him to the ground and levelled AK47s at his head.
“That was the scariest moment,” he admits, “Yemen was pretty sketchy, there were so many guns, so many tanks and and so many kids driving tanks!
“I was in a taxi taking me across the border and I had no idea the driver was using me as cover to smuggle in drugs and other contraband.
“We were told to get on the ground and surrounded by dogs and weapons and it was all pretty scary because there is no British embassy presence in Yemen so there was a very real chance nobody would come to get me.
“In the end it was resolved in classic style.. They pocketed the drugs and let us go.”
It was just one scene from a two-year odyssey which is soon to be screened on Netflix, pending the ironing-out of a last few wrinkles.
So why did he do it?
Nick was in the Sahara Desert for the Marathon des Sables (156 miles over six days in temperatures above 50C) where he met fellow-runner Kevin Webber.
Kevin told Nick he had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and had two years to live.
Nick said: “He was 49 and had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and he dropped this kind of bombshell on me that he wanted me to take the message home which was basically “you’ve got this finite period of time.. do what you love” – and it really hit me hard.
“He said to me what would you do if you could do anything?
“I’d thought I was already doing it, because I had a good job, earned loads of money, and I was still competing, and I kind of thought I had it made.
“But he was absolutely right, and it felt quite embarrassing to have that conversation with a dying man and the reality sinking in that I wasn’t doing what I really wanted to do.
“So I made the change.
“I didn’t want to be like my godfather, who had a very successful accounting firm, and a lot of money, but worked his ass off for my entire life.
“The he retired and died three weeks later. So you know, it’s, it’s the realities of life.”
The ex-Citibank worker says he has not a single regret that he no longer picks up the unfeasibly large pay cheque every month.
“I actually feel wonderful!” he says, “it was too much for someone in their early 20s.
“I think there’s two lives that we all lead. There’s the life where you fumble along and you don’t really appreciate your mortality and you just exist. And then there’s the second life, which is when either somebody very close to you dies suddenly, or you have a conversation with someone like my mate Kev or you have your own health issues and you come to question things very closely. I think that’s when you start living that second life.
“And fortunately for me, I had those conversations when I was 25 and it changed my life.
“I don’t think anybody really believes it when I say it, but I genuinely don’t care for money. I don’t like fancy things. You could pay me 100 million pounds to go back and do my old job and I’d say no, because it’s not what I want. I want to be on the beach, I want to run. I want to meet new people I want to travel, want have experiences.
“You don’t need lots of money to do that. You just need connections, I suppose my kind of currency is people.”
Running is clearly Nick’s passion and calling – but he says it is more than a sport, it is where he finds his peace.
“The beautiful simplicity of endurance running is that there’s nothing extra that you need to think about. You get your head down, one foot in front of another.
“Books have been written about this and how wonderful it is to kind of get into that meditative state where you’re not really thinking about anything.
“With normal meditation you’re actively trying to think about nothing, but with running, if you run for long enough, your brain switches all that off. It’s all just peace.
“That’s the predominant reason why I still run.”
Not content with 11 World Records Nick is planning a 12th – running an astonishing 1000 marathons in 1000 days.
This from a man who has experienced two minor heart attacks.
“I’ve had a couple actually but I’m not worried, I could just drop dead at any point regardless of what I’m doing. So it’s very much the opposite of worrying, I like to squeeze as much into life as humanly possible.”
Nick’s participation in the Uganda marathon wasn’t just about sport. When not breaking records he is the boss of Run Weekends which specialises in adventure running holidays.
And the Uganda marathon is now on his list.
“It’s an astonishing event,” he says, “I’ve done 1082 marathons but I have never started a marathon in the total pitch black. You’re at the start line, nobody can see anything. And then everyone sets off and for about an hour and a half you’re running in darkness. But that was really special, truly quite wonderful.
“You’re aware that you’re in the national park, so you’ve got animals either side of you, elephants, lions, buffalo, leopards, hippos, crocodiles.. they’re all there.
“But there are rangers stationed all the way along the route so all you experience is the sheer beauty of the place.”
The marathon is the brainchild of Amos Wekesa, a Ugandan entrepreneur and running enthusiast who witnessed the transformative effect a new marathon had on the economy of neighbouring Tanzania.
He told Express.co.uk: “The Rwenzori Marathon is putting Uganda on the map. We began with just 800 runners from 4 different countries in 2022 and everyone thought we were crazy.
“This year we welcomed more than 5000 runners from 35 countries. The Rwenzori region used to attract bad PR, but now it is being transformed: hotels have grown sixfold and even a new airport is being developed. “Many marathon participants use the opportunity to go on safari game drives and experience everything else Uganda has to offer. Nick was one of about 20 runners from the UK. We hope even more of his countrymen join us next year too.”
