40 Weeks to Go: PSR Who, What & Why - Hannah gives us a deep dive

Hannah breaks down Project Salt Run, giving us the story of how we all came to be here and the challenges ahead we all face in order to get her to the starting line of running across the Great Hedge of India!

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In the face of unprecedented environmental challenges, Project Salt Run aims to inspire action through an extraordinary journey of transformation. Hannah Cox, a sustainability advocate with Indian heritage and a first-time runner, will undertake a life-changing challenge across India, following the historic Inland Customs Line. 

This colonial-era boundary enforced a devastating salt tax, causing immense suffering and millions of deaths, but has been largely forgotten from history.
By retracing this route, Hannah seeks to honour its legacy and transform its meaning, inviting others to discover their own version of extraordinary. This journey is not about guarantees of success—Hannah faces the real possibility of failure—but it’s a powerful reminder that taking bold steps, even in uncertainty, can inspire meaningful change.

The Challenge

Partnering with Givestar, Hannah will run 100 marathons in 100 days, covering 4,200 km, to raise £1,000,000 for 1% for the Planet. This journey is a powerful testament to the potential within all of us to make a real difference.

Want to get involved in Project Salt Run? Shoot us a message at contact@projectsaltrun.com we would love to hear from you!

Want to get involved in Project Salt Run? Shoot us a message at contact@projectsaltrun.com we would love to hear from you!

Transcript

Okay, so we're at the Business Design Center here in London. Yes. Welcome to the first episode of the PSR Podcast. All right. Oh, perfect. Hannah's here on the floor. We picked up Dan on the bus. He just happened to be on the same bus that we were on. And Hannah is here sitting on the floor, looking very cold, here at the Adventure Travel Show. I'm Joelle Chevalier. I'm Hannah Cox. And today, we managed to sneak out of the excitement of the Adventure Travel Show to a small little booth in the corner to let Hannah tell you exactly what Project Salt Run is all about. But very quickly, before we get into that, I just wanted to give a great thanks to one of our partners in this journey, GiveStar. GiveStar is a perfect fundraising platform for charity runners such as Hannah herself, the hardest geezer who you might know who ran Africa, and thousands more. With just a few clicks, we were able to create a page that allows us to support up to four different charities, on top of the ability to take tap to pay contactless donations. You can track your progress and share your stories with friends, all available on their free app. So download GiveStar today to make your fundraising count. Right, and without further ado, I'll let Hannah take the lead. Okay, so Project Salt Run is, I would call, an environmental pilgrimage across India that I'm taking in October 2025, over 100 marathons in 100 days, roughly, dependent, route dependent. And it's traversing the old inland customs line that existed in India in the 19th century. For context of what that inland customs line is and was, is in 1600, the East India Company was established, which many of you will have heard of, and it was one of the earliest shareholder value companies in the world, which means it existed solely to make money for the owners of that company. And it has established two principal taxes in India, one for land and one for salt. And to sanction that salt tax, they created this inland customs line, and excluding a few stone walls where ground conditions constrain planting, this 4,000 kilometer long inland customs line was actually composed entirely of living vegetation, so they basically planted a huge hedge across India. As a result of this and other awful food policies by the East India Company and the British government, there was a famine in Fungaling, India, about the worst in Indian history, between 6 to 10 million people starved to death as a consequence of this. And in 1879, the customs line was then abandoned, and obviously, with it being a vegetation, a plant, a hedge, hedges and man-made things, it just completely disappeared physically, but also disappeared from history. Now, an incredible historian called Roy Moxham rediscovered the hedge, the story of the hedge in 95, when he read an account from a British officer in India in the 19th century. And then he released a book called The Great Hedge of India, which I hugely recommend people read in 2000, which I read in 2014. And it's really the only real piece of research and data on that hedge. Now, the reason I am interested in it is because that customs line is a huge symbol of taking resources without considering the people that it's most acutely affecting. It's a symbol of consuming, we take more than we need, and that when we do, we compromise the ability of future generations. And as someone that works in sustainability, I feel that I see this happening a lot. So I want to raise awareness of about us not repeating history in this way. And to also try and raise money for those most affected by climate change, and to really highlight that India in particular, as a country, is really experiencing the effects of climate change already. And so, but how did you get from that to running it? There's a thousand other ways you could go about doing this, but... Yeah, good question. So I got obsessed with this, with The Hedge after I read it. I just, for some reason, and again, I always say this, I don't know why when I read about it, I got so interested in traversing the length of it. For some reason, it felt like a bit of a... it almost felt like a spiritual pilgrimage, and I didn't know why it was mine. My dad's from India, which is why I'm interested in colonial history. But for some reason, I was just obsessed with the idea of traveling the length of it. And originally, my plan was to travel it by motorbike. I actually wanted to get a rickshaw and make a traveling cinema. And I met some friends, and I was doing some adventure planning and talking about this trip, and everyone was like, well, you know, you don't know how will you do that? You don't have a motorbike. Like really asking lots of questions. And the idea of me traveling UK to Bhutan came up. So I ended up traveling from the UK to Bhutan overland with a view to stay in India afterwards and traverse the line then, which was in 2017. But because of personal circumstances, I was unable to do that and had to come back to the UK. COVID happened, I started my business, which is in sustainability. And just like many of these things that we have, we just have all these ideas and dreams and wishes of doing something and then we don't do it. And when I remet Dan, he suggested it as a running challenge to really connect more with the experience. And as you'll hear over the course of this podcast, so many things pointed us towards it becoming a running challenge, it became one. But it's not solely a running challenge. It's a, it's bigger than that, really. As far as challenges go, I mean, obviously you weren't a runner before, right? No, I wasn't. In fact, I started running after we came up with the idea. Yeah. So you had to mentally, but that's huge. You've now had to mentally challenge yourself into, you know, doing something that, like, because I feel like most, you know, a lot of people don't like running. There's a lot of, you know, your body gets tired, it keeps saying stop, you know, I don't like you doing this. And mentally, you just have to push yourself through. Like, so, like, was that a challenge at the beginning, or is this just kind of? But I think that's part of the challenge, right? So there's two elements to it, really, for me. I'm doing it to try and raise money for those most affected by climate change to do 1% for the planet. So it's how can we raise as much money as possible for those already affected by climate change. But it's also about how, as individuals, we can do hard things. And no matter where we are in our journey, we can make a difference. The motto of motto or like tagline of my sustainability agency is, we don't have to do everything, but we have to do something. And I thought there's a lot of, I feel like we do a lot of great work in my company, and I'm really, really proud of it. But it just felt that we are in a situation now as humans, where the planet will be fine. Like the planet will still be there, but we're destroying it being a habitable place for us to live. And it just felt that no matter what I was doing in my current business, it was never felt like it was almost going to touch the sides of what really needed to happen. So, by doing something bigger and challenging that could capture the attention of other people to become empowered to be involved in making a difference, that felt like something that I could try and do. So going back to the running thing, how do you, you know, because obviously going from nothing to ultra marathons is no small feat. No. So how do you kind of hack your brain into not necessarily liking it, but just being like, you know, cool, let's run over 100 days, you know, like nonstop. Or I guess like, because I mean, what do you do? What's your average that you kind of run? So this morning, so this morning I ran for two hours, which was 18.5 kilometers I ran today. So Nina Davis is my running coach, so she sets my kind of targets. So when I started, we in my head, I remembered when I did the Bhutan trip, I almost, that whole trip, which we can talk about another time, that whole trip again, it was so synchronic, there was so much synchronicity around it, that I almost had to do it. And I remember when I decided to do that trip, I was in a load of debt, I didn't have any money to do the trip, but I had just told myself in 18 months, I'm gonna do this trip, and I managed it. So I kind of had this thing in my head, well, if I've managed to do something I didn't think I could do before, then I can do it again. So I thought, well, that took 18 months. So this will take 18 months, but my only data point. So I thought, right, if I can do 0 to ultra in 6 months, and show that my body can reach that level of running, of running over a marathon, then I can have 12 months to consistently see how I can make that a more regular part of my routine. So Nina took me through a training plan, and to caveat this, I'm single, I don't have children, I don't have those responsibilities that probably a lot of other people my age have, being with a partner, spending time with them. He's on the way. Yeah, having to spend time with another human, oh, great. So I was able to, and I run my own business, which means I can, while that is a challenge in itself, it does mean I don't have as many restrictions around my working hours and working days as other people would, right? So I've always trained with just one thought when I go out on that run, which is I have to run a certain length, or I have to run a certain time. Pace has never been an issue, so it will always take me as long as it takes me, or I only have to be out for a certain amount of time. And almost that has made it actually a really easy training process for me, because if I go out and I don't feel like a run, but Nina said I have to run for 5K, I think, well, I can do it as slow as I want. So I'll stick a podcast in and I'll kind of bumble along, you know. Or if she said, you know, you have to run for 30 minutes, I think, well, it's only 30 minutes. And I don't even have to run it that fast. If I don't want to, I just need to be out, putting the miles in or kilometers in. So- What's been the most challenging thing for you so far, like within the training? I think the most challenging thing has been to fit in, just to have to give up stuff to be able to do it. Your schedule is nuts. You've shared it with me on Google, and it scares me. It also makes me feel like a piece of shit. I'm like, wow, so unproductive. Yeah, I have a very busy schedule, so I am used to managing and moving stuff around and prioritizing. I've worked in events for 20 years. So if anyone who is listening works in events, you are in a role where the parts are always moving, and you're building while also you're in a moving vehicle, I think. That's the only way to describe working in the event industry, is there are so many moving parts, and things that you've got no control over, and things that you do have control over, and firefighting to be done in that role. If you've ever worked on a music festival, you go on site, you've no idea what your actual tasks, and jobs, and challenges are going to be that day. So I've worked in that environment for a very long time. So it's just like added another component of that difficult thing in there. So that's been difficult to fit it in because it's never just the run, right? It's like you're sweaty afterwards, you have to have your kit with you, you need to have a shower. So that's been the challenging, that the time management of fitting the running in has been more challenging than the running. And I would say that's because with the running, I don't put lots of pressure on myself. There's lots of fast runners out there. I'm never going to be the fastest runner, but I can be the most consistent runner. Yeah. What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for yourself when you're on the road? Like when we're day one going off, what do you see on the horizon that you're like, ugh? Yeah. I mean, Dan touched on it in his, when we spoke to him about it, which is your, again, it's not, I'm like the vehicle of the story, right? Me doing the run, but there's not just me there. There's you, there's Becca, there's Dan, there's Nina, there's Natalie. So, you know, we've, there's all of us and we're all a big part of it happening. So for me, it would be letting- Is this you trying to say, it's not just my problem? Yeah, it's your problem. Yeah, it's everyone's problem. It's everyone's problem, right? But it's also, you know, we're doing it together as a team. So there's an element of like, this is my role on the team. Yeah. It's doing the run. And we're all going to want to do the best in each of our roles on the team. So what do you think is going to be the hardest thing for you? I mean, is there something that you're looking at that you're like, man, that's going to be a real challenge? I think mine will be if I get injured, definitely, because I won't want to give up the run. If and when we get to India, because we're still struggling with all the other challenges of being able to afford the trip, the visas, all those things that we're all navigating at the moment. And once we're out there, I almost feel like it will feel like the hardest part has been done. Like we actually got there. Like that's going to be such an incredible feeling. But I think the most challenging thing is, yeah, if I get injured or something, you know, something bad happens, that's either whether it was in our control or not, how we navigate that as a team. Because the reality is, for a marathon, you could walk a marathon in the day. Yeah. So, you know, it's, yeah, I don't know. I'm trying not to think to that point, not because I want to go into it like, oh, you know, whatever, everything's gonna be fine. I'm a hyper-vigilant person anyway, but I'm trying to navigate everything in steps. Yeah. Otherwise, it will be, because the whole concept is just too overwhelming. What do you think, yeah, what do you think you would do if you did get injured at one, like, some point on the trip? I mean, I would be, at the moment, touch wood, I'd be very surprised if I didn't. But I also would be very surprised if it was a massive injury, because I'm just being very careful with all my training. I'm doing lots of strength training. I'm not pushing, I don't feel like I'm pushing myself physically. And when there has been times where I've not felt well enough to run, or I've been out on a run and it hasn't been working for me, I've just stopped it. You know, and Nina's not one of those coaches, who's like, you know, you've got to get out there. You know, I've seen it. It's not Rocky 5. It's not Rocky 5. She's understanding of that, but it's to my detriment if I don't do my training. You know, it's like, you know, Dan's mentioned it to me before, it's yourself you're letting down if you're not putting in the hours and putting in the time. You know, let's be honest, if I'm running 100 mountains in 100 days and I get to the end and I'm completely fine, like I must be some sort of mad machine. I genuinely don't think that is the case. I don't think I've been this like, you know, I'm an average person, do you know what I mean? I'm not, I've never shown any athletic ability at all. I'd be shocked if we get to the end that I'm not broken. You know, I just want to be as least broken as possible by the end of the run. So the, the Inland Customs Line, you discovered, you know, 2014. But India as a whole has a much more personal link to you, correct? Yeah. So my dad's from Calcutta. He moved over to the UK when I think he was six years old. And I'm an overseas citizen of India. And my ability to get that was through the fact that my grandma kind of hid her Indian passport and said that she'd lost it. And when you get an OCR, you have to show Indian documents to get it as your proof. They won't accept like any kind of British documents. So yeah, really lucky that she kept that. So there's the connection there of my dad's side of the family being from India. And also my great-grandfather got married in 1842 at Fort Bengal, Fort William in Bengal, which was basically the administrative center of the Inland Customs Line. So it's very, very likely that he worked on it. A lot of my family worked in British Army, British government over there. So it always just fascinated me that one, there is this like actual family link to that. But also it's always kind of, I've always been intrigued and in the fact that like Britain owned India, this whole concept of colonialism and the stripping of resources of that country and everything that's still affecting the country to this day. And also the lack of knowledge and education in schools of that, I find incredibly frustrating. Because India is an incredible country. But we'll talk about, I live in Manchester, we'll talk about, oh, Cottonopolis, it's amazing, the Industrial Revolution, Manchester became the hive of cotton. And you're like, from where? How do you think that happened? Someone like, it didn't just, you know, so that's being fascinating. Actually during the time the Inland Customs Zion was there, the ability to get salt was so difficult in India. They were actually shipping salt from Cheshire to India. Yeah, like it's just, so it's- And not necessarily because they needed it, but it's just because of the cost, right? Yeah, and the difficulty. So I just feel like it was such a massive thing that affected millions and millions of people. And it's directly linked to us as British and myself as a Britishist, and specifically, my family was over there as well. And I just, it's such a symbol of like, awfulness, you know? Just awfulness. And just to clarify for our listeners, because there was the salt tax that was imposed, and basically it was making it so that it was so overly expensive that literally people just couldn't afford salt, right? It was the equivalent of two months wages for a poor person. And actually, that salt tax was in, a version of the salt tax was there till the 1940s in India. Like, you know, so we're not talking about like medieval times, you know, we're talking about recent, really recent history. So, and there's an element of as if we're not, if we're not looking at the bad things that we've done as humans in the past, to make sure that we don't do them again, like, we need to try and create a positive outcome by knowing the bad stuff we've done, so that we don't redo it, basically. So I want to, I want to raise awareness of that. And it's not, you know, and even now as a British person, you know, so I identify as British, I was born here. I'll say like, we did a bad thing, you know, it's even you say it, don't you? You're like, oh, we did a bad thing. And, but I wasn't there. But by ignoring the bad thing that happens, yeah, it's complicit to allowing bad things to happen. So we need, we need to be able to confront ourselves with that sometimes. Going back to Project Salt Run itself, like as you were saying, you know, obviously this isn't going to be a, you know, it's not a solo gig, it's not just going into it. You know, you've managed to kind of rope all of us into this mess. Yes, I have. How was it that you kind of decided to go after the people that you involved with? Was there any choices? You know, what made you kind of seek out the people that are on the team? And their skills and things like that. Yeah. So I think sometimes things happen, and when they feel easy, then you know it's the right thing. And we know that from just intrinsically as humans, not to get too deep here, right? But like, I'll try not to, but I was talking about this the other day. I work a lot in data, right? A lot in data and sustainability is metrics, KPIs, like all that kind of stuff. And but the reality is, you know, while data does matter, it's all about a lot of who we are and what we do as humans is around our emotions and our feelings, like why we do stuff. Like, if I was to ask you with Becca, like you two are married, right? If I was to turn around to you and just be like, right, so just explain how like how love works. And you just be like, I don't know what the fuck are you asking me? And also how love works for you, specifically as a human is very different to how love works for me. Otherwise, you know, it's like that's love is this like weird inexplicable thing that we all kind of like accept exists like people go, I fall in love with them. I've got married, I accept that. But actually, there's no one definition of what how love works, what it is, and we can't actually really describe it ourselves. You know, like when you see someone and you like fancy them or whatever, you can't sometimes you'd like, I don't even know why I fancy this person, do you know what I mean? Like, you know, maybe they wouldn't be like, if you'd seen a picture of them, you wouldn't fancy them or whatever. But this is relevant because this is relevant because sometimes things just feel right and you just don't really know how to say, you don't even know how to describe it. With Project Salt Run, you know, I reconnected with Dan in the weirdest way, weirdest way, and he was the one, and I will still continue to blame him to this day, of saying you should run it. And then just so many things felt right about it, it almost just felt like, oh, we've got to do that then. You know, Nina becoming a running coach, Dan being supportive of it, him in the middle of his own huge running adventure at that time. And I did feel I was struggling with a purpose at that time, something to hook my purpose onto. And I felt I hadn't quite found it. I felt like I was kind of in the right space by having my business, but it wasn't this big thing. And so that's how it came about with Dan and Nina. It just felt like so right for them, right place, right time. And then with the two of you, I mean, you sent me an email, so it's actually your fault. Just because I was like of World Travel Market, and I was like, oh, I wonder what Hannah's doing. I haven't seen her in ages. Is she still alive? Yeah. And then you just sent a random email, and it just so happened to be when we were planning the trip, and we were like, I remember just standing in Nina's office, and we're going, yeah, we need to find some documentary filmmakers. Yeah, you were literally writing on the glass. Yeah, on the glass. And then I was like, oh, I was like, oh, global convoy. Literally, I spoke to them last week, and then Dan was like, yeah, I know global. And I was like, yeah, Dan knows them too. And that was also very important, right? Because me and Dan are very different in lots of ways, but very similar in a lot of ways. And I trust his judgment so much, so highly. And when I said, oh, they'd be perfect, he was like, they would be perfect. And I thought, yeah, they would be perfect. I mean, I was just kind of like, why didn't I ever think of that before, you know? And then we had a FaceTime with you, and then you just so happened to be in London the next day. I just so happened to be in London the next day. And I was like, well, it's just going to have to happen then, you know? And even you said when we went, when we met in the coffee shop, you were like, we were looking for an expedition to do. Yeah. So yeah, say a little bit about that. So it was almost coming from both ends, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, well, yeah, it's just providence of the timing because we're usually so busy doing. Well, I mean, we just finished a giant school bus trip where we bought a school bus and drove it from Minnesota up to Alaska and down to Ushuaia. And so it was big. Casually. You know, casually, as you do on a Sunday, you know? But yeah, so we're used to doing pretty big trips. I mean, I feel like this is a whole new feat for us because there's so many different working parts. You know, we're so used to mostly being things being motorized. But yeah, it was literally just perfect timing. And that's the thing. It really makes me wonder, is the, you know, how much of this is because it's all just kind of folding together. You know, it's all just meshing together. But it also is, it's perfect timing for all of us. Does that make sense? Yeah, exactly. It's all like all the experience of over the years. And when we actually all met, because we met around the same time about eight years ago as well, we were all just doing different things, right? But it's almost like we've all got to this point where it makes sense to do this thing together. Yeah. So it's like, you know, that's why we're doing the podcast. One, to be like, you know, sometimes just, I mean, I don't want to be too like, oh, the universe. It sounds so cringe, doesn't it? Manifesting and stuff. But it genuinely just feels like everything started to fall into place at the right time with the right people. And I'm sure there will be more of that happening over the coming months. But it does feel like it's this, it's all just right for all of us in our own ways of what we're bringing to the table. And I think when a project feels like that, it almost feels a bit limitless about what we can achieve together. Yeah. I guess as a whole, like for us as a team and doing the whole trip, say we pull it all off, you're still alive, you still have most of your toes, yeah, the whole thing. I guess what do you kind of want to get? But what do you want, like listeners and people who are following along with the story, what is it that you're hoping that they'll be able to kind of pull from this at the end? Or I guess the whole message to the end? The whole message is really that it's going back to the, you don't have to do everything, we've got to do something. Like we intrinsically as humans need to feel part of something bigger than ourselves. That's why we live together. That's why there's religion and communities, all different types of communities and stuff. But intrinsically, we need to be surrounded by others and feel part of something bigger. And like this project to me is that. But I think what I want people to get from it is to feel empowered to create their own impression on the world in whichever way they think is the right one for them. I feel like I couldn't do this on my own. It's a bigger thing than me. It's about working out where you're, almost where your puzzle piece is, like rule puzzle pieces. And it's like, where's yours and how can you kind of extend and kind of push out a little bit out of your comfort zone to see what's possible for you. And what's possible for you might be like a completely different path. It might not be a physical challenge. It might be a mental challenge. It might be something that takes a week or it might be something that takes 10 years. But you'll figure out what that is. But if you haven't figured it out, like take this as your opportunity to like open yourself up to really put yourself in positions to figure that out. And I think one of the ways I've done that is I've really, really dedicated for the past kind of 18 months, a real focus on just doing stuff that feels right for me without actually in a kind of selfish way, without really considering, you know, really considering others in that. But, you know, trying to be a nice person. But like, you know, selfishly really trying to like do stuff that feels right for me. And then it's led us to be able to do Project Salt Run, I think. And if anybody was listening, like, you know, really itching to kind of get involved, what's the best way for somebody to be able to kind of help out or pitch in or, you know, be a part of the Project Salt Run? Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. I mean, there's so many ways to be involved in the project. We've got loads of training ones we're doing. So if you're a runner and you want to come along and join us, we're doing the Coast to Coast in June. We're doing lots of, you know, lots of running and talking and stuff around the country before we leave. So maybe you want to be involved like physically, but just follow along and, you know, spread the message, share the words. If there's things that we talk about that really resonate with you, reach out and share that with us because, you know, there's a potential there of us maybe doing something together, you know? So if you want to get involved, like you can be, that you can be part of the story. That's the exciting thing about this project is, we're opening up for those things to happen, and it's allowed some really crazy things that already like have come to our kind of table. So, yeah. That's our show, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the very first episode of Project Salt Run, where we will be putting together a new episode every week until Hannah starts the run. Big shout out, thank you very much to 1% for the Planet and GiveStar for their support, also to the Better Business Network, and of course Better Not Stop. Please check them out in the links that we have provided in our bio. The episode was produced, recorded, and edited by myself. And finally, a huge thank you to Hannah and the rest of the team for their support and for making this all happen. We hope to catch you next week, and until then, safe travels.