Another highly personal part of completing the Marathon des Sables, is what shoes will you wear for it?

Covering 250 kilometres of soft sand and rocky ground in relentless heat isn’t your usual event, therefore your feet have different demands placed upon them than your usual Saturday morning Parkrun – but what do you need to think about before setting off for Morocco, read on for how I tackled it.

Considerations for your shoe selection

1.     Gaiter attachment

You’ll need to have Velcro stitched to the sole for the gaiter to attach to (see pictures below for this), therefore I’d anticipate some barefoot running shoes may not have sufficient space to allow this (although we’re fully prepared to admit we may be wrong on this). Whilst the majority of MdS is run on sand and soft ground, there are occasional stretches on firmer gravel roads (see my film below for this on the long day), therefore don’t assume you won’t need to condition yourself to running on firm surfaces.

2.     Feet swelling

Also, you may find your feet swell due to the strain placed upon on them. Having spent many years pushing my body to the limits in the Royal Marines, I anticipated this and so ordered a size above my typical running shoes (i.e., ordering a UK size 12, where I usually wear a UK size 11 for day-to-day activities).

3.     Shoes that are damaged from the training demands

I bought 2 pairs of exactly the same shoe (Inov-8 ParkClaw 275) so that I had a pair for training in that would handle the vast mileage we wanted to do for conditioning with the pack and the long day (aka ‘long drag’), and another pair that I occasionally trained in to break them in before they got the Velcro tailored. I think this approach is what minimised the blisters and led to a successful completion of the race.